What is a Catholic's Duty to the Pope?

[00:00:14] I've seen this topic come up from time to time in the Catholic world, and it's coming up again. And that is, what is a Catholic's duty to the Pope? More specifically, what is our duty as just a lay Catholic? To agree with the pope when he says something, when he does something. [00:00:32] I mean, what are our obligations as Catholics? We all want to be faithful Catholics. And being faithful Catholics obviously means being faithful to the teachings of Jesus Christ in regard to the papacy. And so this is something I've seen a lot of confusion about over the years among Catholics, particularly. Particularly when a pope will come out and say something controversial. The most recent example, of course, is Pope Francis letter to the American bishops earlier this week in which he strongly rebuked President Trump's immigration policies. And he specifically singled out JD Vance. Not by name, but everybody knew what he meant. And J.D. vance is calling the. The Ordo Amorous, the Order of Charity, Order of Love, when it comes to how we help others. [00:01:25] And so obviously, this caused a lot of consternation, a lot of debate online and elsewhere. And I even saw people defending the pope's position, which is fine. But more importantly, they were suggesting that even our salvation is dependent upon us agreeing with the pope in this matter, that his letter was magisterial, and therefore we had to give it full assent of our will and intellect. We had to agree with it, else our salvation could be in jeopardy. [00:02:02] And I just found this to be a fundamental misunderstanding of our duties as Catholics to the Pope. So I wanted to break that down, partly because I do feel like there are some people out there who might struggle with scruples, who might be very worried that the fact that they disagree with the Pope on immigration in America might lead to their salvation being in jeopardy, might lead to sin. [00:02:32] And so I want to break that down in this podcast today. What are our duties, our actual duties to the Pope? [00:02:43] First, I want to give some general principles. We have to understand the papacy itself, understand its purpose. That's very important. There's lots of misinformation out there about the papacy. Obviously, we get a lot of misinformation about the papacy from our Protestant brothers and sisters who don't understand it. I remember when I was Protestant, I assumed all Catholics had to basically just follow the Pope in everything and anything he did. Fortunately, some good Catholics made it clear to me that this is not the case, that I do not have to agree with this is when I was still Protestant, that we don't have to agree with everything the Pope says. And I was very thankful to them. But they think the Protestant notion of the papacy is almost like the Pope is an oracle, a divine oracle who anything he says is coming from God himself. [00:03:29] And so obviously, as Catholics, we have to follow him. [00:03:33] We also see, though, misinformation and misunderstandings about the papacy within Catholicism, particularly among political Catholics. [00:03:42] And what I mean by that is Catholics who are really putting their politics above their religion, making it the most important thing. So in ERA right now, we have a progressive, a more progressive, politically progressive pope. We see progressive, politically progressive Catholics basically saying, we have to agree with everything he says. But of course, when we had a more conservative pope, like a John Paul II or a Benedict, then they were more apt to argue, oh, no, we can disagree with them at times. Now, to be fair, the same thing is true of politically conservative Catholics. We find that when we have a more politically conservative Pope, like a JP2 or a Benedict, that politically conservative Catholics say, you have to basically follow anything he says. The Pope said it, we have to believe it. And I'll be the first to admit even that I fell into that at times in the past. And so this is a danger for Catholics who has strong political views. Now, note, there's nothing wrong with having strong political views as a Catholic. In fact, we're called to be engaged in the culture, be engaged in the political process, but we have to be careful not to let our politics bleed into our theological understandings of the papacy. And so just because you agree with a Pope on something he said politically does not mean you can require everybody to every Catholic to also agree with it as a means of being a good Catholic. That's just going too far. [00:05:15] So, like I said, I want to break down some general principles, though, about our duties to the Pope. This, of course, falls under the virtue of obedience. [00:05:25] The virtue of obedience. This is one of the most important virtues of a Catholic. This is one of the most important virtues of anybody. You have to have the virtue of obedience. [00:05:37] Now, we are all at times called to obedience. This obedience is not just something for a priest or a religious brother or sister, something like that. Every single Catholic is called to obedience throughout their life. A child, for example, is called to obedience to their parent. [00:05:58] A religious sister, obviously, is called to obedience to their superior. Even a worker is called to a