ARTICLES

Is the Pope Catholic?

Is This Website Catholic?

By Christopher Zehnder

"I don't avoid controversy, as you can see from some of the issues I tackle." Thus, Hugh O'Regan, administrator for the website, "San Francisco Bay Catholic." I had been surfing Catholic websites and had come across O'Regan's page. Instead of simply arguing for or against any particular position (say, mandatory priestly celibacy), the San Francisco Bay Catholic presents arguments for both sides of the issue. The site method intrigued me. The sic et non approach was certainly different from what I was used to seeing on the web.

In its mission statement, the San Francisco Bay Catholic promises to help Catholics make up their own minds on various Church issues. "This site will present links and articles which support the Magisterium as we strongly feel that it is important for Catholics to understand what the official position teaches at any particular time," says the mission statement. "We will also present articles and commentary by knowledgeable Catholics and responsible theologians who disagree with the Magisterium on a variety of policy and moral issues." While admitting that the site's approach "often infuriates extremists of the Catholic Right or Left," the mission statement singles out what it calls "'Loyal to the Magisterium' types" for special censure. "We believe that blind obedience is not and never has been a Catholic value," says the statement. "It is rather a clear sign of arrested or deformed spiritual development. We follow the Catholic tradition and we believe that the intellect as well as the will are necessary for a solid and sound Catholic faith."

In our conversation, Hugh O'Regan was far kinder to me (a "loyal to the magisterium" type) than his site's mission statement promised. He assured me that he was "not attempting to put anyone's faith into disrepute," and made it clear he was not against those who followed the magisterium, as long as they did so from "sound theological reasons." "I think it is more important to have sound reasoning than to be always correct," said O'Regan. "People of good will who follow their conscience, and are open to the teachings of the Church, will basically come to the right moral decision."

O'Regan said he wants, by his website, to inspire other Catholics to have an interest in theology, though, he said his site "is not really for the general Catholic population" but for "committed Catholics. I was hoping that seminarians, priests, religious would be able to use it as a resource." O'Regan said he posts only articles with sound argumentation -- "I want to have the strongest arguments that are available for or against a position," he said. "At one time I had an article, 'Is the Pope Catholic?' on the site. It was by a woman who was upset with Pope John Paul II not allowing women's ordination. I did take that off, because I didn't think it was theologically sound. It was more emotional than anything else." Though independent of the archdiocese of San Francisco, the Bay Catholic receives some clerical input. "I have a priest who reviews the site," said O'Regan, "and he'll give me some comments saying I've gone too far in this direction or in that direction."

O'Regan's proficiency in computers and his interest in theology come together to make the San Francisco Bay Catholic. By trade a computer programmer, O'Regan nevertheless holds a Master of Divinity degree from St. Meinrad's college in Indiana. He started his site nine years ago on the Bulletin Board System (BBS), precursor to the internet with the Catholic Information Network (CIN), and when BBS became obsolete, he moved it to the internet. He is no longer with CIN.

O'Regan's site gets a respectable amount of traffic. Currently the site receives about 2,000 hits a month. "I get a lot of religious" accessing the site, said O'Regan. "I get a lot of conservative Catholics who very often will be very upset with the site. Most of the religious that write say they enjoy the site very much."

The San Francisco Bay Catholic addresses a number of "hot button" topics, such as clerical celibacy, the silencing by the Vatican of Sister Jeannine Gramick and Father Robert Nugent (who ran a ministry for homosexuals), dissent in the Church, and women's ordination. Though presenting the official documents of the magisterium, articles defending these documents, along with works by those who dissent from Church teaching, O'Regan invariably comes down on the side of dissent. In his editorial on the Gramick/Nugent page, O'Regan says of Cardinal Josef Ratzinger (prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) who oversaw the silencing of the nun/priest team: "Sr. Gramick and Fr. Nugent could never buy the publicity that the CDF Cardinal has brought to Gay and Lesbian Ministry. Likewise, Catholic Reformers working for the ordination of women received invaluable free publicity by the actions of our good Cardinal several years ago. More importantly, both of Cardinal Ratzinger's actions have renewed theological interest in understanding individual conscience along with the realization that public dissent to official fallible statements are sometimes necessary even if always regrettable."

Though definitely to the "left" of, say, Mother Angelica, O'Regan is not so radical as some in Call to Action who might call for open disobedience on such questions as women's ordination. O'Regan thinks Catholics should have a "respect" for Church tradition and believes that no one can dissent from "infallible dogmas" and still remain Catholic. Nor would it be right, he thinks, for a bishop to defy the pope and ordain a woman. Still, O'Regan says that he is "a very strong believer and advocate of individual conscience and using the Church as a source of the conscience, but not as the only source. When it comes to official Church teachings -- and I mean the authentic fallible teachings of the Church -- while the individual conscience must always be respectful of what the Church is teaching, it must always use every other avenue of knowledge available to it to come to a decision on how to live."

