I was horrified when Benedict created a bunch of new cardinals, and I read the oath they take to the Pope in the report of this event that was in NCRonline. God was mentioned only once. - the pope was mentioned several times, as they were swearing fealty to a man, including promising to obey everything asked and not to reveal "secrets".
Why is this oath taken to a human being required?
I assume that the oath priests' make (and deacons too? Jim? Katherine?) is similar - it's an oath to a man, not to God, not to truth, not to right and wrong. Obedience to men, even if it means hiding the truth.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/social-issues/some-catholic-seminarians-are-speaking-out-about-sexual-misconduct--and-being-shunned-as-a-result/2019/10/03/be6f1184-d8b9-11e9-ac63-3016711543fe_story.html
Perhaps what is happening in Buffalo and West Virginia now are tiny signs of hope that the endemic corruption of the clerical class may finally be breaking, allowing truth - and light- to shine on the dark ugliness that has grown and festered, poisoning the institutional church - because of oaths to human beings.
Everyone here knows how loyalty by the "hierarchy" of this administration to the man who is currently called "President" of our country is destroying everything our country stands for. Nancy Pelosi's comment is right - our country is in great danger, and, along with us, the world. Because the US is still the richest and most powerful country in the world,
Yes, when the deacon is ordained he places his hands in those of the bishop or archbishop and promises "obedience to him and his successors". It was not an oath I could have taken, I have stated before my objections to religious vows of obedience.
ReplyDeleteAt the same time, however, it can work to a deacon's favor in a dispute with a pastor. Pastors change a lot oftener than archbishops, and the person the deacon has promised to obey is not the pastor. In practice, though, most of the time an archbishop is going to back the pastor.
I believe the Vatican II document "Dignitatis Humanae" is relevant. I would like to see it acknowledged as applicable to a number of situations.
ReplyDeleteIt was always my understanding that one is never obliged to obey authority when to do so would be sinful. Seems like engaging in a cover-up would be sinful.
"It was always my understanding that one is never obliged to obey authority when to do so would be sinful. Seems like engaging in a cover-up would be sinful."
DeleteI completely agree that we're never obliged to commit a sin in obedience to authority. I agree that a cover-up would be sinful if what is being concealed is something that others have a moral right to know.
I know that this thread is about obedience. However, as an openly gay man, I am disgusted at the extent to which male-on-male sexual abuse seems to be almost rampant in the clergy of this denomination. I stopped referring to it as a church a long time ago. There is entirely too much cult-like behavior to dignify it with the term church.
ReplyDeleteJim, sexual harassment and sexual assault are wrong, no matter if it's male priests against women or male priests against men. The evil is the same.
DeleteThe Catechism, 1782: Man has the right to act in conscience and in freedom so as personally to make moral decisions. "He must not be forced to act contrary to his conscience. Nor must he be prevented from acting according to his conscience, especially in religious matters."
ReplyDeleteThe quote is from Dignitatis Humanae. But it is one of those things "the Church has always taught" -- and frequently ignored.
Posthumously, the primacy of conscience is how the Church slid under its earlier judgments to make Joan of Arc a saint. She obviously was not "obedient."
I'm with Katherine on the oath the deacons take. Could not do it considering some of the fools I might be promising to obey.
We have three retired generals, at least, who could contribute much to the ongoing impeachment process, but they have oaths to complicate things. The armies of the world haven't seemed to learn much from the German generals of the '30s and '40s with their oaths to the Fuhrer. Our military requires soldiers to disobey "unlawful orders." Good luck with that, hoo-rah.
Is the following also problematic for the reasons given?
ReplyDelete-----
The Questions before the Consent
The Priest then questions them about their freedom of choice, fidelity to each other, and the acceptance and upbringing of children, and each responds separately.
(Name) and (Name), have you come here to enter into Marriage without coercion, freely and wholeheartedly?
The bridegroom and bride each say: I have.
Are you prepared, as you follow the path of Marriage, to love and honor each other for as long as you both shall live?
The bridegroom and bride each say: I am.
The following question may be omitted if circumstances suggest this, for example, if the couple is advanced in years.
Are you prepared to accept children lovingly from God and to bring them up according to the law of Christ and his Church?
The bridegroom and bride each say: I am.
Consent
The priest invites them to declare their consent:
Since it is your intention to enter the covenant of Holy Matrimony, join your right hands, and declare your consent before God and his Church.
They join their right hands.
Option A
The bridegroom says:
I, (Name), take you, (Name), to be my wife. I promise to be faithful to you, in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health, to love you and to honor you all the days of my life.
