George Weigel. Papacy and power

Papacy and Power by George Weigel

From the compilers . It is believed that talking about the moral side of politics without the risk of being caught in demagoguery is the prerogative of church leaders. However, this thesis also requires serious argumentation, since, firstly, it is first necessary to explicate the concept of “real” politics in such a way that moral discourse is generally appropriate in relation to it, and, secondly, to prove that there are still people who have him right. The author of the article focuses primarily on the second point, and in this he can be understood: the political history of Catholicism is much richer than the Orthodox (as we remember, not without the efforts of the Russian emperor of the same name as the Apostle Peter), and the number of “suitcases of compromising evidence” is, accordingly, very significant. The author is helped to cope with the first task by constantly appealing to the very moral uncertainty that is inherent in modern politics and which forces us to preface the question “who?” the question “what is the nature of power in general?” Everything together turns out quite elegantly: since what politics itself is is not at all clear, and the Holy Catholic Church (at least in the person of its current head) has accepted moral discourse as its own, then (having endured the personal successes of John Paul II on the Church in general, and refraining from such an operation in relation to politics) we cannot avoid the conclusion that the papacy and power have a common context and the Pope has something to discuss with the president. For those who have made their way through the forest of premises of this sorites, the question inevitably arises: is it possible to prove the political weight of Winnie the Pooh in a similar way? Meanwhile, power, to which either the Pope or Sawdust Winnie the Pooh will demonstrate its own foundations with varying degrees of propheticity, knows only one thing about itself: its foundations consist solely in the fact that it is power.

The significant influence of Pope John Paul II is recognized by both his admirers and his critics. The footprint of this fisherman can be found in the new democracies of Eastern Europe, Latin America and East Asia. His critique of "actually existing democracy" helped provide clues to the moral issues of public life in developing democracies and in the complex world of international institutions. Some sober analysts of the history of the papacy argue that in order to find a pontificate that had the same influence on the public life of his contemporaries, it is necessary to go back to the beginning of the 13th century, to Pope Innocent III .

However, there is a paradox here: the "political" influence of this pontificate does not come from the deployment of what political realists classify as instruments of political power. Rather, the ability to shape history is exercised by the Pope through other levers.

Bishop of Rome and head of the Vatican, John Paul II has neither military nor economic power. The Holy See maintains an extensive network of diplomatic relations and has Permanent Observer status at the UN. However, all the influence that John Paul wields through these channels only underscores the fact that the strength of his papacy lies in the gift of moral persuasion translated into political influence.

This paradox - political influence achieved without the usual tools of political power - is in itself quite interesting. It tells us something about the nature of power at the dawn of a new millennium. Contrary to all the concepts that have become generally accepted since the end of the eighteenth century, the social influence of John Paul II proves that politics (understood as the struggle for power), like economics, like various combinations of politics and economics, is not the only and main mover of history. The revolution of conscience that John Paul ignited in Poland in June 1979—the moral revolution that made the 1989 revolution possible—is simply inexplicable in conventional political-economic terms. John Paul's public work provided an empirical basis for intellectual and moral debate with the most powerful political theories of modern times, including French revolutionary Jacobinism, Marxism-Leninism, and utilitarianism. It turned out that the political world simply does not work the way materialists imagine.

At the end of a century that wholeheartedly recognized that "power comes from the barrel of a gun," the paradox of John Paul II's political influence reminds us of five other truths: that the power of the human spirit can influence the course of world history; that tradition can be as powerful a force for social transformation as a conscious break with the past; that moral convictions can be that Archimedean fulcrum; that “public life” and “politics” are not the same thing; and that a truly humanistic politics depends on a constellation of free social associations and social institutions in which we learn the truth about ourselves as individuals and as members of a community. By demonstrating through his actions the connection between deep personal moral convictions and effective political power, John Paul II helped restore politics to its true dignity while at the same time setting its proper boundaries.

It is tempting to see John Paul's public achievements as an expression of his subjective experience. His “cultural first” view of history and confidence in the power of moral truth are indeed directly related to his biography. Slavic sensitivity to the spiritual in history (previously represented by Solovyov, and now by Solzhenitsyn), Polish confidence in the cultural foundations of statehood (formed by constant immersion in the works of Mickiewicz, Norwid, Slovacki), experience of underground resistance during the Second World War and his leadership in cultural resistance to communism in 1947-1978 - all this, without a doubt, is “the experience of Karol Wojtyla.” However, John Paul II insists that he is not “subjective.” Rather, he and his pontificate are the results of the modern Catholic Church, shaped by the Second Vatican Council , which Karol Wojtyła always considered the great spiritual effort to renew Catholicism as an evangelical movement in history.