certain level of obedience to their employer. And so we all have various levels of obedience in our life people. We are called to obey. A Catholic parishioner has a certain level of obedience to his pastor. [00:06:20] But you can probably tell just from the examples that these types of obediences, the levels of them and what they call us to vary in different times and places and situations. [00:06:33] And St. Thomas Aquinas breaks this down very well, and I'll put this up on the screen. [00:06:39] He talks about in the Summa Theologica what our obedience, our level of obedience is to different people. He says man is subject to God simply as regards all things, both internal and external. Therefore he is bound to obey him in all things. In other words, we are required to have unconditional obedience to God. Unconditional obedience to God. If God commands us something, we must obey it. There's no exceptions to this rule, but St. Thomas makes very clear that this unconditional obedience due to God is not transferred to any man, no matter what St. Thomas says. On the other hand, inferior, inferiors are not subject to their superiors in all things, but only in certain things and in a particular way. Again, this is from the Summa Theologica. So you're bound to your superior obedience in certain things in a particular way. And so this is very important that we understand this, that our obedience towards people is never unconditional when we're talking about man. And this also includes the Pope, which I'm going to talk about more in a second. But the point is that what we have to understand is that every man who is a superior in some way, or a woman, like for example, a woman religious superior, a mother superior, for example, the demands would be ensued them. Their authority is always within a limited sphere, a sphere of authority. That's an important concept we have to understand when it comes to obedience and our duties to obedience. Every superior has a sphere of authority. God's sphere of authority is all things and all times and all people. That's why we have to have unconditional obedience to him. However, a, a, a, a human superior has a limited sphere of authority. That sphere is to both people and to items like subjects, topics, certain subjects of authority. So for example, a father has a sphere of authority over his children. [00:08:59] And so this, that my authority over my children does not extend to anybody else's children. My sphere of authority is limited to my kids. But my sphere of authority also extends. It also is limited by certain subjects, certain areas. For example, when my children become adults, my sphere of authority over them shrinks. [00:09:22] Like for example, I can tell a five year old, no, you can't have an apple for dinner. [00:09:28] I can't have. [00:09:30] Why do I use apple? I want them to eat apples. Let's say you can't have candy for Dinner. I can't tell my 25 year old the same thing. I mean, I can tell them that, but they are not bound to obey me like the 5 year old is. If I tell my 5 year old, you cannot have candy for dinner, he is bound to obey me. He must obey me. If I tell my 25 year old, though, he is not bound to obey me. This, my sphere of authority is limited. And every human being sphere of authority is limited. Now here's something I think a lot of Catholics might struggle with, is the idea that the sphere of authority of a Pope is also limited. [00:10:09] I'll say that again. The sphere of authority of a Pope is actually limited. It's not all encompassing of all things. [00:10:19] And that's important to remember. [00:10:21] Now this is confusing a lot of times for Catholics because of a misunderstanding, a misinterpretation of Vatican I. Vatican I, of course, is the council from the 19th century that defined in many ways the authority of the Pope. And it basically did in two general ways, in jurisdiction and in doctrine that the Pope has universal jurisdiction. His jurisdiction extends to the entire Church. He could, for example, transfer the pastor of my parish to another parish if he wanted to. And that's within his sphere of authority. [00:10:57] He also has authority over doctrine. He's infallible. When he defines doctrine from the seat chair, St. Peter ex catheter, he is infallible. Now, of course, there's very, there's conditions to that. Again, kind of like that sphere of authority we're talking about. [00:11:14] But we should understand what Vatican II does not say. It does not say that the Pope has some authority over every person in every situation, every time. His authority, and this is always the case with the sphere of authority. It has a purpose. [00:11:31] My authority over my kids as a father has a purpose. It's to lead them into heaven. It's to lead them, to help them draw closer to Jesus Christ. That's the purpose of it. An employer has a seared authority over his employee for a purpose to make, you know, to help the company sell its items, to have a profit so it can continue to pay its employees and serve the community, things like that. [00:11:59] And anything that's outside of that purpose is outside the sphere of authority. [00:12:05] And the same is true of the Pope. He has a limited sphere of authority because he has a purpose to his authority. And that's what limits it. So, for example, if a Pope were said, were to say that, for