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Notes -
Is The Pope Catholic? No Really
Rumors are swirling that Pope Francis will demand the resignation of Joseph Strickland, the popular conservative bishop of Tyler, Texas. He is notable as the only bishop to personally attend the protest against the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence at Dodgers Stadium. Meanwhile, bishops in Germany are now openly blessing same-sex couples in direct violation of Catholic doctrine. A cursory search reveals no disciplinary action against any of these bishops in response. By their fruits you will know them. In rationalist terms, this is called revealed preference.
This would be less of a problem for religions like Mormonism that allow for continuing revelation. Contrary to popular belief, the Pope is not a prophet. He can not walk out onto the balcony of St. Peter's and say, "Sorry guys, just talked to Jesus. The second coming is canceled." He would be immediately recognized as a fraud. He is bound* both by the deposit of faith and the dogmatic pronouncements of the church.
This leads to an interesting Ship of Theseus problem. The Catholic Church has had it's parishioners, officials, and doctrine replaced. Is it still the Catholic Church? It's not even just the gender stuff. Here is Pope Francis participating in a literal pagan ritual. I have seen him apologize for the residential school system, but I have yet to see him apologize for violating the first commandment.
*in theory lol
The oldest institution was no match for the long march through the institutions. Of course, there's a millenium-old solution for those Catholics who care -- schism.
The problem with that is that institutional strength is one of the things that lets you resist modernity. The Catholics have resisted much more effectively than smaller communions. The Church of England. The Evangelical Church in Germany. The various Lutheran churches in Scandinavia. The Presbyterians. The Methodists. I'm not denying that there are genuinely faithful people in all those churches, and those people are much to be honoured, but institutionally they have all put up measurably less of a fight than the Roman Catholic Church.
Of course, there are evangelical churches, and perhaps more importantly, churches in the Global South, but I think the former are more entrapped by a politics, and the latter... well, as time goes by the South becomes more and more like the North.
The advice I would give other Christians is to not put your faith in institutions or in politics. The institution won't save you, and schisming to found a new institution also won't save you. The logic of worldly power isn't going to help you here - on the contrary, that logic seems to be on the side of your enemies. But then, Christianity was always about believing in something hopeless and surprising, that amid all the failure and heresy and the domination of the Ruler of This World, God is doing something in secret, and he will draw impossible triumph out of the very moment of failure.
My advice to Christians is to pray more, and be right with God. Nothing else matters.
Ah, I should have made the distinction more clear. I think they only contradict each other if you conflate sociological and theological concerns. Sociologically speaking, strong institutions are necessary to resist the pressure of modernity. Theologically speaking, the point I'm making is that the churches might all succumb to modernity - much as the prophets succumbed and were killed and persecuted - but that God might still draw victory out of it, much as he drew victory out of the death of his Son.
You need strong institutions in order to win a political or social battle, as it were. But I'd content that Christianity ought to recast the importance of winning such battles. The purpose of Christian life, as it were, is to be crucified with Christ. It is to share in his death so that we may share in his life. Romans 6:5-11. It is, in a way, to choose to be defeated along with Christ.
Certainly, the sacraments are essential. But - and perhaps this is somewhere I depart from Catholicism - I'm not convinced that you need the entire institutional hierarchy to have the sacraments. Even for the most high church Catholic, all you need is a priest, and even then, laypeople can perform sacraments in extremis, most notably baptism. Sacraments may imply some minimal level of organisation, but they don't take you all the way to the pope handing down decrees from the Vatican, and neither do they imply that should a heretic (God forbid) sit on Peter's throne, everything is doomed.
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