The Faith of a Liberal

Ten Popes who Shook the World
By Eamon Duffy
(Yale University Press, New Haven, 2011)

Prof Eamon Duffy is by a now well known figure even on this side of the Atlantic. His work falls into two categories. The first is a series of scholarly works which have revealed to us the liturgical, popular piety and social life of 16th century English Catholic Church before and during its near destruction – certainly as a national faith – by the Reformation:The Stripping of the Altars; Fires of Faith; the Voices of Morebath; Marking the Hours: English People and Their Prayers. The second consists of more popular works for the “public enlightenment” on history, theology and politics covering the entire course of Church history: Saints and Sinners; Faith of Our Fathers – and the present slim volume. In these latter works, Prof. Duffy appears as a dedicated advocate of the positions you would associate with The Tablet, America, Commonweal and The National Catholic Reporter. Naturally, this has endeared him to the BBC, for which he has functioned as an approved spokesman on all things Catholic. Ten Popes who shook the World is in fact largely a transcript of broadcasts on the history of the papacy given by Prof. Duffy in 2007.

The very title raises apprehension – does it not presage an entirely secular analysis of the papacy in line with the author’s liberal views? Moreover, the choice of popes in this volume appears debatable if secular significance is the requirement for membership: no Julius II, Sixtus V or Urban II? But Prof. Duffy quickly tells that he in fact not using “impact on the secular history” as an exclusive criterion. Rather, he has selected ten popes who took actions which had a decisive effect on the history of the Church – especially on the role of the papacy within the Church – or of the world.

Readers expecting a full if miniature biography of each pope will be disappointed. Prof. Duffy outlines briefly the age in which each described Pope lived and then generally focuses on a single aspect or act of each covered pontiff. Paul III is one exception and I think it not at all surprising that the description of this Pope of Prof. Duffy’s beloved 16th century is by far the most complete and nuanced presentation in the book. The descriptions and judgments of Ten Popes who shook the World follow closely those of Prof Duffy’s earlier, more comprehensive work on the papacy, Saints and Sinners, and I find myself repeating much of what I wrote years ago in a review of the first edition of that work.

The first “pope” covered (Prof Duffy allows that his status as such to be controversial) is St Peter. Now Prof. Duffy believes that there was in fact no “pope” or “bishop of Rome” in that city until well into the 2nd century. He also cites approvingly the view that the papacy as we find it today is not an “organic” development from an original apostolic seed but the by-product of successive, random historical events and forces – especially the French Revolution. Given this belief, I would have expected the author, in the interest of candor, to have spelled out more clearly that the historical and theological foundations of the authority claimed by the popes (and the bishops for that matter) are factually bogus. And would not this conclusion be of decisive importance for the entire discussion that follows?

From St. Peter, Prof. Duffy takes the reader on a vast sweep through history from the end of the Roman Empire through to the Renaissance, covering Leo the Great, Gregory the Great, Gregory VII, Innocent III and Paul III. What is said here is often succinct and insightful. But the narrative does suffer at times from the author’s attempts to show the “relevance” of the actions of these pontiffs to the contemporary secular world of the 21st century Western Europe: the Tome of Leo the Great helped to establish the ‘”freedom of human beings” (p. 47) and in Gregory VII’s struggles over lay investiture “human freedom took one small, uncertain step forward.” (p. 69). Crusading under Innocent III is of course questionable. And Cardinal Pole figures as a member of an alleged “soft left” (p. 87) around Cardinal Contarini that is contrasted with a Cardinal Caraffa dedicated to the inquisition and only “converting or killing” the heretics. To some extent this contrast existed – but of course under Queen Mary Cardinal Pole was himself not averse to employing force (Prof Duffy recently published a book dealing with this subject).

But a more strictly ideological narrative commences with the beginning of “modern times.” With the coming of the French revolution in 1789 “the fundamental values of Western democracy received their decisive expression”. “In theory Catholic Christianity had no quarrel with these noble ideals; indeed, many of them evolved out of Christian affirmations about the dignity and equality of human beings before God” (p. 94) ( It would thus seem that the French Revolution had at least as strong a claim to a divine origin as the papacy itself). What the Church needed was “a dialogue with the modern world.” (p. 100) But Pius IX, a man of limited intelligence surrounded by advisors urging him to extremes, issued only blanket condemnations. Cardinal Newman appears here through selective quotation exclusively as an opponent of the developments in papal and ecclesiastical authority between 1846 and 1878. From Pio Nono we move to Pius XII who is considered exclusively in relation to the accusation of “silence” in the face of crimes against the Jews in World War II. Duffy’s conclusion: guilty as charged!

