The Pope as Hamlet

The contemporary challenge to authority in the Catholic Church has received so much attention from the press that little space has been given to the reaction of authority to the challenge. Practically no one asks publicly what the Pope is doing about the evils he deplores and to what extent he is responsible for them because of his refusal to act instead of just talking against them. Yet, as we see so clearly in the American universities today, the reaction to a challenge is often more important than the challenge itself. History is full of examples of regimes overthrown less through the virtue or wisdom or strength of their opponents, than through their own inept and pusillanimous defense of their position. It is hard to believe Charles I, Louis XVI and Nicholas II had to end up just as they did.

What we are witnessing in the Church today is the disintegration of the central administrative authority— and this not because of the strength of the attack but because of the weakness of the defense. Hitler’s comment on the Czech border defenses—that the strength of the concrete mattered little when the will to resist was so weak— comes to mind. We all know that though the constitutional and legal powers of the American President remain substantially the same, each Presidency differs markedly from the others. This is so not only because no two Presidents meet exactly the same problems but because each has his own style, personality, temperament, character, etc. The same is true of pontificates and popes.

JK

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John H. Knox

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The contemporary challenge to authority in the Catholic Church has received so much attention from the press that little space has been given to the reaction of authority to the challenge. Practically no one asks publicly what the Pope is doing about the evils he deplores and to what extent he is responsible for them because of his refusal to act instead of just talking against them. Yet, as we see so clearly in the American universities today, the reaction to a challenge is often more important than the challenge itself. History is full of examples of regimes overthrown less through the virtue or wisdom or strength of their opponents, than through their own inept and pusillanimous defense of their position. It is hard to believe Charles I, Louis XVI and Nicholas II had to end up just as they did.

What we are witnessing in the Church today is the disintegration of the central administrative authority— and this not because of the strength of the attack but because of the weakness of the defense. Hitler’s comment on the Czech border defenses—that the strength of the concrete mattered little when the will to resist was so weak— comes to mind. We all know that though the constitutional and legal powers of the American President remain substantially the same, each Presidency differs markedly from the others. This is so not only because no two Presidents meet exactly the same problems but because each has his own style, personality, temperament, character, etc. The same is true of pontificates and popes.