AUSTRALIA
ABC – Religion and Ethics
By Simon Longstaff ABC Religion and Ethics 19 Nov 2012
In 1077, a penitent Holy Roman Emperor, Henry IV, crossed the Alps by foot and knelt for three days in snow before the castle of Pope Gregory VII. Only then did the Pope emerge to forgive the excommunicated Emperor and readmit him into the body of the Church.
In this increasingly secular age, it is almost inconceivable that a head of state would bend the knee to a religious leader. So, what brought Henry IV to this point of obeisance – and what does this episode have to do with contemporary Australian life?
This was a time before Luther and the Protestant Reformation, a time before the Enlightenment and the ascent of secular thinking, a time when the Roman Catholic Church enjoyed effective hegemony over the spiritual life of Western Europe – and with this, considerable influence, if not outright power, over large swathes of secular life. The Church controlled its own territory, put armies in the field, dispensed justice and in most respects acted as a “monarchical state” indistinguishable from others. But it was not these aspects of the Pope’s rule that brought Henry to his knees.
Rather, it was Henry’s belief that Gregory had the spiritual power as Christ’s Vicar to “bind and to loose” on earth. Whatever the realpolitik of Henry’s situation as an excommunicated person (to whom obedience was no longer owed by the faithful), there was also a personal reason for seeking the Pope’s forgiveness – to save the Emperor’s immortal soul. This was part of the calculation of 1077, that the cost of “this worldly” humiliation counted for little in comparison with eternal damnation.
It is something of this medieval world view that is at play today in the debate about whether or not Catholic Priests should break the “seal of the confessional” and disclose the identity of those who confess to the crime of sexually abusing children (and other vulnerable people). For many people, probably the majority, this seems like an easy question to answer – in the affirmative.
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