4 Principal Sources of Power of the Roman Catholic Church
By Stephen D. Mumford, DrPH | 15 May 2015
This excerpt has been adapted from Chapter 4 of our Chairman Dr. Stephen
D. Mumford’s book, American Democracy and the Vatican: Population
Growth and National Security (1984). The book is available at Kindle here
and to read for free here.
Chapter 4: The Catholic Church and Social Justice Issues
Numerous books have been written by both Catholic clergy and laypersons
charging that the Vatican and Catholic hierarchy in general concern
themselves too much with dominance and too little with social justice, that
struggle for and retention of power enjoys the highest priority, and that
positive stands on social justice are taken only when they are expedient and
do not threaten the equilibrium of the Church. Among these Catholic critics
are writers such as Malachi Martin,[1] Andrew Greeley,[2] and Jean-Guy
Vaillancourt.[3] This preoccupation with power has serious implications for
non-Catholics as well, regarding some of the most sensitive and important
social issues of our day. They include the Equal Rights Amendment, the
environmental movement, legalized abortion, family planning and population
growth control, and illegal immigration control. This chapter discusses the
sources and current threats to the power of the Church and some of the
bold actions the Vatican has taken to counter these threats.
The past few years have been very active for the Roman Catholic Church in
America, and, as time passes, its activities have become less thinly veiled
and its intentions more evident. Particularly since the Pastoral Plan of Action
of November 1975, the Catholic Church has placed in gear its formidable
political machinery. Although American bishops said that this plan for
political mobilization was designed in response to the legalization of
abortion, astute observers now recognize that abortion was simply an
excuse for the American Church to mobilize politically.
At the 1975 annual meeting of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops
at which the Bishops’ Pastoral Plan for Pro-Life Activities (often referred to
as the Pastoral Plan of Action) was announced, then Archbishop Joseph
Bemardine of Cincinnati told the nation’s Roman Catholic bishops that “the
will of God and the law of reason” demand an unrelenting fight against
abortion. This “will of God and law of reason” justified, in the Church’s eyes,
the implementation of the Pastoral Plan of Action and what the influential
National Catholic Reporter, a lay-edited weekly, referred to as the creation of
a new political party, an American Catholic Party.[4]
Sources of Power
The Roman Catholic Church is an organization whose influence exceeds that
of most governments of the world. How did the Church arrive at this
position? What are its principal sources of power?
First, the Church establishment is an absolute monarchy. In this highly
autocratic situation, the chain of command is well defined, and all in
positions of authority are absolutely responsive to their superiors. When the
pope speaks, his subordinates listen—at least through the rank of priest.
Anyone who steps out of line is quickly dealt with, usually very quietly.
Father Drinan and Hans Kung are examples. Unquestioning loyalty to the
monarch who sits on St. Peter’s throne is demanded and received.
Second is the claim of infallibility, a rather recent invention, first proposed in
the early 1880s. For centuries, the Church had maintained considerable
temporal power. About this time it became apparent to the Vatican that it
was about to lose all of its temporal power, so it struck upon this idea of
infallibility—its new source of power.
Third is the ever-present threat of excommunication: a person may be
excluded from entering heaven by declaration of the pope. Bishops and
priests also possess this power as they can recommend excommunication
to the pope. This is probably the most powerful social engineering weapon
ever devised by humankind. For the true believer, there is absolutely nothing
worse than excommunication, not even death. Such a ruthless weapon says
much about the nature of the relationship of the hierarchy to the
communicant.
The fourth is indoctrination, which is fundamental to control over the laity. It
is this source of power that the Church sees seriously threatened by
numerous efforts to improve the quality of life, such as
1. democracy in general
2. the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA)
3. legalized abortion
4. the family-planning movement
5. the control of illegal immigration
6. the protection of the environment
7. the Global 2000 Report[5]
Each of these thrusts threatens the power of the Church by undermining its
carefully indoctrinated authority. Certain tenets have been persistently
inculcated during the process. If these tenets are undermined by civil law
instituted by temporal authorities, then the authority of the Church itself is
undermined and, in the eyes of its followers, the power of the Church
diminished.
