Is Catholic triumphalism intrinsically a bad thing?

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Triumphalism was brought up in the papal tiara thread. Since I didn’t want to get too off-topic there, I’ll ask the questions here in a new thread.

According to the Encyclopedia Brittanica, triumphalism is defined as: “the doctrine, attitude, or belief that one religious creed is superior to all others.”

Technically speaking, triumphalism pertains to ideas, not people or individuals. One may belong to a superior football team, for example, yet be a horrible player…but that does not necessarily mean that the team is inferior. The team would be superior despite the inferior player.

Moreover, triumphalism does not disparage others or take glee in the inferiority of the positions of others.

Is Catholic triumphalism intrinsically a bad thing?

Would missionary work even be possible without triumphalism?
 
As Catholics we have to believe that the Catholic faith is the one true faith, that the Church is the one true Church. If Christ did indeed found the Church then the doctrines of the Church must be perfect. If do not believe in the Church we cannot trully claim to believe in Christ.
 
For all that triumphalism can cause bad things or awkward things in the world, it is a reality of our Catholic faith, as Caesar has just well noted.
 
Not in the sense that we are the one true Church of Christ. I do think that some of the pomp and ceremony of the previous Pope’s was slightly over the top. Jesus told us to be humble and he told the rich man to sell all of his things and give them to the poor. Previous Pope’s have been too extravagant in my opinion.
 
Catholicism is the one true faith and is superior in every way to other faiths. Something that is untrue cannot be superior to that which is true. Likewise, (here’s another phrase that will send relativists into fits of rage) a culture based on its morality is superior to all other cultures, because it is based on objective truth.
 
I guess it’s just me. I’ve watched the Papal investitures since John XXIII. How can one watch the use of the sedes gestatoria with ostrich feather fans and say it’s not triumphalism. Do we not have the example of Paul VI and Jean Paul II to follow? I doubt very seriously that the early popes were invested in such a way.

This is a medieval accretion - no more, no less. The paradigm changed when Paul XI laid the tiara on the altar after Vatican II. The Holy Father is the servant of the servants of God - there are no Papal States.The Holy Father is not a temporal power.
 
brotherhrolf said:
I guess it’s just me. I’ve watched the Papal investitures since John XXIII. How can one watch the use of the sedes gestatoria with ostrich feather fans and say it’s not triumphalism. Do we not have the example of Paul VI and Jean Paul II to follow? I doubt very seriously that the early popes were invested in such a way.

This is a medieval accretion - no more, no less. The paradigm changed when Paul XI laid the tiara on the altar after Vatican II. The Holy Father is the servant of the servants of God - there are no Papal States.The Holy Father is not a temporal power.
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But is Catholic triumphalism intrinsically a bad thing?

If so, how?
 
I think the spectre of “Triumphalism” has been used as a bogeyman to try to enforce a minimization of Catholicism. So, let’s not build a church that looks explicitly Catholic because that’s too “triumphalistic”. Or to state that the Church is the one true Church is triumphalistic also. After all, we don’t want to offend our Protestant brethren, especially when we’re on the verge of a wonderful reconciliation, do we?
 
No, no, no! I am speaking only of papal triumphalism. It has nothing to do with architecture much less anything to do with selling out our Catholic heritage. My family suffered for their faith (Acadian [Cajun] and Irish)

Papal triumphalism is wrong. Do you really want to see Benedict seated on the sedes gestatoria hauled into St. Peter’s on the shoulders of six men being fanned by ostrich feather fans with the papal tiara on his head? After Jean Paul II? I am old enough to remember John XIII being carried as described above into the opening of the Second Vatican Council. We saw it via Telstar - the very first satellite capable of broadcasting from Italy to the US. How can you justify that in the face of Paul VI laying the papal tiara on the altar at the conclusion of V II?

The Holy Father was a secular as well as spiritual ruler until the end of the 19th century. The servant of the servants of God should be humble. Is it intrinsically wrong? Probably not. On the other hand, do we really want to give our fundamentalist brethren ammunition to throw at us? That’s one point.

My second point is that Paul VI and Jean Paul II visited the US. There were no sedes gestatoria or papal tiara in any of those visits. The papal tiara was on display at the Vatican exhibit in the New Orleans world fair in 1984.

Let me be blunt. We have those on these forums those who think that accessing our patrimony of sacred music is dead wrong. If Ubi Caritas is wrong…Oy!
 
