In light of all the media attention currently being given to Pope Francis’ visit to the States, I, as the token Catholic student in the doctoral program of an ecumenical seminary, feel a certain need to address that which I know many of my brother cohorts are wondering about how we Catholics view and treat the pope (and any other bishop or priest, for that matter). Fortunately, the author of one of our textbooks does a good job of fairly describing his – and doubtless many other Protestants’ – confusion in this area. J.R. Woodward describes his experience attending one of Pope John Paul II’s weekly audiences in Rome, and it is worth quoting at length:
What struck me most was the atmosphere. I couldn’t help but compare the picture that was in front of me with the picture of Jesus at the Last Supper and his walk toward the cross. Before my eyes was a man dressed in a white robe with a literal crown on his head. To his left and right were men dressed in bright red, the cardinals. People kissed the pope’s ring. Pope John Paul II, in my estimation, did some amazing things in his life. But this picture puzzled me. (It is likely that I am ignorant of the symbolism.) As I was taking in this scene, the picture of Jesus washing his disciples’ feet came to mind. I then started to think about how much of Jesus’ ministry was involved in subverting the status quo in religious and political world of his day. As a result he was stripped of his dignity. On his way to the cross, he didn’t wear a crown bedecked with jewels but a crown of thorns. They didn’t kiss his ring but spat in his face. The contrast remains with me. Sometimes I wonder, “What system is at work here?”
(Woodward, 2012, p. 92, emphasis his)
I, for one, definitely appreciate Woodward’s honesty, as well as his own admission that perhaps he was missing some of the symbolism, as he called it. Further, I would submit that the answer to his confusion, if we could call it that, lies precisely in the Catholic Christian theology behind this symbolism.
At the heart of this theology are two seemingly-opposing truths. On the one hand, Jesus Christ “emptied Himself” (Phil 2:7), becoming a poor, weak, susceptible human being Who, as He Himself said, “came not to be served, but to serve” (Mt 20:28). On the other hand, we correctly profess Him to be not just a great prophet, teacher, healer, exorcist, etc., but indeed the long-awaited Christ and, oh by the way, the second Person of the Blessed Trinity, the eternal Son and Word of God, and God Himself. Catholic sacramentology reflects this paradox in its teaching that, in baptism for instance, we become sons and daughters of God through our ontological configuration to the one Son of God, and yet we remain the weak, sinful human beings that we’ve always been. In ordination, a lowly man (who has already been made a member of the body of Christ through his baptism) is “moved” from his place in the body of Christ to the head, so much so that we talk about ordination as configuring a man such that, in certain circumstances (like consecrating the Eucharist, absolving sin, etc.), he is now capable of acting “in persona Christi Capitis” (“in the person of Christ the Head” of His body, the Church). To be clear, I don’t expect any of my Protestant brothers and sisters to agree with this theology, and the point of writing this brief reflection is not at all to try to convert any of them or to poke holes in their own theologies of baptism, ordination, or any of the other sacraments. I bring up Catholic sacramentology only because I believe that it explains the apparent disconnect that Woodward described above.
Let me get personal and practical. When I look at myself, I see two things: myself and Jesus Christ. Now, all baptized Christians should be able to say this about themselves, but Catholic theology pushes it further than just “I can see Jesus in my life” or “I know that Jesus is working in me.” According to Catholic sacramentology, when I, as a priest, act in the person of Christ the Head, it is not so much that I am acting on behalf of Christ, or that I am acting with His authority; rather, it is that Jesus Christ Himself is acting, and I am simply the instrument through whom He acts. This is why the rubrics of our rituals require the priest to put on certain vestments, to “clothe yourself with the Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom 13:14), and as a priest who believes this theology with every fiber of my being, I want to make sure that Jesus Christ looks good, that He looks like the God and King that He is when He deigns to act through me or any other cleric. In one sense, it is precisely because He was often not treated the way He should have been while He was here on earth that we should treat Him that way now. As my parishioners can attest, when I save up money (after paying my bills and giving my tithe of course), I don’t spend it on new cars or electronics, I spend it on vestments! Christ Himself defended the sinful woman who spent 300 days of wages on making Him look (and smell) good, even going as far as to rebuke the soon-to-be-betrayer Judas who pretended to care about the poor by suggesting that the money should have been spent on them (the full story can be found in Mt 26, Mk 14, and Jn 12). Jesus commands us to take care of the poor, and yet He also allows us to spend our money on Him too. Of course, we can’t do one and not the other, but the fact that Jesus even allows us to spend money on Him at all means that He recognizes his own dignity as God and King. This is why I get so frustrated sometimes with some of my brother priests who are unwilling to spare any funds to have nice liturgical items on the grounds that Jesus was humble. Yes, Jesus was humble, but as C. S. Lewis said in Mere Christianity, “true humility is not thinking less of yourself, it is thinking of yourself less.” Jesus knew very well His dignity, He allowed us to honor it, and yet He didn’t get caught up in how great He was but rather in serving others.
