Test Everything

Pandra Selivanov has a post today at the American Thinker entitled The Vatican defrocks priest who speaks for unborn children. It is unfortunate, but I don't think the defrocking had anything to do with blasphemous statements on social media.  How could it when Pope Francis puts up with homosexual behavior in the priesthood.  Instead, what I think brought on the defrocking was his support of President Trump and his refusal to bow to his bishop's orders to desist.

While being defrocked is both dramatic and unfortunate, it is not the end of the world, and indeed now Mr. Frank Pavone may be more free to act as God direct. Eric Sammons at Crisis Magazine has a more nuanced look at the situation entitled The Sad Case of Frank Pavone.

What are Catholics to think of this mess? To repeat, I don’t think we should have a knee-jerk “Vatican bad, canceled priest good” reaction.

First, it’s obvious we live in a lawless Church. When rules are selectively enforced by authorities, that’s not the rule of law, it’s the rule of dictators. We see countless examples of priests preaching heresies and supporting evil with no punishment coming their way. Also, the irony is too rich when a Vatican that allowed the Pachamama idol to be venerated on its grounds would now suddenly have a problem with blasphemy. It’s hard not to see this action against Pavone as a vindictive act against someone whose politics does not line up with the current regime at the Vatican.

Yet this action also raises an important question: what makes a faithful priest? Or, worded differently, what makes a priest unfaithful and therefore worthy of punishment? The faithful priest is faithful to two things: (1) the teachings of the Church; and (2) his legitimate ecclesial authorities. Being unfaithful to either of these two requires discipline and possibly even punishment from a priest’s superiors.

Thus, a priest like Fr. James Martin violates the first rule of priestly faithfulness. He rejects Church teaching on human sexuality (although, like his master the devil, he presents his dissent deceptively enough to fool many). Because of this, he should have been disciplined long ago by his religious superiors in the Society of Jesus. Yet he continues as a priest in good standing with a very public (and papally-endorsed) profile. A lawless Church indeed.

Pavone, however, has shown no indication of being unfaithful to Church teachings—by all accounts, he is committed to orthodox Catholicism. But has he been faithful to his legitimate ecclesial authority? That’s not so clear.

And here we run into a bit of a problem. One has an obligation to obey Christ first. As a priest under authority, he must still test everything against the truth of Christ's teaching. It seems like the Church hierarchy is acting vindictively against a faithful priest. But then that brings into question the whole issue of a pope, who claims to be a greater equal among equals, with special powers such as infallibility under certain circustances. But as we have learned, church teachings can change, church councils have contradicted each other. Perhaps the pope is one of those Christ warned us about being false prophets coming in His name.  Under these circumstances, Luther's idea of grounding theology in Scripture makes sense.

And that brings us back to what any faithful Christian must do: test everything according to Christ's teachings.