Well put, Hrolf, but from one Acadian to another (I live in Acadie up here in Canada, by the way) I have to humbly disagree on certain points.

I do agree that the Pope must be humble. Thankfully, we currently have a very humble Pope who burst into tears of despair when he was elected to the Papacy. I also agree that some things, like the ostrich fans, are unnecessary, as they bare no traditional signifigance.

However, now is not the time to abandon outward signs of our faith. With so many shopping cart catholics, and so many unorthodox priests, anything that can tie us to our roots is deeply necessary. That said, these should not be used in a spirit of excess, but rather as a symbol of the weighty office which the Pope must bear.

For example, I would be okay with the Pope using the Sedes Gestatoria at his coronation, but after that, I’d get the impression that he was just showing off. Also, I’d have no problems with the Pope using the tiara once in a while, such as once a year at the Papal High Mass during Easter, but if he started wearing it during his weekly audience, it would look a lot like showboating. Such symbols are part of the persona christi aspect of the Pope’s office.

Also, the Pope is a temporal ruler. He is monarch of the Vatican City. Ceremonies and traditions of ancient monarchies are not the flexing of political muscles, but rather an expression love and patriotism for those to whom those traditions belong. Queen Elizabeth spends far more money (tax money, something a modern Pope wouldn’t dare try to dip into for ceremonies) and time on ceremonies, and like the Pope has no real political power. Yet most British citizens are proud of their history, and enjoy the many outward expressions of it that the Queen heads and partakes in the throughout the year. And within certain boundaries (those of the personal modesty and humility of the pontiff and his cardinals) I love papal ceremonies, and am reminded of how proud I am to be Catholic, and our many admirably and holy traditions when I see them.
 
The problem with triumphalism is that there is much more to the definition and connotation than is noted in the OP. From this source answers.com/topic/triumphalism :

The term triumphalism is what anthropologists call an “observer’s category”; it is generally taken as having a pejorative sense (see the Oxford English Dictionary) and few members of groups would identify themselves as being triumphalist.

The term is sometimes used to refer to relatively inconsequential behavior, such as excessively demonstrative glee at the defeat or failure of a sports rival. People experience triumphalism in this recreational form as collective pride (e.g., school spirit) or sports fanaticism (“We’re Number One!”).

Triumphalism also takes more consequential forms, including **extreme forms **of patriotism, nationalism or religious extremism.

Triumphalists may derive a sense of pride, security, or virtue from their sense of superiority and expectation of ultimate triumph. However, those who believe in their own group’s superiority or inevitable ascendancy do not typically claim the label ‘triumphalist.’ Instead, the term usually has a negative connotation and is used by those who do not accept the superiority of the belief or group in question, or by those who are warning against the effects of over-confidence and hubris within their own group.

There is never, or at the least almost never, virtue in being triumphalistic in its commonly understood form. Believing your religion to be the “one true religion” is one thing; being triumphalistic about it is quite something else. One may be able to argue that at a purely technical level the term can have a positive meaning, but I know of few, if any, people who take it that way.

I am in full agreement with brotherhrolf. Seeing the Servant of the Servants of God being fawned over like a secular king while espousing the poverty of the King of Kings is just not justifiable and can lead to righteous claims of hypocracy by those outside the faith, and even within it.

Peace,
 
brotherhrolf said:
No, no, no! I am speaking only of papal triumphalism. It has nothing to do with architecture much less anything to do with selling out our Catholic heritage. My family suffered for their faith (Acadian [Cajun] and Irish)

Papal triumphalism is wrong. Do you really want to see Benedict seated on the sedes gestatoria hauled into St. Peter’s on the shoulders of six men being fanned by ostrich feather fans with the papal tiara on his head? After Jean Paul II? I am old enough to remember John XIII being carried as described above into the opening of the Second Vatican Council. We saw it via Telstar - the very first satellite capable of broadcasting from Italy to the US. How can you justify that in the face of Paul VI laying the papal tiara on the altar at the conclusion of V II?

The Holy Father was a secular as well as spiritual ruler until the end of the 19th century. The servant of the servants of God should be humble. Is it intrinsically wrong? Probably not. On the other hand, do we really want to give our fundamentalist brethren ammunition to throw at us? That’s one point.

My second point is that Paul VI and Jean Paul II visited the US. There were no sedes gestatoria or papal tiara in any of those visits. The papal tiara was on display at the Vatican exhibit in the New Orleans world fair in 1984.