Another thing to which my parishioners can attest is that when I am not acting in the person of Christ, I tend to be pretty plain. I usually sport my cassock (the plain black robe that priests traditionally wear as their street clothes, sometimes referred to as a “habit”) with my sandals, and usually just a t-shirt and shorts underneath. I clean my cassock every few months, but I don’t mind it getting dirty, sweat-stained, smelly, etc., because it serves as a reminder to me of that humility that I am to exhibit as a follower of Christ. When I’m not acting in the person of Christ the Sovereign, I need to be acting in the person of Christ the Servant, who did get down and dirty, and who dressed very plainly and unassumingly. It’s not two Christs; it’s one Christ Who is both Sovereign and Servant, Who commands us to take of the poor and yet also allows us to spend money on Him.
Ultimately, however, I think that the confusion that Woodward experienced in Rome lies in the blending on these two roles. To get personal and practical again, sometimes I’m just “John Reutemann, sinner extraordinaire,” other times I’m Jesus Christ, and so the difficulty is finding that middle ground of being “Father John Reutemann.” I imagine that the pope struggles with this as well. Like me, he is deeply aware of his own sinfulness, and yet also like me, he is deeply aware of the dignity of his office, not just as a priest, but in his case as a bishop and the pope as well. While there are a few times when it is clear that a priest is acting in one role and not the other (both of which I described above), most of the time he’s just walking around in that middle ground. When Woodward saw Pope John Paul II making his way through the crowds after his weekly audience, it’s safe to say that the pope was not, at that very moment, celebrating some sacrament or otherwise acting in the person of Christ, and yet there is still a dignity attached to the office that he has received even when he’s not directly exercising it. Hence Woodward saw him wearing a special hat (not exactly a crown, as Woodward recounts), being surrounded by courtiers (which is, in a sense, part of what cardinals are), and having his ring kissed by those around him. Those of us following Pope Francis’ activities in the States this week have seen a lot of these kinds of things as well. We’ve seen him with many layers of beautiful vestments on to celebrate Mass, in which Christ Himself speaks through him to consecrate the Eucharist, but we’ve also seen him in his simple white robe, walking through crowds and giving speeches. Nevertheless, in all situations, both when he was acting in the person of Christ and when he was not, people were reverencing his person, either by bowing to him, reaching out to touch “even the hem of his garment,” and kissing his ring. As an aside, all bishops receive a ring as part of their ordination rite as a symbol of their configuration to Christ, Who is the Bridegroom of the Church, and while it’s not part of a priest’s ordination rite, many priests wear a simple wedding band for this same reason. Some people want to just dismiss such courtesies and reverences as merely the result of the Vatican being its own country, or as throwbacks to an era long past in which nobles wore nice clothing and passed among their vassals to receive their obeisance. That’s really not it though; it goes much, much deeper.
As just a priest, I often experience similar acts of reverence by God’s holy people, and speaking from the receiving end, I can say that it is a very fine line to walk. An ancient tradition that has survived in only a few cultures nowadays is the kissing of a priest’s hands, often after receiving a blessing or absolution, as means of reverencing God’s great gift of the Priesthood, since it is, after all, the very means by which He continues to make Himself bodily present through all times and spaces. To someone who doesn’t know that a priest’s hands are anointed with chrism (a blessed perfumed olive oil) during the rite of ordination, this kissing may seem at least odd if not downright clerical. Even more contested is the very term of address used for priests, especially given Christ’s command to call no one “father” (Mt 23:9). It’s true that Paul called himself “father” on numerous occasions (e.g., 1 Cor 4:15, Philem 1:10, etc.), but the apparent contradiction is not so easily undone. For Catholics, calling a priest “father” is not due to some skillful proof-texting but due to a recognition that he has the capacity to act in the person of the Father, which again goes back to the undeserved gift that priests receive in their ordination. Priests do well to remind themselves that these reverences are not directed to them, but to Jesus Christ Who works in particular ways through them. When it comes to experiencing these reverences, I remember being on the giving end, too, once when a random bishop I met in France actually jerked away his hand when I tried to kiss his ring upon meeting him and shaking his hand. I remember thinking to myself, “does this guy really think it’s about him?!” In that bishop’s defense, I’m sure he thought he was being humble, but in reality he was not only not being humble (remember Lewis’ definition above), he was depriving me of an opportunity to reverence the person of Jesus Christ in his person.
This is one of the beautiful things about the Catholic sacramentology of ordination: it makes the Priesthood not about the individual priest. I, or that bishop in France, or Pope Francis himself do not need to be particularly talented, gifted, skilled, or even subjectively holy. The Priesthood works because it is always the same Jesus Christ working through the individual priest. Yes, it’s nice when we run into a priest, bishop, or pope who is a really good preacher, or a great administrator, or a holy and prayerful man, but at the end of the day, all of those things could be absent and Jesus Christ will still work through that person due to their ordination, and Jesus Christ should still be reverenced in their persons due to their ordination, even if we don’t especially like the individual or even when they lack those other qualifications. This is why, I would submit, a proper understanding of Catholic sacramentology is necessary to understand why priests, bishops, and popes are treated the way they are, and why such treatment is perfectly in line with the call that we’ve all received to emulate the humility of Christ, Who knew well who and what He was. May each of us, layman and cleric alike, have that same true humility that doesn’t get caught up in ourselves but that does remind us of who and what we are, and of the dignity that we have through our reception of the sacraments. May we never fail to reverence that dignity in each other, and we may we always strive to live up to that dignity in ourselves despite our own brokenness.