The Social Justice Issues
True democracy is very threatening to the Church. As long as it can control
the lawmakers, as it did when the Christian Democrats held sway in Italy for
several decades, the Church has no problem with democracy. However,
when a democratic government implements advances that tend to diminish
influence of the hierarchy and thus weaken its hold on the populace—such
as legalized abortion and equal rights for women—these actions can
become very irritating. Furthermore, a democratic political system
encourages clergy and laypersons to demand a more democratic Church
such as existed in the earliest years of the Church. These demands can be
exasperating to a Church leadership that rules absolutely. Why should the
Church share its power? Its success lies in the fact that it is the most
monolithic organization on earth.
The Church has found itself most effective in alliances with right-wing
dictatorships. Being very conservative itself, it feels most at home with
conservatives. Right-wing dictatorships and the Church coexist in a
symbiotic relationship. The Church can deliver the control of the masses,
and the right-wing governments permit the Church to conduct its business
and its wishes, including ensuring the passage of laws which enhance its
power.
Three popular modern movements—ERA, family planning, and legal abortion
—all undermine Church authority and power by having as their ends the
legalization and promotion of acts that completely counter the tenets with
which the Church leadership has indoctrinated its congregants.
The Equal Rights Amendment would, in effect, encourage women to seek
out interests outside a role devoted to a lifetime of reproducing and rearing
faithful Catholics. Most important, the adoption of the Equal Rights
Amendment by the secular will soon lead to demands by women belonging
to Catholic religious orders to be recognized as first-class citizens. No
longer would the Church have at its disposal a force of millions of docile and
obedient nuns. Actions such as the recent suit filed against a bishop in New
England would become commonplace. There would be unending challenges
to the authority of the all-male leadership of the Church by these women.
This prospect has undoubtedly generated many nightmares for the
occupants of the Vatican. Furthermore, calls for democracy within the
Church would be strengthened. The ERA, therefore, seriously threatens the
power of the leadership of the Catholic Church.
The Church has staked much of its authority on the issues of family planning
and abortion. Initially, the Church took up these issues because it has always
been highly pronatalist, believing that through numbers comes strength,
and the greater the number of Catholics the better.
The Church’s claim that abortion and contraception are immoral continues
to be eroded. What is moral is pretty much determined when a consensus is
reached. Murder is immoral. There is a consensus. However, on the issues
of abortion and contraception, America continues to slowly move away from
the Church’s position. A majority of Americans belong to religious groups
that do not believe that abortion and family planning are immoral, including
nearly all of the major Protestant groups. An intimate knowledge of the sex
lives of individuals gained through confessionals gives priests considerable
power over individuals, and ultimately this power is exercised by the Vatican.
The celibate males of the Church have always given considerable attention
to the sexual lives of their followers, and concern with family planning and
abortion became natural concerns.
On these issues of abortion and family planning the Church went out on a
limb, staking much of its authority on these two issues. It cannot lose on
these two issues without seriously damaging its authority with subsequent
substantial loss in power. Both the Vatican and its critics agree here. The
Church cannot lose these two battles nor can it reverse its positions. The
course is irrevocably set. The Catholic leadership persists on these two
issues because its power and authority are at stake. Therefore, abortion and
family planning are issues of power—principally Catholic power issues—not
moral issues.
Environmental protection and the Global 2000 Report threaten the Church
indirectly but nevertheless quite seriously. The basic thesis of the
environmental movement, with its inherent premise of population
stabilization based on the limitations of the land, is that, if one exceeds the
carrying capacity of our ecosystem, an irreversible process is set in motion.
