Divinity of Doubt by Vincent Bugliosi

Author:Vincent Bugliosi
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Vanguard Press
Published: 2011-03-21T16:00:00+00:00

Indeed, Jesus told his followers, “Here is a list of some of the members that God has placed in the body of Christ.” The list includes “apostles” (which we’ve seen includes priests), “teachers,” and “those who can help others” (1 Corinthians 12:28). So we have, if we’re to believe holy scripture, priests being “in the body of Christ.” Jesus Christ and Catholic priests can’t get too much closer than that, can they?

In his Catechism on the Priesthood, St. John Vianney, a nineteenth-century French priest who is considered the patron saint of all priests, wrote, “What is a priest? A man who holds the place of God—a man who is invested with the powers of God. When the priest remits sins, he does not say, ‘God pardons you.’ He says ‘I absolve you.’ If I were to meet a priest and an angel, I should salute the priest before I saluted the angel. The latter is the friend of God, but the priest holds His place.”

The official statement of church belief, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, says, “In the ecclesial service of the ordained priest, it is Christ himself who is present to his Church. . . . By virtue of the sacrament of Holy Orders [a priest] acts in persona Christi Capitis . . . possess[ing] the authority to act in the power and place of Christ himself” (Catechism , number 1548).

The Council of Trent said, “Justly, priests are called not only angels, but even gods, because of the fact that they exercise in our midst the power of the immortal God. . . . The power has nothing equal or like it on earth. It even surpasses human reason and understanding.”

It could not be more obvious from the above that on so many levels the relationship of an agent for an insurance company (or car dealership or stock brokerage firm, etc.) to his company cannot be compared to that of the relationship between a priest and Jesus Christ in the Catholic church.

I would ask theologians to give this matter some time and thought. The question is whether it is reasonable to conclude that if popes and priests have the power and intimate identification with Jesus Christ and God that the church claims they do, they would no more be capable of being corrupt or immoral than Jesus would. (1 John 3:9 asserts that “those who have been born into God’s family do not sin because God’s life is in them. So they cannot sin.” Again, see “in the body of Christ” in 1 Corinthians 12:28, and recall the Council of Trent’s holding regarding priests.) If this is their conclusion, it may be that the church, by overreaching, has ironically defined itself out of its own existence. By that I mean the very immoral conduct of many priests, bishops, and popes through the centuries may invalidate the very premise of the Catholic church’s legitimacy—that it is the only true church of Christ because Christ chose it to be his representative here on earth.

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