O'Regan thinks that Catholics have the duty to obey an "authentic fallible teaching" of the Church until they come to a "conscience decision to work against" such a teaching. "I think you have to work within the Catholic Church to change teachings that your conscience disagrees with, while at the same time trying to understand what and why the Church is teaching it," said O'Regan. The source of Church unity is the pope, O'Regan said, but "that doesn't mean that I agree with everything the Holy Father says."

In conversation with O'Regan about what he called the "most controversial section" on his site -- the one dealing with women's ordination -- it became clear that he very narrowly defines papal infallibility. O'Regan thinks that Pope John Paul II's 1994 letter, Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, on the ordination of women is fallible, and so conscientious Catholic can dissent from it. In that letter, Pope John Paul II states that "in order that all doubt may be removed regarding a matter of great importance, a matter which pertains to the Church's divine constitution itself, in virtue of my ministry of confirming the brethren (cf. Lk. 22:32) I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church's faithful." A year later, Cardinal Josef Ratzinger, in a Responsum ad Dubium, confirmed that the teaching of Ordinatio Sacerdotalis "requires definitive assent, since, founded on the written Word of God, and from the beginning constantly preserved and applied in the Tradition of the Church, it has been set forth infallibly by the ordinary and universal Magisterium (cf. Second Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium 25, 2). Thus, in the present circumstances, the Roman Pontiff, exercising his proper office of confirming the brethren (cf. Lk 22:32), has handed on this same teaching by a formal declaration, explicitly stating what is to be held always, everywhere, and by all, as belonging to the deposit of the faith." The Responsum further notes that the Holy Father approved the reply.

O'Regan said Ordinatio Sacerdotalis does not fall under any of the categories of infallibility recognized by the first and second Vatican Councils. According to the Vatican II, the pope, as "head of the college of bishops, enjoys this infallibility in virtue of his office, when as supreme pastor and teacher of all the faithful -- who confirms his brethren in the faith -- he proclaims by a definitive act a doctrine pertaining to faith and morals." This mode of infallibility is "extraordinary" and goes by the Latin term, ex cathedra ("from the bishop's chair.) The Church's infallibility, according to the council, is also found "in the body of bishops when, together with Peter's successor, they exercise the supreme Magisterium," especially in an ecumenical council. The third mode is of the "infallible ordinary, universal Magisterium, which occurs when the pope teaches on faith or morals in union with the bishops scattered throughout the world.

O'Regan rightly insists that Ordinatio Sacerdotalis is not an exercise of the extraordinary papal magisterium. (There have been only two of these, he said - the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption of Mary.) As Ordinatio Sacerdotalis is not a declaration of an ecumenical council, to be infallible, it must fall under the infallible ordinary, universal magisterium; however, "this is not a mode of teaching that the Holy Father may usurp as his own," O'Regan writes in an on-line essay.

"Vatican II does not give the Holy Father the right nor the power to bypass his bishops and confirm a position of which the bishops themselves have not reached any demonstrated consent. It is simply not within the power of any pope to teach in such a manner unless he is speaking ex cathedra. We nowhere see such a unanimous position of our bishops and such unanimous agreement is absolutely essential for any supposed confirmation to have taken place. Simply stated, if there was indeed no consensus by the bishops on this topic of the possibility (not appropriateness) -- it is unreasonable to think that the Holy Father could confirm a consensus when there is no evidence of the existence of such a consensus."

O'Regan openly disagrees with Cardinal Ratzinger's assertion that Ordinatio Sacerdotalis falls under the infallible ordinary, universal magisterium. In a clarification of his Responsum, Ratzinger wrote that the pope "has confirmed the same teaching [on women's ordination] by a formal declaration, giving expression once again to quod semper, quod ubique et quod ab omnibus tenendum est, utpote ad fidei depositum pertinens [that which always, everywhere and by all is held pertaining to the deposit of faith]. In this case, an act of the ordinary Papal Magisterium, in itself not infallible, witnesses to the infallibility of the teaching of a doctrine already possessed by the Church." How can an act of the ordinary papal magisterium, not itself infallible, set forth a teaching infallibly? O'Regan said it cannot. Thus, he said, a Catholic in conscience can disagree with such an act of the magisterium.