Let me be blunt. We have those on these forums those who think that accessing our patrimony of sacred music is dead wrong. If Ubi Caritas is wrong…Oy!
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I am speaking of architecture and claims about the Catholic Church being the one true Church as being labelled triumphalistic because that is the context I’ve heard the term used the most. I was not addressing papal triumphalism.

In regards to papal triumphalism I probably agree most with Windmill’s comments on the Papal Tiara thread.

However, let’s say there is a public (and televised) papal ceremony (or funeral). I can understand people not wanting the Pope carried in on a platform with six men carrying it.

However, in regards to everything else in the ceremony, such as the liturgy, architecture, music, art, etc. I say, pull out all the stops. In part because, as Fr. George Rutler once said, the liturgy is our primary means of evangelization. And these things help elevate the heart to God.
 
<<Is Catholic triumphalism intrinsically a bad thing?>>

Only when it cuts off a Protestant from being triumphalistic first.

😃
 
brotherhrolf said:
How can one watch the use of the sedes gestatoria with ostrich feather fans and say it’s not triumphalism.
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At the risk of this turning into a sedes gestatoria thread…I think some people won’t even want to see the pope carried in by six men when he’s laying there dead.
 
I think that it goes to the image of Christ emptying Himself. He’s is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, yet He emptied Himself and took up the form of a servant.

I think, too, that we should remember that all we have and all we know we have and know by God’s grace, His utterly gratuitous action. Thus, we don’t have anything to brag about anyway. It’s rather like two highly gifted musicians. One realizes that it is a gift and does his best to foster that gift in himself and to share it with and possibly foster it in others. The other is proud and filled with conceit for himself and looks down on others and mocks them for their efforts and attempts at what he can do easily. Both are equally talented, but who would you rather hang out with?
 
Many here are forgetting something- these things, like the sedia gestoria, the tiara, the papal mantle, et al are symbols of the Papal office. The Pope, like any man, must be humble and he must serve. But part of his service to the Church is his duty to fully take on the Papal office These are signs of the power and the authority of the Church. The arguments against these traditions are the very same some use to say that priests should not wear vestments or the clergy should not be distinct from the rest of the Church.

I think the rejection of the symbols of the Papal office is in fact a rejection of traditional Papal authority. He is Servant of the Servants of God, yet he is also Bishop of Rome, Vicar of Christ, Successor of St. Peter- the Sovereign Pontiff. The Pope serves the Church through his rule over it. In modern times however the Church has suffered through a “democratization” where the monarchial authority of the Pope and the Bishops is being undermined in favor of a collegial rule, where the Holy Father is considered to be in perpetual college with the other bishops while his primacy over them is forgotten.

I am not saying that the symbols of the Papal office are necessary to the authority of that office. My point is that the abandonment of these signs of office are a symptom of a greater problem. And it isnt just happening in Rome- how many people today would kiss an episcopal ring out of respect for the office? Would anyone kiss the annointed hands of the lowest parish priest in an act of devotion to the Blessed Sacrament? Would anyone genuflect on their left knee or even bow in the presence of their bishop? Is it not common to address priests, even those who havent requested it, by their first name? And if the suggestion was made for any of these things to be done, would not most people laugh? Frankly, the Church has lost respect for the hierarchy- and not just the persons of the hierarchy, but their offices as well. The authority of clergy has become a joke. The idea that this authority originates with God has been thrown out.

Symbols are important. If you want to eradicate an ideology you first destroy the symbols that it has become identified with. You rid society of the actions, the images, the language, everything that can be associated with it. Do not for a minute underestimate how destructive it was to the authority of the Church when so many of the signs and symbols of that authority were cast away. Symbols can only be problematic when their original intent is lost.
 
lepanto said:
Triumphalism was brought up in the papal tiara thread. Since I didn’t want to get too off-topic there, I’ll ask the questions here in a new thread.

According to the Encyclopedia Brittanica, triumphalism is defined as: “the doctrine, attitude, or belief that one religious creed is superior to all others.”

Technically speaking, triumphalism pertains to ideas, not people or individuals. One may belong to a superior football team, for example, yet be a horrible player…but that does not necessarily mean that the team is inferior. The team would be superior despite the inferior player.

Moreover, triumphalism does not disparage others or take glee in the inferiority of the positions of others.

Is Catholic triumphalism intrinsically a bad thing?