It is a well-known fact that popes have been active political players since at least the 5th century, with the pontificate of Pope Leo the Great . From 756 to 1870, the popes were the lay rulers of much of central Italy, the papal state. However, in this complicated history in which the popes had temporal power, three important points can be noted.

The first concerns the unique position of the pope as the universal shepherd of the world church. Since at least the fifth century, when Pope Gelasius I made a distinction between the consecrated power of the clergy and the royal power as two separate powers that rule this world, it has been understood that the Pope cannot be subject to any authority . He himself is sovereign in the narrow technical sense. Therefore, papal diplomacy is conducted not on behalf of the head of state of the Vatican, but on behalf of the ruler of the Holy See, the legal embodiment of the ecumenical shepherd of the Bishop of Rome.

The second lesson that follows from the involvement of popes in temporal power concerns the role of the church in the creation of civil society. The freedom of the church, libertas ecclesiae, has for many centuries been the test of the claims of state power, whether it be the power of feudal lords, absolute monarchs or the modern secular state. The fact that the church is given the opportunity to organize its life and government according to its own criteria, preach the Gospel and engage in charity, in itself creates an anti-totalitarian society or introduces the principle of pluralism into society, according to which areas of belief and action are recognized where the state should not interfere .

Although popes' attempts to prove the principle theologically or to strengthen it practically were sometimes unsuccessful, libertas ecclesiae was a key factor in creating a social space in which other free institutions could take shape over the centuries. No matter how tyrannical individual popes behaved, the papacy as an institutional reality was a barrier to politicians for fifteen hundred years. And if the institutions of "civil society" are schools where they learn how to properly exercise political freedom, then the papal defense of libertas ecclesiae laid the foundations of modern society .

There are, however, many examples where the secular papal authorities tacitly accepted the terms of the "realistic" political game. And therein lies the third lesson: such involvement, agreement to play by someone else’s rules, leads to difficulties and betrayals. The worst of them were located in the area of the human spirit and concerned attempts to subjugate consciousness. There was, however, another, perhaps less familiar, dimension to this problematic aspect of entanglement: the papal state and the position of lay ruler could push the Pope into an alliance with politics that pitted the ecumenical shepherd against part of the flock. For example, in 1830-31, Pope Gregory XVI, in connection with complex political relations in Europe and the then reigning theories of the rights of rulers, took the side of Tsarist Russia , which suppressed the uprising of the Poles.

It is worth remembering the deep involvement of the church and the papacy in state power and the tacit acceptance by the popes of political evaluation criteria, sometimes incompatible with the evangelical mission of the church, the so-called. "Constantinian Establishment". At the Second Vatican Council, John Paul II restored biblical self-understanding, and various historical circumstances created a new model of the relationship between the papacy and power - and this quietly buried the "Constantinian institution."

The origins of the new form of papal relations with the authorities date back to the mid-19th century. By that time, the Papal State had been under constant pressure for 40 years - first from revolutionary France and Napoleon, then from Italian nationalism. In 1839, Pope Gregory XVI condemned the slave trade. Although this condemnation had no legal force, it was made as an attempt at moral suasion.

In 1854, 1862, 1867 and 1869-70, large numbers of bishops from all over the world came to Rome, respectively: for the doctrinal definition of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary, protest against the encroachments of worldly power, the celebration of the anniversary of the martyrs Peter and Paul and the First Vatican Council , which became a key the moment of the emergence of a new form of papal relations with worldly power. The declaration on the universal shepherding of the Pope adopted there fundamentally denied that the modern state could interfere in the internal affairs of the church; This in turn gave rise to local bishops (80% appointed by governments at the beginning of the 19th century) again becoming subordinate to the Bishop of Rome rather than to secular authorities.

The collapse of the Papal State in 1870 was a decisive change, creating the conditions for political action by the papacy based on the Gospel. This first became evident during the pontificate of Leo XIII. His encyclical on the reform of Thomism , Aeterni Patris , clearly defined how the church should participate in intellectual life as well as spiritual life independent of the contemporary political condition. Rerum Novarum , the 1891 encyclical on “the condition of the working class ,” became a powerful tool in the hands of the papacy, instructing the states but not ruling them: the papacy influenced by the power of persuasion.

