Have we put too much on the Pope's plate?

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RealisticCatholic

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I don’t necessarily mean Pope Francis in particular.

And I don’t mean to excuse the seriousness of the Petrine office, either.

However, even though the Pope has a central, visible role in the global Catholic Church, he is only ONE man. I look around and see people criticizing the current Pope for doing this, neglecting that, focusing on this while putting that other thing aside, etc.

But I wonder, are we asking too much of the Pope? Not only this Pope — but the modern papacy in general? He is Bishop of Rome. He is pastor of the Church. He is chief teacher. He meets with heads of state. He is a world leader. He is involved in the governance, not only of the universal church in general, but with particular churches as well — such as appointment of bishops, etc. He is the focus of media.

It also appears he must be all things to all men — not from the Pope’s own admission, but rather we get upset if he is not for us personally.

Are we asking too much of one (usually elderly) man?

Thoughts?
 
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I think so. For most of Church history, prior to modern media, what did the average Catholic know of the Pope in distant Rome? Today we expect him to be “in the know” for the going ons of nearly 3000 dioceses.
Heck, even the Pope appointing most of the world’s bishops is a relative novelty.
 
And this goes even when we talk about scandals. It makes criticism inevitable. There will now never be a Pope without SOME scandal, because we expect him to relate to the Church on nearly every level, and in nearly every location. So in a sense, any bad thing can be somehow connected to the Pope, theoretically.

I am Catholic, and so I believe in the Pope’s role and authority, don’t get me wrong.
 
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Yes, the Church is not a corporation and the Pope is not its CEO…at least not in the secular sense. He isn’t intended to micromanage the local bishops. When priest abuse scandals break out, the media (and even Catholics) sometimes make it sound like the local priest(s) “works for the Pope”… well not really…a local priest works for the bishop (or his religious order). His relationship to the Pope is not direct.
 
I don’t think you can say “we” put too much on the Pope so much as its a big job. If you mean that we might assume that he’s responsible for more than he really is, that’s another matter. But I don’t think we can be said to have placed too much on the Papacy as much, I suppose, anyone can debate whether any one Pope is right for the office. They don’t have to be elderly, for example, we simply have tended to choose elderly Popes for natural reasons.

Related to this topic, maybe, is that I’ve heard it said several times recently that the Church may be placing too much on the shoulders of Bishops as there should be a lot more of them. I’m somewhat sympathetic to that argument. Originally Bishops didn’t have anywhere near as many people under their individual jurisdictions as they do now. I’ve heard some Priests complain that Bishops don’t have time for their fatherly role as a result and, in their view, the elevation of the office to being an excessively high one has contributed the various problems that have been in the news.
 
No. God puts him there, not us. God asks all of him and supports him we don’t have anything to do with putting him there nor with what his job entails. Our job is to pray for him that he continues to seek God will and follow it.
 
Yeoman said:
Related to this topic, maybe, is that I’ve heard it said several times recently that the Church may be placing too much on the shoulders of Bishops as there should be a lot more of them. I’m somewhat sympathetic to that argument. Originally Bishops didn’t have anywhere near as many people under their individual jurisdictions as they do now.
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Yes, I’ve considered this too.

The parish priest – the pastor of a local Catholic parish – seems to be comparable to what the bishop was in the early church. The bishop led the local community of Christians.

A local bishop caring for his flock of 500 or even 5,000 is quite different from today’s 50,000 (my own diocese) — and that says nothing of the mega dioceses like LA, which has millions.
 
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Yeoman said:
Originally Bishops didn’t have anywhere near as many people under their individual jurisdictions as they do now.
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It really is all over the place. If you look at global statistics on sites like catholic-hierarchy.org there are some bishops out there who oversee only a few thousand faithful…and others who oversee millions…
I do think that some of the “mega” archdioceses, with millions of faithful, should be broken up. They already typically have pastoral regions under aux. bishops… why not make those pastoral regions full fledged suffragan dioceses?

Of course if we significantly multiply the number of dioceses, we would need a less centralized model of Church governance. I think we would have to give metropolitans a real sense of primacy, as of old, rather than the current rather flat hierarchy where essentially 2500+ bishops report directly to the Pope.
 
I think the pressure has to be immense. So many cultures, leaders, points of view on just about anything and everything.

As an American Caucasian Catholic it is complicated to hear the cries for immigrants when we have been screaming for decades for our own children’s quality of life. Today, it’s been said to me by former inmates in the state of Colorado that Latino gangs run the prison system (one example). So, even locked in a room when our children grow up, they aren’t safe?

It’s very complicated to please everyone and most often you can’t.
 
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It’s very complicated to please everyone and most often you can’t.
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One of the hard things about being a large, global church in general.

The debates at the synod touch on this. For example, I’ve read there is issue over some topics re: sexuality — do you address it, when it’s an important issue in the West, or do you leave it out, as it will be irrelevant to some under-developed countries?
 
In the west the sexual abuse problems have destroyed the church, and I’m not complimenting Satan at doing a good job, it’s just a fact.

Soccer moms on the east coast love to gossip and when they “hear your child is going to a Catholic Church” it’s an automatic “social demerit.”