Environmental degradation caused by excessive stress on the ecosystem
continues to reduce the carrying capacity of the ecosystem until it
approaches zero. Desertification is one ultimate result. If this premise is
accepted, then it becomes obvious that population growth cannot continue
as it has for long. Once this is recognized, changes in social mores and
previously pronatalist attitudes will soon bring acceptance of family planning
and abortion by the Catholic laity. Thus, the environmental movement
threatens the authority of the Church and therefore its power.
The Global 2000 Report was prepared by the most distinguished scientists
in our government and is by far the best study of the earth as an ecosystem
ever undertaken. I believe that it is unquestionably among the most
important reports ever prepared by our government. It examines projections
in twelve areas including world food supply, water supply, energy, minerals,
and population growth. Although the findings are conservative and far too
optimistic, it makes a powerful case by providing an enormous amount of
evidence that the world is in deep trouble, that the ecosystem cannot hope
to provide for the world’s rapidly expanding population. One of the firm
conclusions is that population growth must be sharply curbed if we are to
avoid a world in chaos. This means wide availability and use of family
planning and abortion. Thus, if the Global 2000 Report is recognized as
truth, then family planning and abortion will be accepted as necessary for
survival. Thus the Global 2000 movement threatens the Church.
Another threat to the Church is the illegal immigration control movement. If
this movement succeeds, and what is perceived by Latin Americans and
other governments as an escape valve is shut off, these governments would
logically say, “Our demographic course cannot continue.” These
governments would have little choice but to confront the Church and say, “If
we are to survive as governments, then we must get serious about
population growth control. Otherwise, we in Latin America are destined to
become a sea of chaos. We, as Latin Americans, must make family planning
and abortion services fully available and encourage their use.” Turning off
the valve to illegal immigration is therefore a serious threat to the power of
the Church.
This movement threatens the Church in another way. The charge is that the
Vatican strongly desires to see a Catholic majority in America so that the
Vatican can exercise much greater, if not complete, control over the
American democratic process, in the same way that the Vatican controlled
the government of Italy for decades through the Christian Democratic Party.
Many authors have advanced this idea. I have read this charge time and
again over the past decade or so, and, until recently, I thought the idea
ridiculous. But after observing the Church’s bold and thinly veiled actions in
the Reagan Administration, I now believe these authors are probably
describing reality. If 150 million Latin Americans legally and illegally migrate
to the United States in the next twenty to thirty years, this apparent goal can
be achieved. And, as I discussed at length in chapter two,[6] these numbers
are demonstrably not farfetched.
The Reagan Administration is clearly being manipulated by the Catholic
Church, apparently with the president’s blessing. In an April 1982 speech
before the National Catholic Education Association, Reagan made the
incredible statement, “I am grateful for your help in shaping American policy
to reflect God’s will…. And I will look forward to further guidance from His
Holiness Pope John Paul II during an audience I will have with him in
June.”[7] Mr. Reagan is obviously leaning on the Vatican for a lot of help, and
he’s getting it—much of it not in the best interest of the United States.
If the United States government shows no more willingness to deal with
illegal immigration than has been shown by the Reagan Administration, then
a migration from Latin America of the magnitude described above is
certainly imminent. A Catholic majority in the United States and Vatican
control of our government would greatly enhance the power of the Church
not only in this country but worldwide.
[1] Malachi Martin, The Final Conclave (Briarcliff Manor, NY: Stein and Day,
1978).
[2] Andrew M. Greeley, The Making of the Popes, 1978: The Politics of
Intrigue in the Vatican (Kansas City: Andrews and McNeil, Inc., 1979).
[3] Jean-Guy Vaillancourt, Papal Power: A Study of Vatican Control Over Lay
Catholic Elites (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980).
[4] “U.S. Bishops Spark New Abortion Debate,” INTERCOM (1976), 4:1:13.
[5] Global 2000 Report to the President: Entering the Twenty-First Century,
Vol. 1 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1980). 0-256-752.
[6] “Illegal Immigration, National Security, and the Church” first appeared in
The Humanist (November/December 1981).
[7] A. Menendez, “Of Presidents and Popes,” Church and State (1982),
35:6:1.
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