Fortunately with John XXIII a new era dawned. Here Duffy strikes a new, hagiographic tone: Pope John was holy, he was humble, he worked to save the Jews. And most decisively, he called the Second Vatican Council “whose priority was pastoral care for a needy world, not the maintenance of the barricades which the Vatican had been throwing up ever since the French Revolution.” (p.121) For “Catholicism before Papa Roncalli had many strengths but it was overwhelmingly clerical, seeming both afraid and dismissive of the world around it, and though many of its people were warmly human, as an institution it existed in the deep freeze.” (p. 125) Moreover, Pope John also opened up relations with the communist world and “reversed Pius XII’s Cold War policy.” (p. 122) It was all a great gift to the Church and humanity, although Duffy does concede that John XXIII would have been horrified by some of the “fruits” of the council (including the loss of Latin).

The final pope considered is John Paul II. This biography, like that of Paul III, differs from the rest in its “multi-factor” approach. The hagiographic tone carries over here. John Paul II was “the most remarkable man of his time,” “the greatest man to occupy the chair of Peter for centuries” “the most intelligent holder of the office for centuries” etc. Yet a closer examination yields a more nuanced approach. On the plus side for Duffy, Pope Wojtyla apologized for “the sins of the Catholic Church against human dignity” “Catholic atrocities” and ‘Christian anti-Semitism.” (p. 133). “Ignoring worried advice from Cardinal Ratzinger” ( p.133) he inaugurated the Assisi gatherings. But Pope John Paul II also undertook to establish an assertive papacy at the heart of Catholicism to remedy the growing problems in the Church. He would seek to establish direct pastoral contact with Catholics everywhere. He allegedly appointed to the episcopacy and the Vatican “repressive” prelates and “defenders of strict and sometimes blinkered orthodoxy” (pp. 130, 132) We don’t know about that – but we can only agree with Duffy’s characterization of “the Pope’s evident lack of interest in management or institutional reform.” (p. 132) Perhaps John Paul II’s most significant legacy was his role in the fall of communism in Poland. But Duffy rightly points out that he did not cause the fall, rather he acted as a catalyst. Then there is the factor of John Paul II’s personal celebrity: “an equivocal legacy for the Church.” (p. 136) Given these qualifications, the reader might wonder at the effusive praise for John Paul II in this account – until one understands that Prof. Duffy elsewhere has contrasted Pope Wojtyla favorably with the “altogether smaller figure” of his successor.

Now Prof Duffy is aware of and records facts that might call into question key points of the narrative above. The French Revolution soon launched into a bloody anti Christian persecution. The anti-Catholicism of the 19th century Italian opponents of the papacy was evident. The reign of Pius IX witnessed such an expansion of the Church and of the religious orders that he could be considered “the most successful Pope ever.” (p. 96) In contrast, the results of Vatican II were decidedly mixed: “the reforms did not deliver the success many had hoped for. In the upheavals of the 1960’s Catholics shared the general collapse of confidence in venerable institutions and ideas. Thousands of priests, monks and nuns left to marry, recruitment halted….” (p. 128). Yet these facts do not shake Duffy’s story or even prompt him to explain them away.

What is the significance of all this? Why is this book published in 2011? Why would you purchase this volume, when for roughly the same money you can acquire Saints and Sinners by the same author, with much the same views but much additional valuable information besides? Perhaps the answer is the small BBC logo on the back cover. For this book testifies that not only does the revolutionary vision of the 1960’s remain clear and intact, but that the Catholic liberals dispose of the strongest possible secular allies in the media, government and education. “Don’t tread on me!” is this book’s unmistakable message to Pope Benedict and anyone else considering a reform, however tentative, of the Church.

But apart from its role in immediate Church politics, this book reveals a more fundamental issue with the liberal world view, which posits the regime of contemporary Western European “modernity” as an absolute value to which the Church must adapt itself. Indeed, to some extent modern democracy is claimed to have its origin in revelation itself. Now these views are by no means limited to progressives or Prof. Duffy – indeed, even the present pontiff on occasion has made statements in this direction. The question, is, however, how this revolutionary historical philosophy is compatible with a religion in which revelation was closed 2,000 years ago? A religion whose governing institutions also date back to that time (or, as Prof. Duffy would probably say, the 2nd -5th centuries AD)? Prof Duffy, in words echoing Macaulay, describes the epic of the papacy – surviving empires, dynasties and states over the ages to come down to us in the present time. (p.9) But how is this institution reconcilable with a modernity claiming to be the “end of history” and demanding absolute conformity? It is this unresolved contradiction that is at the heart of Catholic liberalism – and of the last Council itself.