To the liberal Catholic Lord Acton (1834-1902) is attributed the phrase: “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” In democracies it has been concluded that power must be distrusted and therefore limited. For this reason, it is divided, among other things, through the recognition of fundamental rights, the separation of powers (legislative, executive, and judicial), subsidiarity and federalism, referendums, and term limits. Through a “social contract” of all citizens, the Constitution, political power is agreed to be shared in this way. But even this does not always restrain it sufficiently.
In the Church, the problem of power is even more pressing. There, not all the means mentioned exist to fragment power. Rather, according to the doctrine of the faith and the Code of Canon Law (CIC/1983), the Pope “by virtue of his office possesses supreme, full, immediate, and universal ordinary power in the Church” (can. 331).
The Pope therefore possesses absolute power. Does absolute power therefore corrupt absolutely within the Church? If the Church is considered only with human eyes, one would have to say: yes, it does. But if considered with the eyes of faith, this is not true. For there is one single “instrument” to limit papal omnipotence: unconditional obedience to Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture, to which the Pope is bound in conscience. Only because the Church as a whole and the Pope in particular are subject to this limitation of power is it possible to entrust absolute power to a man within her. Distrust of power is thus overcome in the Church because the faithful trust that the Pope knows he is bound, by unconditional obedience to the faith, in the exercise of his power, which in itself is unlimited.
This trust has been shaken in the Church; for many, it is destroyed. Pope Francis turned the indissolubility of marriage into a farce with “Amoris Laetitia.” It now applies only in theory. In practice, with a few “pastoral discernments”—on any basis and by anyone—one can live in adultery with a clear conscience. The Vatican’s extra-liturgical blessing of a few seconds for same-sex and extramarital couples (“Fiducia supplicans”) represents a further departure from Christian marriage. Ambiguous gestures such as the worship of Pachamama in the Vatican and the “Document on Human Fraternity” (Abu Dhabi Declaration) of 2019 have in fact denied the Christian universalism of salvation. The appointment of laypeople to leadership positions in the Vatican that involve the exercise of governing power constitutes a rupture with the Second Vatican Council (LG 21; Nota explicativa praevia 2). It undermines the sacramental-hierarchical order of the Church. This situation continues under the pontificate of Pope Leo XIV. Within the framework of “synodality,” the Apostolic See has published a document that attempts to justify the rejection of the Second Vatican Council (Final Report of Study Group 5 on the sacrament of order and the “potestas sacra”). Without comment—and irresponsibly—the Apostolic See has published a heretical text that relativizes the Church’s teaching on marriage and the family (Final Report of Study Group 9 on “complex issues”).
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