example, the world, the universe, was created five minutes ago, we're actually living in a simulation that was just Created five minutes ago. [00:12:28] That's outside of sphere. Sphere of authority. We do not have to agree with that statement. [00:12:34] You know, he's making a scientific statement that, you know, contradicts all of science by saying that. [00:12:40] And so we don't have to agree with that. We don't have to obey that. Like, in the sense of, like, okay, that's now what I believe. It's outside his sphere of authority. His sphere of authority has a purpose. What is that purpose? Vatican One actually defines it. It makes it very clear. [00:12:56] Vatican One says, for the Holy Spirit was promised to the successors of Peter, not so that they might by his revelation make known some new doctrine, but that by his assistance, they might religiously guard and faithfully expound the revelation or deposit of faith transmitted by the apostles. In other words, the papacy was created and exists so that the popes might religiously guard and faithfully expound the revelation or deposit of faith transmitted by the apostles. He is a guardian of the deposit of faith. He is a servant in many ways of the deposit of faith. He has been given something, the deposit of faith, which he then hands on to the next generation. He hands on to the people. [00:13:41] It's not to create new doctrine. What does Vatican I say? It's not make known some new doctrine, but instead guard and faithfully expound the existing deposit of faith. That is what his authority is. So that's what his purpose is. Therefore, that is what his sphere of authority is. [00:14:02] Anything that goes beyond that. If he says to you, for example, you know, I really like the color orange, Eric, you have to wear orange now every day for the rest of your life. I am not bound to obey that. I do not have to do it because it does not extend to him guarding and expounding the deposit of faith. [00:14:22] So his authority is given to a purpose. He's not given his authority to micromanage the world. [00:14:29] It's not to tell politicians what to do. [00:14:32] It's basically to guard and expound the deposit of faith. [00:14:37] So what about, though? Now, obviously, popes talk a lot. Not just Francis, but Benedict JP2, Pius XII, Pius X, Leo XII, you name it. Going back for a very long time, especially you see this in the Middle Ages, popes often talk about things that aren't directly related to them, expounding and guarding the deposit of faith. So what are we supposed to do? Do we just throw it out and ignore it? No, that's not the case. Because ultimately the Pope is still the supreme pastor of the Catholic Church, and we need to treat him like A pastor. So what I mean by that is this. You know, at your parish, you have a pastor, and I'm assuming you have a good pastor who, who's. Who's faithful and trying to help get you to heaven. [00:15:23] Do you agree with every single thing your pastor says in every single homily? Probably not. Do you have to then change your mind because your pastor said something that you don't agree with? No, you don't. [00:15:36] As your pastor, he is giving you advice. He's telling you how he believes you can best live your life as a Catholic. He believes how things might best be situated in society. But these things ultimately are his opinions. And so they don't fall into a sphere of authority in a sense of obedience. [00:15:54] And so the likewise, the Pope is our chief pastor. He has a sphere of authority, but he also, it's not like the only thing he ever does is just talketh inside a sphere. He also gives advice, he also gives his opinions. He also talks about things that he believes are best for how the Church should operate, but also how the world should operate. And that's fine. Popes have been doing this forever. I mean, just look at the Middle Ages, Popes, how involved they were in politics. I mean, obviously the Pope was much more political leader back then because he had a nation, a much bigger nation than the Vatican City, the Papal States that he ran. And so he was much more involved in politics. But you see all the time that kings and princes and nobles and others, they disagree with the Pope all the time about his political views. [00:16:42] And that's fine. They were free to do that because his sphere of authority, the post sphere of authority, is not to tell political leaders, you have to, to do this and they have to do it. [00:16:54] I'm talking about prudential matters. Obviously, if a Pope, I'm sorry, if a political leader does something evil, like, for example, you know, like what King Henry VIII did, the Pope has every right to tell him, you can't do these things. But if it's like if King Andrew VIII before he had, you know, gone off the deep end and gone crazy and left the church, if he said, I'm going to tax my people at 10% instead of 5%, the Pope can give his opinion, say, no, that's bad, you shouldn't do that. Henry viii, but Henry had no obligation to follow the Pope's advice on that, Henry VIII could have said, no, I'm going to tax him 10% because I think that's best. [00:17:32] Likewise today, if, you know, let's actually say we'll use President Biden as an example because he was actually, you know, claimed to be Catholic. If he said, I'm going to make the capital gains rate instead