Accipe tiaram tribus coronis ornatam, et scias te esse patrem principum et regum, rectorem orbis in terra vicarium Salvatoris nostri Jesu Christi, cui est honor et gloria in saecula saeculorum.
Receive the tiara adorned with three crowns and know that you are the father of princes and kings, the ruler of the world, the vicar of our Savior Jesus Christ on earth, to whom be all honour and glory, world without end.
—Traditional Papal Coronation
In the past few weeks, the world has been ‘treated’ (if that is the right word) to the spectacle of the Holy Father ordering the deposition of a bishop in an extracanonical manner and ordering the stripping of a cardinal of his stipend and flat in Rome because he is an ‘enemy.’ In a Pontificate that has seemed to many to be powered more by personal prejudices and the settling of scores than by a concern for the Salvation of Souls, coupled with the Supreme Pontiff’s hardline defence of associates of questionable morals, this sort of pettiness and legal irregularity has been compared unfavourably with such Papal low points as the Pornocracy of the 10th century.
Without wanting to enter into that particular argument at the moment, this author will contend that the Church’s current leadership dilemma owes its origin to a development that, although symptomatic of a greater problem, was positively hailed when it first appeared in the 1960s: the transformation of the Papal Monarchy into a republic. The irony is that the Ultramontanism originally advanced to defend that Papal Monarchy itself became the chief means by which this development was imposed.
The major difference between the Christian Monarchy of yore and the liberal republic of the present may be found in the difference between two key elements of governance: authority and power. The former is the right to say what ought to happen; the latter is the ability to make it so. My doctor has the authority to prescribe medicine, but only I have the power to actually take it. In the Christian ideal—as described by the writings and examples of the Church Fathers, the Ecumenical Councils, and countless Sovereigns, Popes, and theologians—the union of the Davidic Kingship inherited by Christ and the Communio of the Church He established at the Last Supper meant that, henceforth, Christian Monarchy would be a participation in His Kingship. Legitimacy and Authority would be bestowed by Him through the Church upon the various Sovereigns: Popes crowning Emperors; Emperors convoking Ecumenical Councils; Emperors and Kings serving in set liturgical roles at Papal Masses and acting as canons of Roman Basilicas (and select churches in their own countries); the role of the Pope as Sovereign of the Papal States—indeed, the whole panoply of Church and State that arose as a result (regularly attacked since the beginning of the Age of Revolution as corrupting to both) was extremely fruitful to both, despite disputes of the sort that are inevitable in human relations. This was not least true in terms of the production of Saints in every stratum of society, from Kings to peasants. Later, when Europe expanded overseas, millions of souls were brought Salvation by the united efforts of Church and State.
The role of authority as wielded by the heads of Church and State was indispensable in guiding those elements of society—both clerical and lay—who had power in using it for the end to which God had committed both power and authority to men: the common good. In earlier times, there was no confusion about the definition of the common good; for the Church, it meant the Salvation of individual Souls; for the State, it meant assisting the Church in this area by ensuring sufficient security and well-being so that people would be able to worry about their souls rather than their security and sustenance.
Authority being concentrated and power diffused, a good leader was like an orchestra conductor; bad leaders produced, as a rule, not tyranny but anarchy. It was a maxim of both moral theology and historical experience that either authority or power exercised for the mere benefit of the wielder would inevitably come to a bad end. Human Law was a noble thing, but only if it was in accord with justice—that is, God’s law.
After the rise of liberal republics in the late 18th century (and earlier in the Three Kingdoms of the British Isles), this entire schema was altered. Rather than being in the hands of God via the Church, authority was held to reside in the ‘people,’ whose will would be explained to them and wielded on their behalf by the nascent political class. These worthies, in turn, would be the satellites of the leading (and contending) economic and social interests in the State. From this reality emerged the party system. Whether in a Constitutional Monarchy (where the Sovereign, despite having his hands effectively tied behind his back, nevertheless served as a focus of popular loyalty above political faction) or in a complete republic (where all offices, including the highest, were available to the most effective politico), power became increasingly divorced from authority as authority became increasingly obscured and enfeebled. As a result, power became ever more a tool for its own sake, and the whole notion of the ‘Common Good’ was submerged beneath the ever more shrill demands of party loyalty. Moreover, what remained of the Common Good became ever more secular in nature. It simply became the ability of supporters of the dominant party to do whatever they wished—preferably at the expense of their opponents.
As regards the Church and the Papacy, and as witnessed by the Gelasian Canon and the Codes of Theodosius and Justinian, Pope and Emperor—theoretically, at least—worked as partners in the ultimate rank of governance, under Christ Himself, of the Res publica Christiana. This system was always subject to stresses and strains, but even so great a Ghibelline as Dante recognised the spiritual superiority of the Pope, and even such a deep-dyed Guelph as Innocent III accepted the necessity of the role of the Emperor. So it was that the two were both Monarchies, albeit of different sorts.
Despite the disruption of this system by the Protestant Revolt, the overthrow of Monarchies, and the end of both the Byzantine Empire by the Turks and the Holy Roman Empire, by Napoleon, the Monarchical aspect of the Holy See survived. Even the loss of the Papal States did not affect it immediately in that sense because, at the same time, the Pope became, as it were, the immediate Father of a faithful who were persecuted or harassed in very many countries around the globe. But in what sense was that Monarchy comparable to the ones we know around the globe even to-day?