Catholic Church was a merit in the past and now professionals won’t associate with us because of the chatter. Funny enough, it’s excused as “locker room talk” when it is just plain religious abuse… but hey! We have a war on terror that has nothing to do with Americans speaking openly about how they feel regarding hatred of certain religions! (Sarcasm)

It’s a horrible time to be a Catholic American
 
I think so. It’s a pretty new phenomenon really. Prior Popes were not expected to produce yearly (or more often) massive documents, not to mention traveling the world for all sorts of events, giving weekly catechetical lectures/audiences, etc., etc.

Personally, I think he should only be intervening outside Rome when the unity of faith or charity in the Church necessarily requires it (such as to definitively settle some doctrinal or canonical dispute, remove or discipline a bishop harming these things, etc.). I also think there is a role for him to work for peace among nations. This would keep him more than busy enough.
 
RealisticCatholic said:
Yes, I’ve considered this too.

The parish priest – the pastor of a local Catholic parish – seems to be comparable to what the bishop was in the early church. The bishop led the local community of Christians.

A local bishop caring for his flock of 500 or even 5,000 is quite different from today’s 50,000 (my own diocese) — and that says nothing of the mega dioceses like LA, which has millions.
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Our local Bishop is 150 miles away. His furthest parish must be 400 miles form his seat. Geography alone must be a challenge.

Locally we have three churches, all with fairly sizable attendance, and five priests. One of the priests is senior to the others and basically is in charge locally if some local thing comes up. In an earlier era, he’d have been the Bishop and probably would have covered a neighboring town as well, where there’s another parish. It’s likely make more sense to do it that way now.
 
CatholicSpirit said:
In the west the sexual abuse problems have destroyed the church, and I’m not complimenting Satan at doing a good job, it’s just a fact.

Soccer moms on the east coast love to gossip and when they “hear your child is going to a Catholic Church” it’s an automatic “social demerit.”

Catholic Church was a merit in the past and now professionals won’t associate with us because of the chatter. Funny enough, it’s excused as “locker room talk” when it is just plain religious abuse… but hey! We have a war on terror that has nothing to do with Americans speaking openly about how they feel regarding hatred of certain religions! (Sarcasm)

It’s a horrible time to be a Catholic American
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No it isn’t. It’s not a horrible time to be a Catholic American and the Church as not been destroyed in the west.

We always look at things through the very narrow focus of our own lives, which are short. Relevant time lines are much longer than that. Looked at that way, there were times when it was much, much worse to be a Catholic in the United States. Shoot, even in the town I live in Catholics, a minority, were marginalized in business as recently as the 30s and many Catholics kept their religion as secret as possible.

Bishop John Ireland set us on the way to being Catholics in the US, rather than ethnic Catholics, i.e., “Irish” Catholics or “German” Catholics or “Polish” Catholics. Because of that, while some people lament the loss of the Catholic “Ghetto”, we’re more of a universal church in the US than ever. We’re watching the death throws of the Protestant Reformation before our eyes as more and more of the Protestant churches pass away and their “orthodox” members turn to the Catholic Church or the Eastern Orthodox. We’re watching our separated Eastern lung go into a time of arguments over schism, which reinforces our position of the logic of the primacy of Peter.

And in our church, in an era in which our society has radically rejected nature and all things nature, including natural genders and what they mean, we are seeing the unfaithful clerics who rejected the teachings of the church on these matters exposed and subject to ridicule by the very society which was just accepting that such inclinations are otherwise fine (keeping in mind that many of the abuses were not directed at children but those older than children).

Looking back, there’s every reason to believe that this was the beginning of the era in which the errors of the Reformation ended, the the errors of liberal reformation within the church were exposed and the schism of the 11th Century began to resolve. It doesn’t look so rosy now as we’re enduring that sort of change, and that is always uncomfortable. But every era of humans always believes its living in the worst of times.
 
So you deny the concept in the northeast mothers who are non-Catholic condemn Catholics?

Absurd.

The Oprah couch potato fan club hate Catholic families, “oh I would like so never be like that family and get my kid molested by a priest”

^ happens all the time
 
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No of course we havent put too much on his plate. With the possible exception of the scandals the Pope sets his own plate. JPII set a huge plate as a young Pope with a large papacy. Following him BXVI took a salad on the side of a big slab of liturgy. This Pope has chosen his agenda almost single handed. A Pope who is visible by choice, extremely vocal by choice and who has time to meet with all the celebrities one can imagine. I think just today it was scorcese. On this Pope’s plate is the exact foods he wishes. Except one steamy rotten pile of mush that was put there by the innocent. No surprise he hasn’t eaten that side yet. Having just been to Rome at a Wednesday audience I assure you, for a man his age his plate seems quite manageable. Though perhaps it’s time to let another eat…
 
twf said:
I do think that some of the “mega” archdioceses, with millions of faithful, should be broken up. They already typically have pastoral regions under aux. bishops… why not make those pastoral regions full fledged suffragan dioceses?
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This model of institutional decentralization is already in practice … it is called the nondenominational protestant church
 
twf said:
That’s not even remotely comparable to what I described.
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Sure it is. You decentralize the Catholic church more and more, and it takes on the model of the protestant churches. The farther you get away from a central authority, the more diluted the faith will become.

Besides, the pope has a bureaucracy that is tasked with carrying out the running of the church. It’s a bit like the U.S. presidency. The president formulates an agenda, the congress and the bureaucracy carry it out. Maybe.
 
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