However, as happens with all historical processes involving ancient institutions, the evolution of the "post-Constantinian" papacy from Pius IX to John Paul II was complex and rough. The conventional way of thinking about international events has led to myopia regarding the Vatican at times when clarity of evangelical and moral intuitions would have been most welcome. No serious student of the matter believes that Pope Pius XII was an anti-Semite or that he was attracted by the prospect of Nazi Europe. In fact, Pope Pius XII made heroic efforts in defense of European Jews and other victims of Nazism, and he even brokered a plot against Hitler. At the same time, senior diplomatic figures at the Holy See may have been so caught up in the realist mode of analysis that they missed the totalitarian plot in German National Socialism, believing it to be just a deformed form of classical German nationalism.

In any case, by the mid-1960s the Holy See's search for a place in international political life was crowned with success. By 1965, the Holy See had established full diplomatic relations with 52 countries and had been a Permanent Observer at the UN since 1964. While this development was taking place against the background of the consequences of World War II, Pius XII and John XXIII created an image of the Pope as a charismatic figure in public life with international moral authority . Then came the decisive stage: the Second Vatican Council, the decisions of which accelerated the transformation of Catholicism into a “post-Constantinian” church and made possible the restoration of the papacy as, first and foremost, an evangelical institution.

On the other hand, as if to highlight the complexity of issues concerning the interaction of church and government, the period immediately following the Second Vatican Council was characterized by the Ostpolitik of Pope Paul IV (in the world Giovanni Battista Montoni) and his diplomat Archbishop Agostin Casaroli. It was a fourteen-year attempt through bilateral negotiations to achieve a state of non morendi (non-dying) in the communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe.

In electing a Polish Pope in 1978, the College of Cardinals did not consciously reject such an opportunistic strategy. Among those who supported Cardinal Karol Wojtyla were also defenders of Ostpolitik. But already in the first year of his pontificate, John Paul II demonstrated that he intended to pursue a “post-Constantinian” strategy of resistance - through moral revolution.

What does all this mean for the future? The decisions of the Second Vatican Council, implemented by John Paul II, allowed the Catholic Church to move past a trap in history, and there is no turning back. The next pope may not have such exceptional spiritual and intellectual gifts. However, Karol Wojtyła’s achievements in correcting the papacy do not belong to him alone. There is a certain logic - a theo-logic, if you will - to the evangelical/pastoral model of the papacy so brilliantly embodied by Wojtyła, and it is difficult to change.

The papal desire to witness and exert moral influence is fraught with some ecumenical problems . The development of this model in the 21st century may cause difficulties with Orthodox Christians who do not want to recognize the ecumenical claims of Rome. This, however, is not the case, for John Paul II, in his encyclical Ut Unum Sint (1995), stated that ecumenical authority does not imply that the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome in the West is the same as in the East. Psychology is sometimes as important as theology, and Catholics must face up to the fact that the emergence of an evangelical/pastoral papacy with ecumenical “reach” adds another line to the list of problems that need to be sorted out with Orthodoxy.

There is another difficulty concerning the current diplomatic activities of the Holy See. The question here is not whether he can be a diplomatic agent, the question is should he be one?

The Second Vatican Council defines the church as the evangelical movement in history. To be such a movement means to have a specific institutional form and maintain connections with other institutions through the best ways of ordering social life so far invented by mankind - through law and politics. The church is not the state. But at the same time, the Catholic Church is more than a voluntary association pursuing a specific goal. This is the institutional embodiment of the claim to truth, and according to its self-understanding, the main forms of such institutionalization are manifestations of the will of God.

However, the formal intervention of the papacy in politics is also very important for politics. If by politics we mean the will to power and the ability to impose one's will on another, then the evangelical movement contradicts itself by being a player in this game. But if we mean by politics a joint reflection on the duties of a common life, and if we understand ourselves to be involved in the sphere of ethics, then everything looks different. A worldwide evangelical movement formed as a sovereign institution for its own spiritual purposes deserves a place at the table where such responsibilities are spoken.

Thus, it is for the sake of peace that the Church must continue to intervene in the activities of secular authorities, although this is fraught with ambiguity - given that the papacy of the 21st century is transformed by the image of John Paul II, the heir and champion of the Second Vatican Council.

Material prepared by Peter and Olga Serebryany