Pay No Attention to the Conclave

"The purpose of the institutional Church is to teach the faith, protect and administer the sacraments, and get the hell out of the way. Even if some Churchmen get that wrong, that is their role, not ours."

From Crisis

By Austin Ruse

We are not called to be Church watchers. We are not called to fuss at the rectory, the chancery, or the Vatican. Our proper “stance” is to face the world with the Church at our back. 

The way God set up the Church is one Pope, a lot more Bishops, and exponentially more laymen. This should tell us something about our role in the Church. Clearly, the “institutional” Church is not our role, either to be in it or be overly concerned with it. 

A few years ago, I wrote a column about three men who became overly concerned about the institutional Church and how their unremitting concern led them right out of the faith. In the case of my friends Rod Dreher and Joseph Sciambra, it led them out of the Catholic Church, and in the case of Steve Skojec, it led him right out of faith altogether. Each, in their own way, remains haunted by that which they left behind. Skojec just Substacked a searing cry of the heart about his journey of anger and brokenness to faithlessness. 

So strong is the gravitational pull of the institutional Church that there is a natural tendency for many to spend too much time focused on its doings and its comings and goings. Who is up, and who is down? Who is in, and who is out? Who is that new Bishop in Jefferson City, St. Paul, or Boise? And where are they on this and that and the other thing that is important to the Church? 

This watching intensifies as Francis is laid in the grave and the new Pope is chosen. The Cardinals are gathering in Rome. Did you see that picture of Sarah and Burke solemnly walking through the Bernini columns? You get the feeling the game is about to start. It is rather exciting.

But we are not called to be Church watchers. We are not called to fuss at the rectory, the chancery, or the Vatican. They are small beer compared to the task he gave us which is to convert one heart at a time and the whole world full of hearts. Our proper “stance” is to face the world with the Church at our back. 

The purpose of the institutional Church is to teach the faith, protect and administer the sacraments, and get the hell out of the way. Even if some Churchmen get that wrong, that is their role, not ours.
The flip side of laymen essentially ignoring the workings of the rectory, the chancery, and the Vatican is that we do not need their approval to work out our baptismal promises. We have roles that are connected to theirs but essentially independent. Want to start an apostolate? In fact, you are called to carry out apostolate. But you don’t need the Bishop’s approval to do it. In fact, he doesn’t really want to know. There is some deniability in that but also a recognition that you have your own independent role as long as you are faithful to the teachings. 

The layman’s role is not found in the institutional Church. Though some people will carry out these roles, our lay vocation is not carried out by serving on Church committees, reading at Mass, or being a Eucharistic minister. If this were true, there would not be nearly enough of such positions for each of us to carry them out. 

Instead, in his mercy and goodness, He gave us the world, and next to that, the ins and outs of who is the head of this or that Vatican dicastery or diocese is the smallest of beers. This is not to minimize that which He created for our salvation by the Good Lord Himself. 

As Dom Eugene Boylan wrote in This Tremendous Lover,

Our Lord, having won for us as the new Adam the supernatural life that the old Adam had lost, made certain arrangements to transmit the new life to each of us. Direct action on each of us is of course always possible, and since sanctification is a supernatural work in the strictest sense of the term, God alone can be its principal cause and agent. Yet in His mercy, He deigned to associate His creatures with him in his work so that they may share His happiness. The most obvious part of His plan for extending His benefits to all men is His Church. The association of this word with a building in which acts of worship are performed may distract it us from its real meaning, which is an organization, a congregation of persons arranged in a hierarchy of authority, endowed with certain powers, subject to Christ, and which transmits to each of its members the fruits of the redemption.

This magnificent thing, this magnificent divine thing, is degraded insofar as we treat it like a political body or a sports team or that it is a body we are called to try and bend to our will, even to the good as we see it. 

In our day, the question inevitably becomes, as someone said on X the other day, “…if bishops will not do the right thing, but laymen are capable of compelling bishops to do the right thing, is it possible that God might prompt those laymen to do so?” Yes. This is always the argument. And it is a good one, especially considering the priest sex scandals in recent decades. 

Some may be called to try and effect Church change, but only a few are genuinely called to this. And maybe, like St. Catherine of Siena, they are not called to carry it out in the public square. And maybe, just maybe, there is entirely too much of this? See how it harmed the faith of Rod, Joe, and Steve. 

And perhaps there is entirely too much church news. I am second to none in my admiration for Ed Pentin and Diana Montagna, but is their scorecard of papabile helpful except insofar as we fervently pray for the Cardinals to be inspired by the Holy Spirit to give us a Holy and Orthodox Pope? I think I am for that guy Pizzaballa, or Sarah. Erdö sounds good, and certainly the longest of shots, The Great Burke, but truly, how are we supposed to know? 

To be sure, some have truly added to our knowledge of Church issues. I think of George Weigel, Robert Royal, Eric Sammons, and Carl Olson. And I know I am open to charges of hypocrisy. After all, I have opined on Church issues in these pages, but never on the ball game, hardly ever on this Bishop, that Bishop, this dicastery, or that. I did write a piece a few weeks ago calling for a “Trumpian Pope,” someone who would take a chainsaw to the Deep Church. But I have done very little of that. 

For much of the Age of Francis, I have tried to assume the posture of a 13th-century peasant who knew there was a pope in Rome and may have known his name. He probably knew the name of his Bishop. He probably didn’t know the names of any others. He said his beads, went to Mass, prayed as much as he could, and tried to live in the presence of God. To this, we would add the apostolate. 

Our attention to the institutional Church is now intensified. The Pope is dead; he will be buried with at least some pomp; Francis could not do away with every bit of that. And the Conclave will meet to replace him. When the white smoke rises, I will run to the TV, radio, or social media, probably all of them, to find out who he is, but maybe in the meantime, we should pay no attention to the Conclave.