I thought one O'Regan's assertions a tad odd; "the third mode of infallible teaching -- that of the ordinary and universal magisterium -- had never been exercised," he said, though he admitted he might be wrong about this. Thomas Nash, senior information specialist for Catholics United for the Faith in Steubenville, Ohio, enunciated my wonder when he asked, "was Vatican I, then, defining a non-existent reality?" Nash was referring to that council's declaration that "all those things are to be believed with divine and Catholic faith which are contained in the word of God, written or handed down, and which by the Church, either in solemn judgment or through her ordinary and universal teaching office, are proposed for belief as divinely revealed."

I had called Nash to get (in the spirit of the San Francisco Bay Catholic) the "other side" on Ordinatio Sacerdotalis and papal infallibility. Nash thinks the pope's letter is, indeed, infallible -- not because it is an ex cathedra statement -- but because it is an exercise of the ordinary and universal magisterium. How could this be, though, when, in writing the letter, the pope did not consult "the world's bishops," some of whom seemed (and seem) to disagree with its conclusion? Certainly it cannot be said that, with Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, the pope is teaching in union with the world's bishops.

Nash said that the pope "doesn't necessarily need to poll the bishops" to exercise the ordinary and universal magisterium. To teach in union with the bishops, said Nash, the pope need only establish that a teaching "has been clearly established in apostolic tradition as being the consensus of the Church" -- as transmitted by the college of Catholic bishops throughout the ages. By their witness the pope sees that a teaching is, indeed, part of apostolic tradition. His declaration on such a teaching is not a definition, as it would be in an ex cathedra statement, but is a definitive reaffirmation of what the Church has always taught. In this way, the pope does not use an infallible definition to confirm the truth of a doctrine, but, nevertheless, speaks infallibly. In reaffirming a teaching, the pope is guaranteed freedom from error by the Holy Spirit.

Nash noted that in Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, John Paul II appeals to the united witness of the Church throughout the ages in declaring that the Church has no authority to ordain women. "He cites Paul VI, the example recorded in Sacred Scripture of Christ choosing only men for his apostles, and the Church's living teaching authority which has consistently held that the exclusion of women from the priesthood is in accordance with God's plan for his Church. [In Ordinatio Sacerdotalis] the pope says that 'the teaching that priestly ordination is to be reserved to men alone has been preserved by the constant and universal Tradition of the Church and firmly taught by the Magisterium in its more recent documents.'" By citing the universal witness of the Church (as well as by declaring that his teaching is to be held definitively by the whole Church), the pope declares he is exercising the universal and ordinary magisterium of the Church. And if there were any doubt, Cardinal Ratzinger's Responsum was approved by John Paul II himself.

But who is to determine whether the pope is exercising the universal and ordinary magisterium? "The pope has 'full, supreme and universal power over the whole Church, which he can always exercise unhindered,' as stated in Lumen Gentium no. 22 [a document Vatican II]," said Nash. Thus, "the pope's judgments about what constitute the ordinary and universal magisterium are final." If this were not so -- if only solemn definitions were clearly infallible, then what constitutes the ordinary and universal magisterium "would always be up for grabs," said Nash. In such cases, it would be up to each bishop -- nay, each Catholic -- to decide whether a teaching were infallible or not. What we would get "is anarchy, to one extent or another," said Nash, " or a dispute that can't be resolved because we have excluded the pope's teaching authority from adjudicating the dispute."

O'Regan, it seems, certainly does not want anarchy in the Church, but hopes that Catholic factions will seek unity through dialogue. Hence, the San Francisco Bay Catholic. Both factions in the Church, he said -- the progressives and the "loyal to the magisterium types"- "have a real love for the Church," though he admits they have radically different ideas about what the Church is. "What we need to do is have a dialogue between Catholics who radically disagree with each other," said O'Regan. "In their own ways, they both think they are loyal to the Church, even though each thinks the other group isn't loyal." Dialogue is imperative, said O'Regan, because without it the "renewal" of Vatican II "will come to a halt. The more radical groups are just going to break away."

But is O'Regan's unity-with-dialogue proposal really some middle ground upon which the warring Catholic factions can meet? Or is it the very agenda of one of those factions? After all, given their fundamental differences, dialogue between "progressive" and orthodox Catholics would be more like ecumenism than anything else. One of the San Franciso Bay Catholic's sections carries the sub-head, "Catholics and the Magisterium in Dialogue," evoking a notion of equality between the teaching Church and the faithful. Those "loyal to the magisterium" would not admit such an equality -- indeed, they would think it un-Catholic.

Myself, I thought it downright Episcopalian.

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