The Papacy

The Papacy
Memorial for St. Thomas Aquinas – Wednesday, January 28, 2009

In the year 1978, Pope Benedict XVI composed the following meditation for today’s date in his book, “Co-Workers of the Truth”, Meditations for Every Day.

“It would assuredly be foolish for us that there will be, in the foreseeable future, a general unification of Christianity under the papacy if this is understood to mean a recognition of Peter’s successor in Rome.
Perhaps it is also a part of the inevitable constraints and limitations of this mandate that it can never be fully executed and must, consequently, be a source of friction among Christian believers, who exhibit in its regard a quality that is not vicarship, but autocracy.

Nevertheless, it is not inconceivable that the Pope should exercise some kind of unifying role that transcends the community of the Roman Catholic Church.

Even for those who do not accept the claims of his office, the Pope personally is a sign to the world of a responsibility, transmitted and proclaimed, for the word of God and, consequently, a provocation of which all are aware and that concerns all not only to seek greater fidelity to the word, but also to strive for unity and to accept responsibility for the lack of unity.

In this sense, there is despite the separation, a function of the papacy that builds unity and that, in the last analysis, no one can erase from the historical drama of Christianity.

For the papacy and the Catholic Church, the criticism of the papacy by non-Catholic Christianity continues to be a spur to seek an ever more Christ-like realization of the Petrine ministry; for non-Catholic Christianity, on the other hand, the Pope continues to be a visible incitement to that concrete unity that is the responsibility of the Church and should be her sign before the world: may both sides succeed in accepting without reservation the question that is posed to us and the task that is given us and thus, in obedience to the Lord, become the dwelling-place of a peace that prepares the way for a new world – for the Kingdom of God.”(From Dienst an der Ein der Einheit, pp. 177-78, 1978.)
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Before we can have unity with other Christian Church we must have unity within the Catholic Church. There isn’t any. Why? We have some bishops, religious and laity not listening to the Pope and the Magisterium. For the Catholic laity that listens, it is frustrating.

How do you bridge the gap of lack of faith and fidelity? Historically, St. Thomas Aquinas has been glorified by the praises of theologians. Upon the requests of almost all the bishops of the Catholic world Leo XIII declared Thomas Patron of Catholic Schools, hoping thereby to offset the contagion of so many philosophical systems that were straying from the truth.

We also have Saints like St. Thomas More, his personal life and in the public arena that can help us overcome the most serious problems of dissent, and the scandals of the U.S. Catholic-in-name-only politicians. (CINOPS)
George H. Kubeck