Why Does the Church-Power Continue to Exist?

Leonardo Boff

19/08/2010

Opinión

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I will tackle an uncomfortable, but unavoidable theme: how can the institutional Church, as I have described her in a previous article, with such authoritarian, absolutist and excluding features, perpetuate herself through history? The dominant ideology responds: «only because she is divine.» In fact, this exercise of power is not at all divine. It is exactly what Jesus did not want. He wanted the hierodulia (sacred service) and not the hierarquia (sacred power.) But the latter has imposed itself throughout the ages.

Authoritarian institutions usually have the same reproductive logic. It is no different with the institutional Church. In the first place, she considers herself the one and only, and denies the title of «church» to all others. Then she creates a rigorous framework: unique thought, unique dogma, unique catechism, unique canon law, a unique form of liturgy. Criticism and creativity are not tolerated. They are considered negative, or denounced as creators of a parallel Church or of another magisterium.

In the second place, the symbolic violence of control, repression and punishment, is utilized, frequently at the expense of human rights. He who questions is easily pushed aside, the right to preach, to write and to participate in the life of the community are denied to him. The then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, president of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, punished more than one hundred theologians during his tenure. Under the same logic, the sins and crimes of the pedophile priests, or others, such as financial crimes, are kept hidden, so as to not harm the good name of the Church, without the least sense of justice for the innocent victims.

In the third place, the ecclesiastic authorities are turned into mythical beings, and almost idolized, principally the Pope, who is the «sweet Christ on Earth.» I think to myself: what sweet Christ would have been Pope Sergius III, (904), the murderer of his two predecessors, or Pope John XII (955), elected at the age of 20, an adulterer who was killed by the betrayed husband; or worse, Pope Benedict IX (1033), elected when he was 15 years old, and was one of the most criminal and unworthy popes in the history of the papacy, who went so far as to sell the papal dignity for 100 lire of silver?

In the fourth place are the canonized figures whose virtues fit well within the system, such as blind obedience, the continuous exaltation of authority, and the «agreement with the Church (hierarchy),» much in the fascist style, where «the chief (Duce or Führer) is always right.»

In the fifth place, there are persons and Christians with authoritarian natures, who value order, law and the principle of authority above all else, to the detriment of the complex logic of life, which involves surprises, and demands tolerance and adaptation. They support this type of Church, and authoritarian and dictatorial political regimes as well. Moreover, there is a powerful affinity between the dictatorial regimes and the Church-power, as has been seen with the dictators Franco, Salazar, Mussolini, Pinochet and others. Conservative priests easily become bishops, and the bishops who are fully faithful to Rome are promoted, thus fostering servility. This historic-socio-religious block has crystallized, guaranteeing the continuity of this type of Church.

In the sixth place, the Church-power knows the value of rituals and symbols, because they reinforce the conservative identity, but it does not care much for their content, so long as they are maintained unchanged and are strictly observed.

Because of this dogmatic and canonical rigidity, the institutional Church is not experienced as a spiritual home. Many emigrate. They say yes to Christianity, and no to Church-power, with which they do not identify. They understand that it distorts the inheritance of Jesus, who preached freedom and exalted unconditional love.

In spite of these pathologies, we have had figures such as Pope John XXIII, Dom Helder Camara, Don Pedro Casaldaliga, Don Luiz Flavio Cappio and others, who did not follow the authoritarian style, nor portray themselves as ecclesiastic authorities, but as pastors amid the People of God. These contradictions notwithstanding, there is a merit that it is important to recognize: this authoritarian type of Church has never stopped passing on the Gospels, even when denying them in praxis, thus allowing us access to the revolutionary message of the Nazarene. She preaches liberation, but generally it is others who liberate.

- Leonardo Boff, Theologian, Earthcharter Commission.

(Free translation from the Spanish, done at Refugio del Rio Grande, Texas, EE.UU.)

https://www.alainet.org/en/articulo/143564?language=es