of, I think it's 20% like that, I'm going to make it 40%, Pope Francis could have said, no, that's terrible. You shouldn't make it 40%. You need to make it lower. You make it 10%. Pope has every right to give his opinion and give that advice, but President Biden had no obligation to actually agree with him or abide by that because it was ultimately the Pope's opinion. He's speaking as just an advisor, a moral advisor, a pastor. He might even say, listen, Joe, you need to keep that capital gains tax low because that's best for the poor. That's going to help stimulate your economy, that's going to get more jobs and whatever the case may be. [00:18:24] And he's. And you can tell he's talking about morality here in some sense, because he's talking about helping the poor. [00:18:30] He's talking about things that can help people materially. And so therefore, it is an area of morals. And we always say the Pope can, you know, his authority and faith and morals. But here's where people get confused. [00:18:43] He has authority and faith and morals. Yes. And he can declare things infallibly in faith and morals in certain circumstances. That doesn't mean every opinion of his that is related to faith and morals in some way is something we have to agree with. So if he said to Joe Biden, you can have that capital gains rate, but it needs to be down to 10%, you can't raise up to 40% because that's what's going to help the poor the most. [00:19:06] Joe Biden does not have to agree with that. He can say, I actually think jacking up to 40% is going to give more taxes. We're going to have all these more social programs, and that's going to help the poor the most. They can disagree on that. And Joe Biden would not be committing a sin if he didn't agree with that. I know it's ludicrous example, because that example would never happen, but you get my point. Hopefully. [00:19:29] So what really a good Pope, what good popes do is they don't get into specifics very often. They wouldn't say, joe, drop it down to 10%. They would say, they would talk about the importance of an economy that remembers the poor and things of that nature. [00:19:48] And so ultimately, popes can give advice, they can give their opinions about political matters. In fact, they probably should. But ultimately what they're doing, what they should be doing is they should be applying the general principles, the general moral principles of the Church to specific situations. [00:20:07] But they're leaving it open for the politicians for the laity to decide the best practical applications of those general principles. Again, pastors should be appli. Should be giving the general principles of morality and then the laity are charged with applying those situation those principles. Practically, that's not just me saying that, that's the Church itself that says that. In fact, in Vatican 2 it talks about this. The role of the laity. Back in two says a vast field for the apostolate has opened up on the national international levels where the laity especially assist with their Christian wisdom in loyalty to their country and in faithful fulfillment of their civic obligations. [00:20:54] Catholics should feel themselves obliged to promote the true common good. This is all Catholics is the laity specifically. Thus they should make the weight of their opinion felt in order that the civil authority may act with justice and that legislation may conform to moral precepts in the common good. In other words, the laity are. Are asked to give their opinions on the best way the civil authority can act with justice and that legislation can afford conform to moral precepts in the common good. The assumption here is there are debates about this, that there isn't one way to necessarily apply it. Why would you bother giving your opinion? Why did the Church say give your opinion if it didn't matter if there was only one way you could ever apply these principles? [00:21:38] McIntyre continues and says Catholics skilled in public affairs and adequately enlightened in faith and Christian doctrine, should not refuse to administer public affairs, since by doing this in a worthy manner, they both further the common good and at the same time prepare the way for the Gospel. In other words, Catholics like for example JD Vance, who is skilled in public affairs, he should be willing to administer these affairs in a worthy manner to further the common good. This is Vatican II talking that what it's saying essentially is the laity. [00:22:16] It's our role to apply the moral principles found in the Church given to us by our pastors all the way up to including the Pope, and apply them in specific situations. Now, sometimes these pastors will give their opinion about what they think is the best way to apply that and that's fine. [00:22:36] But Catholics are not morally obligated to agree with that or follow it, and this has no bearing on their salvation. [00:22:44] They should, however, take seriously. They should listen carefully to their pastors. They shouldn't just Dismiss out of hand what their pastors say. When their pastors give their opinions, they should definitely listen when the pastor is just simply reiterating general principles about the Catholic faith, about our moral principles. But that does not mean the Catholics are obliged to agree with it. [00:23:14] The role of the laity