The bride says:
I, (Name), take you, (Name), to be my husband. I promise to be faithful to you, in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health, to love you and to honor you all the days of my life.
Jim, no problem with those vows, which we made in 1972. I would also make them again today. It should be noted that those are vows to be faithful, and love each other as long as we both shall live. Nowhere is "obedience" promised. It is a family story that my maternal grandmother redacted the word "obey" out of the Protestant wedding ceremony when she and Granddad got married. The story always caused a laugh, Grandma was a redhead with a mind of her own. I don't believe the Catholic wedding ceremony included "obedience", even back in the old days.
DeleteI haven't got a problem with vows of obedience, for those who enter freely into them. My husband did. Good thing I didn't have to. Guess I have some of Grandma's DNA.
I made those promises, and I knew who I was making them to and about. I ALSO KNEW that someone in a city thousands of miles away was not going to decide my wife would do better in Oklahoma City, move her there, and replace her with a careerist who was using our marriage to get a move to Philadelphia and a red cap.
DeleteI meant to add: I made those promises in 1988. I'd make them again today. I don't regret them. I don't find them problematic. They are serious and binding. One should expect no less when it comes to promise-making.
ReplyDeleteI would say the same about the promises I made to Cardinal George in 2004.
Jim, brave words.
DeleteBut I suspect that if you knew a priest in your parish was molesting kids you would go public - even if that meant disobeying your bishop who wants to "handle this internally".
Anne - yes, I hope I'd be that courageous in the pinch. My conscience would be clear about disobeying that command.
DeleteThen there is this, which countless American men and women have taken, apparently with a relatively clear conscience:
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I, (state name of enlistee), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.
That one does lead to problems. Not for nothing does the saying go, "Military justice is to justice what military music is to music."
DeleteThe comparison of marriage vows to a vow of obedience taken to a clerical superior is as good an example of false equivalence as I have run across recently.
ReplyDeleteAnd, frankly, promisng to "love" someone forever should be removed. Faithfulness, honor (perhaps) but love cannot be forced. People often stop loving others whom they once loved. They can still honor the vows of fidelity in sickness and health, etc, but to promise to "love" forever is problematic, unless one bases it on a very broad definition of "love" - as in "love thy neighbor".
The military oaths are problematic also - as was clearly demonstrated in the Nuremberg trials, at the My Lai trial and many others.
Saying "I was just following orders" - as sworn to do - does not cut it.
The complaints being made public now by priests/seminarians and former priests and seminarians in Buffalo and WVA - just to cite the two most recent examples - seem to indicate that some are following their consciences, not putting their own clerical careers ahead of "right" action. Perhaps a tiny crack in the enormous wall of clericalism that has protected popes and bishops and priests against the consequences of their own wrong doing for centuries.
And I would hope that if I knew that my spouse was protecting someone who committed a serious criminal act - such as sexual assault -I would still go to the police even if he demanded that I keep quiet. I didn't take a vow to "obey" and neither should priests and bishops - or military - at least without clearly spelling out what that means, confining it to specific situations, such as where one will be posted, what unit or job they will be asked to perform etc. Not protecting either an individual superior or the institution in which both are employed.
However, the catechism passage and the Vatican documents are not necessarily preached to priests/seminarians or even ordinary Catholics. I have cited the catechsim passage mentioned by Tom numerous times to Catholics who believe that any use of modern birth control is a mortal sin, any dissent at all from official church teachings is wrong. Their argument is always that "Catholics are required to properly form their consciences. Any dissent from official teachings is prima facie evidence that the conscience has not been formed properly".
The infamous instructions given to bishops by Rome (Ratziner as I recall) ordered bishops (who have taken an oath to the pope) to keep secret instances of sexual abuse of minors. They did so. As did many other lower-level priests and clerics and even lay staff employed by the disioce.
I am with Katherine - I would never take an oath of obedience to another human being. The RCC should rewrite those oaths because they are asking people to put obedience to men as primary - not obedience to God. In the military the penalties for disobedience are even greater than those for clerics who disobey a bishop or the pope. One must admire those who refused to obey immoral orders at the risk of prison or even their own lives.
Anne - I am not an expert in canon law, but I believe there is provision in canon law to protect those who choose to disobey unjust orders from their superiors, even those to whom one has made a promise of obedience. I don't think "I was just following orders" cuts it, even within the province of church law. I'll see if I can find any references or specifics.
DeleteTheir argument is always that "Catholics are required to properly form their consciences. Any dissent from official teachings is prima facie evidence that the conscience has not been formed properly".