Symbolism is an important factor in any Monarchy; for the Holy See, there was none so omnipresent as the Papal Tiara—the Triple Crown. Descending from the regular bishop’s mitre, it acquired the first crown when the Popes became temporal rulers. The second made its appearance in the 13th century to show the superiority of the Papal crown to mere earthly crowns. At the beginning of the 14th century, the third made its appearance. There was no single such diadem, unlike so many imperial and royal crowns; twenty-two such tiaras survive to-day. From the Middle Ages on, the Triple Crown was the principal heraldic symbol of the Holy See and could be found anywhere in the Papal dominions in Italy and the South of France.
The Tiara was bestowed upon successive Popes at a coronation rite, with the words that opened this article. Impressive as they were, however, this placing of the Tiara and assurance of the wearer’s power was immediately followed by a Capuchin friar burning a brand before the new Pope, then extinguishing it with the words, “Thus passes the glory of this world”—of which the fledgling Pontiff had just been assured he was spiritual ruler. Indeed, as with last year’s coronation rite of Charles III, everything about the ceremony was intended to exalt the office above its recipient.
Indeed, for centuries, the Papal Court was as rigorously hedged about with ceremony as any in Europe. As with his secular Monarchical children, the Pope was expected to subordinate his personal preferences to an endless round of rituals, which were intended to force him to subject himself to the awe-full role God had laid upon him. In addition to the clerics with whom each Pope ran the Church, there were laymen who helped him administer and defend the Papal States. There was the Roman nobility, who saw him as their feudal lord, and the soldiers who served in his army, as well as the lay members of his court. Even after the loss of the Papal States ended the adventures of the Papal Zouaves, who had come from all over the Catholic world to fight for Bl. Pius IX, there were still quite a few laity to be found at the Papal Court. Those Roman nobility who gave up all hope of social, political, or financial betterment in order to remain loyal to the Popes—the so-called ‘Black’ nobility—would later be rewarded with Vatican citizenship after the 1929 Lateran Treaty. In the meantime, and after, they filled the ranks of the Noble Guard and the hereditary positions at the Papal Court. There were various kinds of lay staff, including the Swiss Guards and the Papal Chamberlains, in their Renaissance garb.
The late 19th and early 20th centuries saw some truly colourful characters serve in the ranks of the latter body: the Norwegian convert Baron Wilhelm Wedel-Jarlsberg; his fellow countryman and convert, Christopher de Paus; Charles Owen O’Conor, heir to the High Kings of Ireland; Old Oxonian and Newman Society founder Hartwell de la Garde Grissell; and the American diplomat and friend of Empress Zita, Francis Augustus MacNutt. There was also the Papal nobility—created by Popes in recent times—as opposed to the ancient Roman Aristocracy. Even Americans received the honour, such as Duke Nicholas Frederic Brady, Countess Estelle Doheny, and Count John Crimmins.
The fall of the Monarchies resulting from the two World Wars and various revolutions caused this aspect of the Holy See to look antiquated to churchmen who had converted to the cult of progress. Bound up with this was a sort of unconscious political Manichaeism, about which this author has written elsewhere. In turn, the Pontificate of Paul VI and the aftermath of Vatican II saw a desire to ‘update’ every aspect of Catholic life. In an atmosphere where the Mass itself—the very heart of the Catholic Faith—was up for alteration according to the playful attitudes of self-described experts, it could not be supposed that the lay element of the Papal Court and its hallowed disciplines could or would be spared. The loyal Black nobility lost its Vatican citizenship, and most lay offices—including the Noble Guards, the Palatine Guards of Honour, and most hereditary positions—were abolished. The chamberlains, sediarii, bussolanti, and other such groups were stripped of their costumes and transformed into the white-tied gentlemen of His Holiness. Even as the liturgical life of the Church would become a matter of clerical whim, so too would the ceremonial life of the Holy See become more clericalised.
But it also became ever more of a sort of clerical republic. Although Catholic Monarchs are circumscribed by Tradition and law, republican leaders seldom are, preferring to enact whatever pops into their heads regardless of precedent or even true utility. John Paul I, when made Patriarch of Venice, did away with the traditional entrance by gondola and likewise replaced the coronation with a presidential-style inauguration, which has been the case ever since. Pope Benedict eliminated the tiara from his personal heraldry while retaining it in general, but he abandoned the age-old title of ‘Patriarch of the West’—a move that predictably annoyed the Eastern Orthodox, the five oldest patriarchates of which predicate their relationship with the Pope upon this position. That said, he did restore several papal articles of clothing, understanding that it was and is the office of the Papacy that the faithful really need, rather than the elevation of the office-holder’s own personality.
So it is that we find ourselves in the current pontificate, which—its critics assert—has become an entirely authority-free zone, where power is exercised in a petty and personalistic manner reminiscent of a banana republic. Pope Francis’ jettisoning of the title of ‘Vicar of Christ’ is seen by such critics as the Pontiff’s refusal to play second fiddle to anyone, no matter how exalted. He is seen as having the same relationship with the Salvation of Souls as most recent American presidents have had with their country’s constitution. No matter how harsh such judgements may be, it is up to the current leadership in the Holy See to deprive them of any grain of truth. If the Vicar of Christ is anything, he is not the representative of some kind of supernatural president but rather of the King of Kings. For to forget is to invite disaster, such as those that have occasioned the unfortunate times when ecclesiastical and political figures alike have forgotten the awesome responsibility of the Supreme Pontiff.
