Jimmy Akin

Scott Hahn reflects on Pope John Paul II’s "superior command of [S]cripture" and how that influenced many Protestant Evangelicals — including Dr. Hahn, who converted to the Church in 1986:

"Though I was then a Protestant minister–Calvinist in training, evangelical in approach, and instinctively anti-Catholic–I was first drawn to Pope John Paul II in the early 1980s. I was not alone among his hesitant admirers. He captured our attention because of his effective combat in the culture wars. But he kept our attention because of something else.

"Gradually and grudgingly, many of us, Protestants and Catholics alike, came to admit that he was effective in the culture wars, not because of his bully pulpit or his media savvy or his philosophical suavity, but because of his superior command of scripture."

GET THE STORY.

(Nod to Karen Hall of Some Have Hats for the link.)

Scott Hahn reflects on Pope John Paul II’s "superior command of [S]cripture" and how that influenced many Protestant Evangelicals — including Dr. Hahn, who converted to the Church in 1986:

"Though I was then a Protestant minister–Calvinist in training, evangelical in approach, and instinctively anti-Catholic–I was first drawn to Pope John Paul II in the early 1980s. I was not alone among his hesitant admirers. He captured our attention because of his effective combat in the culture wars. But he kept our attention because of something else.

"Gradually and grudgingly, many of us, Protestants and Catholics alike, came to admit that he was effective in the culture wars, not because of his bully pulpit or his media savvy or his philosophical suavity, but because of his superior command of scripture."

GET THE STORY.

(Nod to Karen Hall of Some Have Hats for the link.)

Columnist Maggie Gallagher writes (excerpts):

Pope John Paul the Great is not yet buried, but the divisions among American Catholics have already taken center stage on cable television: Will the next pope be Catholic?

Of course, JP II’s critics don’t put it that way. But the long-deferred hopes of this group (call them sexual liberals) — that the Catholic Church is about to abandon its ancient teachings on premarital sex, abortion, divorce, homosexuality and, above all, birth control — have burst out anew in the 24-hour coverage of the pope’s death.

Sexual liberalism has a lot of powerful things going for it in terms of attracting adherents: passion, for instance, the difficulty of self-restraint, the attractiveness of choice as the highest moral good. But sexual liberalism’s most powerful ally is the myth of progress. Sexual liberals, like Marxists of old, see themselves as the inevitable wave of the future. The Catholic Church is "out of step" with the future, they believe, and must eventually get in line with the poll numbers, or fade into irrelevance.

Puncture this myth, and see how quickly the power of this set of ideas drizzles away.

Like Marxists of old, sexual liberals are going to be shocked and disappointed to find how irrelevant and outmoded their ideas seem. In 1968, the advice of sexual liberals — accommodate the sexual revolution or die — may have seemed tempting, even to the College of Cardinals. By 2004, it has become clear that Christian denominations that accepted this advice have not experienced religious revivals. Instead, such mainline Protestant sects are rapidly dwindling in numbers.

Sexual liberalism has a lot going for it, but it does have this one little drawback: Religions or societies that adopt it appear to die out.

GET THE STORY.

(Cowboy hat tip to the reader who e-mailed!)

A reader wites:

In the document of the Conclave of Cardinals, it states that any cardinal who bribes or commits simony is exommunicated by that act itself. It also says that thie does NOT change the votes at all.

True. Universi Dominici Gregis states:

78. If — God forbid — in the election of the Roman Pontiff the crime of simony were to be perpetrated, I decree and declare that all those guilty thereof shall incur excommunication latae sententiae. At the same time I remove the nullity or invalidity of the same simoniacal provision, in order that — as was already established by my Predecessors — the validity of the election of the Roman Pontiff may not for this reason be challenged.

The reader continues:

We (those at our High School Religion class) assume that this is to promote Church unity and such.

True again. JPII specifically set that aside so that "the election of the Roman Pontiff may not for this reason be challaneged."

And people can only be de-excommunicated by the pope.

A quibble: Excommunications can be lifted by folks other than the pope, but this excommunication, even though the pontiff doesn’t say so, would almost certainly be reserved to the Holy See under normal circumstances.

So what’s to stop a cardinal from bribing 2/3 of the people, getting in office, and un-excommunicating them? Are we to merely assume that no cardinal would ever do such a thing? In view of actions in the Middle Ages? And the increasing moral corruption of our day and age?

Hypothetically speaking, the possibility you mention could happen, which is why John Paul II provided that a simoniacal election would still be valid.

Practically speaking, it strikes me as quite unlikely for several reasons:

1. The Holy Spirit’s action to the contrary.
2. These days you don’t generally rise to being papabile if you are tempted by sins as blatant as committing simony to gain the papacy. Your temptations are likely to be much more subtle.
3. It’s not possible to bribe 2/3rds of the cardinal electors. That’s almost eighty folks. What are you going to offer them? Money? Most don’t want it and papabile usually aren’t rich. Power? There are only so many high-level positions to go around, and these guys are already occupying most of them. They’re cardinals: They already have the top slots.
4. While it might be possible to bribe a few electors (e.g., enough to swing things in a close election), is that something you really want to do? If you can trust them to keep the bribe a secret, they’re likely already your friends or think highly enough of you that they’re voting for you anyway.
5. Further, if you can’t trust them to keep the secret then you’d better not try bribing them, because there is no faster way to lose a papal election than for it to be publicly known that you tried to bribe somebody. That’s the one thing that’s certain to unify your opponents and alienate your supporters! The anti-simony ethic of the college of cardinals thus itself serves as a barrier to this happening.

I can thus think of five factors (off the top of my head) that make a simoniacal election unlikely: the action of the Holy Spirit, the usual character of papabile, the lack of resources for making effective bribes, the lack of good candidates for accepting bribes, and the reaction the college would have if attempted bribery became known.

Back centuries ago, when matters were very different, it may have been possible to obtain the papacy by simony, thus simulaneously becoming the successor of Simon Peter and Simon Magus, but it seems very unlikely to me to happen today.