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Docta Ignorantia LIX
A "Holier Priesthood"? A point on which there is significant and nearly universal misunderstanding is the Pope's sentence, quoted in the Cardinals' communiqué, to the effect that out of this situation must come a 'holier" priesthood, a "holier" episcopate and a "holier" church. This will be understood by most to mean that from the situation will emerge a more exemplary behavior in these three areas, the priesthood, the episcopate (diocesan structure) and the church in general. But that is not at all what the language means and it is not what is meant. The key to understanding the communiqué is understanding the meaning of the word holy. Holy does not mean exemplary behavior, as in "holier than thou." In modern English it's best translation is "wholly other." The Hebrew is kavod and Jerome used Sanctus to translate kavod into Latin. He did what he should and got an essentially equivalent word in Latin for the meaning of the Hebrew original. The Hebrew means "set apart." What is holy is set apart from the rest of the world for some particular purpose and it is specifically beyond review. For example, the Holy of Holies in the Temple of Solomon or the Ark in the Desert. The holy may not even be looked at by the unauthorized, on pain of death. Thus Moses' terror when he beholds the epiphany of Divine Holiness, the Burning Bush. He expected to be incinerated, as would ordinarily be the case, because what is holy is beyond view and re-view in the ordinary sense -- on pain of death. So the holy is not something which is an example of morality or goodness or virtue. The holy is something which is beyond review, outside the jurisdiction of anything worldly, such as a mere civil authority or government. The Pope and the Cardinals in their communiqué are promising to solve the current "situation" by removing the church and its senior leadership farther from review, so that such reports as they have been obliged of late to handle cannot gain currency in the first place. This is not the general understanding of what the Pope means by the word "holier." But it is what he means. He means more sequestered, more hidden from view, more unseen and unseeable, more recondite, more secret, more unreviewable. Theology is a technical language that few, now, understand. This fact is not widely appreciated and certainly the details of the technical meanings of theological discourse are known only to a very small group of people. But Vatican pronouncements, including this one, are always in clear, technical theological language with precise, known meanings -- known to Theologians -- and with clear purposes and agendas in view. To a Theologian, the Cardinals' communiqué not only is clear in its meaning, it is also absolutely predictable. One only has to know the prius of the theological system -- in this case the Vatican's system -- to be able to predict the substance and even the articulation of a decision or outcome on any particular matter. The Vatican's prius no more allows for outside review than Bill Gates' does. The premise of monolithic autonomy is the same in both cases. To lay people unfamiliar with the technical precision of theological language, such as the Cardinals' communiqué employs throughout, that communiqué is quibbling. The lack of a glossary accompanying the communiqué proves that, for lay ears and eyes, the communiqué was meant to be quibbling, or more precisely, to engender a hope for more to come that is better, but a hope that, the communiqué's authors know beforehand, is forlorn. The communiqué is masterful PR, completely quibbling, and yet moreover, an enticement for the gullible to hope for better things to come -- such as at the Bishops Conference in June at Dallas, which will prove present hope forlorn while engendering new and different hope -- which also will be forlorn, and from its genesis. To Theologians, however, the Cardinals' communiqué is not at all quibbling. It is straight up and to the point. The point it is to, however, is far away from anything a non-Theologian would expect from such a message regarding such a situation. The Vatican is a sovereign nation state which claims to be not a church but the church. The Vatican -- and its vassal princes -- has survived every attempt by civil authority against its sovereignty. Its dogmatic assertions place it beyond the jurisdiction of any other organization or state. Its longevity, against odds, it takes as proof of the truth -- read, unimpeachability and invincibility -- of its dogmatic assertions. The Roman Catholic Church will never allow its sovereignty or its leadership to suffer review because there is no one in heaven, on earth or below the earth with authority to conduct such a review, save the Pope or one of his vassal princes ... so goes the dogma. The "situation" presently seen among the Roman Catholic clergy is endemic to the denominations of all religions. It is a top-down problem, not a bottom-up problem. Pederasts are proselytizing for catamites and hiring them as clergy. The "situation" is a sign of senescence, not of religion but of organizations that concretize it. We can't do religion from these organizations. We can do a lot of non-religion from them, but we can't do religion from them. We can do religion now in this way: Duty is God, Work is Worship. This is our world's Re-formation.
Adwaitha Hermitage
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