The question of whether the Pope is chosen by the Holy Spirit tends to stir up intense passions. For some, the answer is obviously yes, because that is what has always been said, to the point that anyone who claims otherwise is not a Catholic. For others, the answer must necessarily be negative, and saying that the Pope is chosen by the Holy Spirit is little short of blasphemy. Few questions would receive such disparate and contradictory answers from orthodox Catholics eager to profess the Catholic faith in its entirety and without discounts.
At the risk of disappointing those who would like me to agree with them in a simplistic way in one direction or the other, I am afraid the proper answer is: both. Or, to put it better, the correct answer depends on what the question is meant to ask.
As the scholastic principle says, to think is to distinguish. In order to give a good answer to the question, we first have to understand it well and clarify its meaning, which is not univocal. Otherwise, we get lost in questions de verbis, that is, of mere language, and we reach no conclusion at all.
Is the Pope Chosen by the Holy Spirit?
1) No, in the sense that God would act by overriding the freedom of the cardinal electors in order to have “His candidate” elected. God deeply respects our freedom. In fact, His Son became man and died on the cross precisely as a consequence of that respectful love of God. The cardinals have a special grace of state, granted by the Holy Spirit, to fulfill their mission as electors well, but that grace does not suppress their freedom. Therefore, the princes of the Church can resist God’s grace (and it is to be assumed that, in many cases, they have done so throughout the history of the Church), casting their vote for worldly reasons.
The cardinals elect whomever they wish, and they can act badly in doing so, rejecting the Will of God and electing an ill-suited candidate, whether by seeking their own advantage, by using worldly criteria, by letting themselves be swayed by friendships or enmities, or for any other reason. There is nothing strange in that, and hence the enormous responsibility of the cardinal electors, for which they will have to render an account to God on the Day of Judgment.
Aware that choosing well requires the inspiration of the Spirit of God, and that this inspiration is not automatic, the Church provides that, before the voting begins, the cardinals pray the Veni Creator, asking that the hardness of their hearts may not stand in the way of the Paraclete’s illumination. The rest of Catholics, for their part, also pray intensely during those days, while awaiting the white smoke, begging that the cardinals may choose well and let themselves be guided by the Holy Spirit.
2) Yes, in the sense that it is God who confers the mission of shepherding the Church. A validly elected Pope does not receive his mission from human hands, but from the Holy Spirit. It is Christ Himself who says to him, Feed my sheep. The Successor of Peter is not a “representative” of the cardinals, or of the bishops, or of the faithful; rather, he has received a special call from God.
The traditional liturgy of the Church speaks in this sense: Deus, omnium fidelium pastor et rector, famulum tuum N., quem pastorem Ecclesiae tuae praeesse voluisti, propitius réspice… That is, “O God, shepherd and ruler of all the faithful, look favorably upon Thy servant N., whom Thou hast willed to place at the head of Thy Church as shepherd…”. This same affirmation is repeated in a multitude of places, in the liturgical texts concerning the Pope: “O God […] give Thy Church a pontiff” (Ordo rituum conclavis 18), “Thou who hast chosen him as successor of Peter” (ORC 70), “our Pope N., to whom Thou didst entrust the pastoral care of Thy flock” (Ordo exsequiarum Romani Pontificis, 39), “whom [God] has established as Bishop of Rome, successor of Peter in the pastoral government of the Church” (OERP 33), “Thou who didst set him as the visible foundation of the unity of the Church” (OERP 135).
As a consequence of that mission given by God, he “has in the Church, by virtue of his office as Vicar of Christ and Shepherd of the whole Church, full, supreme, and universal power, which he may always exercise in complete freedom” (Lumen Gentium 22) and “enjoys […] infallibility by virtue of his ministry when, as supreme Shepherd and Teacher of all the faithful, who strengthens his brethren in the faith, he proclaims by a definitive act a doctrine on questions of faith and morals” (LG 25). In other words, his authority comes from God and not from men, and so it does not depend on the cardinal electors, on the good or bad discernment those cardinals may have shown in electing him, on his own human qualities, or on the support he enjoys among the faithful.
Thus, the Pope deserves great respect at all times, as Vicar of Christ. The same is true of your earthly father, because, even if he were a disaster, the fourth commandment would remain in force: Honour thy father and thy mother. In fact, the duty to respect and honor the Pope is part of that fourth commandment. Let us not deceive ourselves: if we do not show the Pope the supernatural respect due to him, we are failing in our duty as Catholics.
3) No, in the sense that, by the work of the Holy Spirit, the most prudent, the wisest, or the holiest of the possible candidates is the one elected Pope. It is enough to read the history books to realize this. There have been Popes who were saints, good, mediocre, rather bad, and disastrous.
