UNITED KINGDOM
Catholic Herald
by Fr Mark Drew
posted Thursday, 4 Jun 2015
As the crucial family synod approaches, his critics could prove his greatest allies
A French journalist working on a documentary about opposition to the Pope recently asked Cardinal Raymond Burke if he was an enemy of Francis. The reply was illuminating. “Well, I certainly hope he’s not my enemy,” retorted the former head of the Vatican’s supreme court, who now occupies a largely ceremonial sinecure as patron of the Knights of Malta.
Does the Pope really have enemies? Catholics used to pray in the liturgy that he would be saved from them, but it was taken for granted then that we were referring to enemies outside the Church. There remain terror groups like ISIS that would like to harm him physically. But what might shock some Catholics is the notion that the Pope might have “enemies” inside the Church. And, as I will argue, they may actually turn out to be his greatest allies at this October’s crucial family synod.
Since the Counter-Reformation, and the definition of papal infallibility in 1870, the authority of the Roman pontiff has seemed absolute. But after the Second Vatican Council what was always a reality has become more visible: all popes encounter questioning and even opposition in implementing their policies for the governance of the Church.
Resistance is often to be found not only in the diverse reality of the wider Church, but even within what has to many appeared as the inner sanctum of absolute papal power: the Roman Curia. Benedict XVI resigned precisely because he believed that only a younger and stronger man could overcome this insidious internal foe.
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