The pope is not the church
Yes, the new pope has an important role, but we shouldn't forget that he's only part of the larger Catholic package
Topics: Religion Dispatches, Religion, Catholic Church, pope, Pope Francis I, History, Life News, Politics News
In this photo provided by the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, Pope Francis celebrates his inaugural Mass with cardinals, inside the Sistine Chapel, at the Vatican, Thursday, March 14, 2013. (AP Photo/L'Osservatore Romano, ho) (Credit: AP)The pope is not the church.
It’s going to be very tempting to forget this fact over the next few days. The pundits, Catholic and otherwise, have been rapt in the suspense of awaiting the arrival of Pope Francis. We heard a lot of impossible hopes for who the next pope would be, along with the less thrilling reality of the actual candidates. But Catholics, along with the masses who have been suddenly and momentarily interested in Catholic affairs, should remember that the papacy is not to be confused with the church itself. At no time should this have been more clear than those strange and special few days when the Catholic Church was a people—an assembly, a community, a mystical body—without a pope.

This is not to say that a pope doesn’t have an important job. It’s an office with considerable (if metaphorical) justification in the Bible, as well as a very long and venerable (if checkered) tradition. Popes help hold together a diverse church, one far more varied and interesting than most people realize; Vatican City and St. Patrick’s Cathedral are part of the same church as the back-side of an altar in Guatemala covered in wax and feathers and the parish on the South Side of Chicago that worships with a gospel choir and African dance. A pope is part of the Catholic package for sure, but only part.
Catholic Christianity has a long tradition of being shaped from the margins, starting with its founder.
The Jesus we meet in the Gospels is refreshingly indifferent to those who claim to run the institutions of the world, both religious and secular. He doesn’t appear to have been a revolutionary in the modern sense of seeking to replace those in power with an ideology, but nor did ever take authorities more seriously than necessary. Render Caesar’s coins unto Caesar, he said, but save the rest for God and neighbor. He accepted the death sentence that the high priests and imperial legates placed upon him, but he never stopped laying bare their hypocrisy. In that ultimate obedience to authority he found freedom, for himself and—as far as Christians are concerned—for all of humanity.






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