cannot be compared to a religious person obeying their superior. [00:23:24] Often you see the example of Padre Pio, how he was willing to obey his superiors when they were unjustly silencing him. [00:23:35] Yes, that is very praiseworthy on and holy on Padre Pio's part. However, that's not our role as laypeople. I did not take a vow of obedience. I did not say, as a layperson, I am not bound to obey every dictate of my pastor. Now I should listen to my pastor carefully. I should be willing to be corrected by my pastor. [00:24:01] Obviously when I commit a sin, if my pastor calls me on it, I should repent. [00:24:06] But if it's just a matter of a political view, of a prudential view opinion, then I simply should, I should take it seriously, but I should read it in the light of the whole tradition and I don't have to abide it. It has no bearing on my salvation. [00:24:25] So my point here is don't be gaslit. That's what's happening here. [00:24:31] When progressive Catholics today are basically saying your salvation itself is in jeopardy. If you don't agree with Pope Francis, if you take the side of J.D. vance instead of Pope Francis, that means you're basically rejecting the magisterium, the church, you're rejecting the authority of the, the papacy. You're rejecting all, all, you know, what it means to be Catholic. That's gaslighting. That's just simply not true. That's somebody who is abusing their, the, the, the, the faith in order to enact a political agenda. Don't do it yourself and don't fall for it when other people do it. [00:25:12] It's, it really is a, a, a serious offense, I think, because whenever you call somebody's salvation into question, you better be sure about what you're talking about. I mean, if it's a clear cut thing like somebody commits murder and you say, hey, that person's salvation is in jeopardy, yeah, okay, that, that's fine. But if it's literally somebody has a disagreement about the immigration policies of their country and you throw out the salvation card, that's, that, that's just, that's, that's horrific. That's a, it's a terrible thing to do. So don't do it, but don't buy it either. So if you're a Catholic and you're trying to be a faithful Catholic, which you should be trying to be a faithful Catholic, yes, read the Pope's letter on immigration. Take it seriously. Maybe it will change your mind about our country's immigration policies. [00:26:04] However, don't feel morally obliged to follow it. To believe that you have to agree with what everything is being said in there, you don't have to. And we know this because of the teachings of the Church herself. When it comes to obedience, what we see in St. Thomas Aquinas, which church has always taught about obedience, when it comes to the role of the Pope and his sphere of authority and the purpose of the papacy, when we see basically also what the Church says about the laity and what we are post our duties to give our opinions, I mean, this is what's so sad about this is like essentially it's censorship. When you call out and say you must agree with the Pope or you need to shut up, it's your censorship. The Church does not want us to be censored in giving our opinions. It wants it to be a robust debate in the public square. I don't want to silence the progressive Catholics anymore than I want to silence conservative Catholics. I want everybody to give their opinions and have a robust debate. And then in marketplace ideas, the truth will win out. And in our democracy, in our democratic republic here in America, it is winning out. Because what's happened is that we voted in the current administration and they're applying the things that we voted in for. This is what won out. And so I think we shouldn't censor people who disagree with us and question their salvation if they disagree with us. It's a horrific thing to do. [00:27:33] God gave us the use of reason. We're not fetus. Is that how you pronounce it? Where we basically just everything is told to us by God or through some representative of God. We're supposed to use our reason. We're supposed to take all the information that we're given about, like in the immigration debate, for example, about what the Church teaches about immigration, about what the Church teaches about love, about the common good, what churches about, about defending your country and loving of your country all, or just use our reason. When we look at the practicality, what has happened with the immigration policies in this country over the past few decades, what is the result of that bim? We take all of that and use our reason to come up with our own opinion of the best way to apply the Church's general moral principles to the specific situation. And then we can proclaim, as Vatican II says, we can proclaim that opinion out in the public square and vote for people who agree with that opinion. So just be at peace. Those who. Who might feel a little bit scrupulous about Might feel a little bit that they're not being a Catholic. If they disagree with the Pope about something he says about political situation, you're fine. You're not. You're not. You're following the Church, in fact, by. If you disagree with them with the Pope on a specific political situation like this. So be at peace. Okay, I'll wrap it up there. Hope this was helpful for a lot of people. Until next time, everybody. God love.