Would missionary work even be possible without triumphalism?
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    1. Yes, it would
    1. Yes, it most definitely is a bad thing - intrinsically, per se, not per accidens.
    1. We must have very different experiences of triumphalism
      Actually, triumphalism frightens me - because a haughty & arrogant Church is a Church that is riding for a fall; it is certain to be humiliated. And the way to avoid this,is to reject triumphalism, arrogance & pride. If there is any good in any Christian body - the CC included - it comes purely from God’s mercy, & not from our deserving: so there is not the least reason for self-congratulation, or pride, or self-esteem, or any such thing - as St.Paul said first :))
Besides, it is terribly off-putting - unlike humility.

I’m with JKirk & brotherhrolf on this.
 
the nature of the faith is Triumphalistic!

I am reminded of that phrase from the liturgy of St. John Chrystosom…

“Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death”

Extra Ecclesium Nulla Salus!

We should be fearing not only for our own souls but the countless souls lost to the heresies of non-Catholic “Christian” world and those who have even yet to find Christ.

Being in the Church, I still fear for my immortal soul - what then of those that remain outside…

Miserere Nobis!

It is our duty to spread the Truth - and part of that truth is that there is one Church, and the Pope is its head.
 
I find it most interesting that this thread appeared on the day when the gospel reading referenced the familiar story of the Pharisee and the tax collector. For the very nature of triumphalism is the statement of the Pharisee: “Thank you God for not making me like those others.” The very opposite of humility and exactly what Jesus spoke very strongly against.

To think that we, even as “Church” have any claim to superiority–really a claim that “God loves us better”–is ludicrous. Though the Church holds the fullness of revelation, it is still a “pilgrim Church” made up of human and sinful people who are unable to act in accordance with that knowledge. And not one of those human and sinful people is any more beloved by God than any other human and sinful person. And beyond that, not one of those human and sinful people is any less dependent on the total and complete mercy of God than any other sinful person. The Church is triumphant, but only because it stands in the person of Christ; it should not be triumphalist.

Arrogance and superiority complexes, which is what identifies triumphalism, are nothing more than the capital sin of Pride. Jesus warned those of his time about the incredible danger of that. It appears that the warning is still very necessary.

Lord have mercy on us, a sinful people!
 
ncjohn said:
I find it most interesting that this thread appeared on the day when the gospel reading referenced the familiar story of the Pharisee and the tax collector. For the very nature of triumphalism is the statement of the Pharisee: “Thank you God for not making me like those others.” The very opposite of humility and exactly what Jesus spoke very strongly against.

To think that we, even as “Church” have any claim to superiority–really a claim that “God loves us better”–is ludicrous. Though the Church holds the fullness of revelation, it is still a “pilgrim Church” made up of human and sinful people who are unable to act in accordance with that knowledge. And not one of those human and sinful people is any more beloved by God than any other human and sinful person. And beyond that, not one of those human and sinful people is any less dependent on the total and complete mercy of God than any other sinful person. The Church is triumphant, but only because it stands in the person of Christ; it should not be triumphalist.

Arrogance and superiority complexes, which is what identifies triumphalism, are nothing more than the capital sin of Pride. Jesus warned those of his time about the incredible danger of that. It appears that the warning is still very necessary.

Lord have mercy on us, a sinful people!
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Amen, we are sinful people, have mercy!

But the Church is superior.

My statement was not pharasical - because of the simple fact that I still fear for my immortal soul! I know I’m not in heaven yet, I know that I am a fallen being desperatly trying to cling to Christ through his Sacrements.

Unlike the pharisees, Catholics shout, “thank you for being a Catholic, beause I am wicked sinner without you!” - That statement does not make a comparison to those not in the faith.

So shout that the Church is superior! Yet do not claim that you are better then anyone else - because we all fall short of the mark.
The problem people have with triumphalism is that they INTERPRET it to be a claim of superiority for the individual. We should not back away from triumphing the Church because others misinterpret them - that would be doing non-believers a dis-service. Never, ever, shy away from pronouncing the Truth, God’s grace and charity will help any would-be convert to overcome their earthly interpreting.

We have to make it clear that yes, the Church is the One and only True Church BUT I am a wicked sinner, and I am a Catholic because I need the Truth more then anyone else!

In this way, we can shout the Superiority of the Church, while keeping our pride in check. For the Church is vastly superior, but that does not mean God loves us more then anyone else 🙂
 
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