ReplyDeleteYup. I have heard that, too. The first sentence is largely a repeat of the Catechism. The second, however, would negate the first any way they looked at it. If they would simply look.
That circular reasoning isn't valid. I do believe that we have a responsibility to properly form our consciences - that is part of being a mature Christian disciple. A properly formed conscience can still find reasons to dissent. Certainly, there is nothing about a properly formed conscience that requires one to obey unjust orders.
Delete"Any dissent from official teachings is prima facie evidence that the conscience has not been formed properly".
ReplyDeleteI think that is an example of a logic fallacy known as "no true Scotsman..."
"Saying "I was just following orders" - as sworn to do - does not cut it."
ReplyDeleteSo you say. But that is not what myriad people tell themselves. And those myriads are in greater numbers in the public sectors (including "private" industry and ICE and Border & Customs) than they are in religious provenances. I thought that defense had been pretty much shredded by the Nuremberg trials, but, alas, I did not account for the Bushes pere et fils. Nor the swearers of the oath of Mar-a-Lago. This is NOT a strictly religious, much less Catholic, problem.
Some people aren't bothered by things that should bother them. Others are bothered but go ahead and do those things anyway. Simple human decency is a rare commodity.
DeleteTom, it is one reaon I don't trust oaths to human beings.
ReplyDeleteI found the cardinals' oath that so shocked me some years ago. I see the date was 2003, so not long after all the Boston revelations opened my eyes to where the true loyalties of the hierarchy lay - not to God or truth but obedience and loyalty to the pope, keeping secrets, in order to protect the institution.
I [name and surname], Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, promise and swear to be faithful henceforth and forever, while I live, to Christ and his Gospel, being constantly obedient to the Holy Roman Apostolic Church, to Blessed Peter in the person of the Supreme Pontiff John Paul II, and of his canonically elected Successors; to maintain communion with the Catholic Church always, in word and deed; not to reveal to any one what is confided to me in secret, nor to divulge what may bring harm or dishonor to Holy Church; to carry out with great diligence and faithfulness those tasks to which I am called by my service to the Church, in accord with the norms of the law.
So help me Almighty God.
[Translation of the Latin original by ZENIT]
https://zenit.org/articles/cardinals-oath-on-receiving-biretta/
As regards oath taking; this scripture passage (Matt.5:33-37) seems pretty relevant: "Again you have heard that it was said to your ancestors, ‘Do not take a false oath, but make good to the Lord all that you vow.’34 But I say to you, do not swear at all; not by heaven, for it is God’s throne; 35 nor by the earth, for it is his footstool; nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. 36 Do not swear by your head, for you cannot make a single hair white or black. 37 Let your ‘Yes’ mean ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No’ mean ‘No.’ Anything more is from the evil one."
ReplyDelete"The comparison of marriage vows to a vow of obedience taken to a clerical superior is as good an example of false equivalence as I have run across recently."
ReplyDeleteNot at all. I offered it as an example of sacred promises that are made to other people.
Swearing an oath to obey a human being is not sacred. Swearing an oath to a human being that also demands keeping secrets and not doing anything to "harm or dishonor" the institution headed by that human being (IOW, protect the institution, not the kids) has been a big factor in the decades of cover-up of sexual abuse of the young, and also, it seems. abuse of young priests and seminarians, whose careers as priests would be destroyed if they "told".
DeleteNot sacred at all.
It doesn't matter much in the RCC if canon law technically lets a whistleblower off the hook. The reality is that whistleblowers are almost always punished in the RCC. Look what happened to Fr. Thomas Doyle and he is just one example.
When I heard Bishop Robinson of Australia speak about his book, he admitted that he had the publisher postpone its publication by a year or so until after he was official retirement age - because otherwise the PTB would have most likely denied him his retirement pension as a punitive measure, even though he had served the church his entire life, starting when he entered junior seminary at age 14. When his US book tour was announced, every single bishop in the US cities where he had been invited to speak told the churches and religious orders sponsoring him that they could not allow him on their property. So I went to the National 4H headquarters to hear his talk.
He headed the sexual abuse inquiry in Australia for years, and this book defines his understandings of the teachings of the church that contributed to it, along with the cover-ups.
I have recommended his book before, and will do so again
Confronting Power and Sex in the Catholic Church
That not-a-bit "sacred" oath required of clergy all the way up the ladder enabled the abuse of power that created tens of thousands of victims all over the world. Hidden by too many because it might 'harm or dishonor" the institution.