Nor does it mean that the one elected will magically become holy, good, and pious. The Papacy is not an eighth sacrament, in which God guarantees the transformation of the one who receives it, as in Baptism. Papal impeccability has never been part of the Catholic faith: the Pope goes to confession regularly like everyone else, because he needs it. The day after being elected, the Pope is the same man he was the day before, but with a special mission from God.
Nor is it true that the Pope gets everything he says right by the work of the Holy Spirit. Papal infallibility, as the First Vatican Council established, operates only in very specific and limited situations (matters of faith and morals defined solemnly and ex cathedra). In everything else, the Pope can err, and in fact he does err. A Pope with mediocre theological knowledge will still have that mediocre knowledge after being elected to govern the Church, and one who has been a great scholar will continue to be one after sitting on the throne of Peter.
Just as we said regarding point 1, the Church is very aware of all this, and that is why she has us pray often for the Pope. Especially at every Mass, all of which include a prayer “for Thy servant Pope N.”. Constantly, all over the earth, Catholics raise their prayers to God, asking Him to enlighten the Pope, guide him, comfort him, give him discernment, and help him to lead the Church. As I pointed out a long time ago, the Pope has many helps, human and divine, for carrying out his mission, but there always remains the scandalous fact (in the good sense) of his human frailty: power is made perfect in infirmity.
4) Yes, in the sense that the Pope there is at any given moment is the one God has given to you, and he forms part of the loving design of His Providence for your life.
This fourth answer is very hard for us to understand, because grace, by its very nature, surpasses our understanding. Besides, we do not quite believe what Scripture says: to them that love God, all things work together unto good.
And all means all. Not only the appointment of the holy and marvelous Popes, but also that of the disastrous Popes there have been. Even the appointment of that Pope who had who knows how many children, and of that other one who sold or handed out offices as if they were chocolates? Yes, even those. Christ is the Lord of history and nothing escapes His power. The counsel of the Lord standeth for ever. The cardinals can blunder as badly as can be (and they will have to answer for it on the Day of Judgment), but, in some way that surpasses our limited intelligence, God takes those human failures and sins into account and integrates them into His plan in order to do something even more wonderful.
The cardinals may err or act badly, but God has not erred in giving you a Pope, as we saw in section 2. The Pope you have is the one He had prepared for you before the creation of the world. He may be a saint, or perhaps a walking catastrophe, or neither fish nor fowl, but he is the one God has given you, and He knows what He is doing. He is the Pope you need in order to become a saint, which is what matters. God searcheth the hearts and knows what yours needs, even if you do not understand it.
It is necessary, therefore, always to keep in mind these four possible senses of the apparently simple question of whether the Pope is chosen by the Holy Spirit, because they give it paradoxical answers, which seem contradictory but are not. Like all Christian vocations, the call to be the Successor of Peter involves at once the greatness of the gift and the smallness of the one who receives that gift, the strength of God and human weakness, the divine plan and man’s freedom.
Beyond these conceptual answers, I believe that, in order to understand the question well, it helps to take an example closer to home: our parish priest. The case of the Pope confuses us, because we have him very far away, and that distance wraps him in a halo of mystery. Our parish priest, on the other hand, we know well: his defects and qualities are plain to see. We are familiar with his history, his problems, how badly or how well he preaches, his fondness for draft cider, and the fact that he was appointed because he had failed in his previous parish, or because he is a buddy of the bishop, or because he has always been a saint.
Well then, surprising as it may seem, the truth is that your parish priest is chosen by the Holy Spirit in the same sense in which the Pope is chosen by the Holy Spirit and is not chosen by the Holy Spirit in the same sense in which the Pope is not. That is, yes in senses 2 and 4, but no in senses 1 and 3. Just as with the Pope, his appointment may be due to mistaken decisions and, obviously, he does not have to be a saint or a great scholar. Nevertheless, he has received from God Himself his mission of collaborating with a Successor of the Apostles and of shepherding the faithful of a parish, and he too is the parish priest God had planned for you from before the creation of the world, precisely the one you need.
If something like this strikes us as not very glamorous for a Pope, perhaps it is because we relish the things that are of men, not the things that are of God. If we believe that the election of the Pope is substantially different from the appointment of our parish priest, perhaps we are confusing the Pope with some kind of religious superstar. If the defects of a Pope take away our faith, it may be that our faith is more human than supernatural. If we are not capable of treating the Pope (and our parish priest) with respect, perhaps we need a little more ascesis. After all, in this matter as in so many others, it is possible to err both by excess and by defect.
In short, our understanding of the Pope’s mission and our relationship with him must be guided by faith, hope, and charity. Since these three virtues are theological and are received from God, what falls to us is to pray and not to faint, so that the Holy Spirit may enlighten the Pope… and enlighten us as well.
Author: Bruno Moreno Ramos
Source: Infocatolica
