1635: The Papal Stakes

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

Cardinal Antonio Barberini dipped his pen into the waiting ink as the other attendees in the Garden Room settled into their customary seats. Vitelleschi stood and raised his hands in something that looked like both a call for silence, and a benediction. “Today we resume our deliberations with the issue that Cardinal Wadding introduced last time: does the up-time ecumenical council known as Vatican II reflect God’s intents across all eternity? Or was it specifically, and only, infallibly valid in relation to the up-time world?” He turned to Cardinal Mazzare. “If you would be so good as to begin our discussions, Your Eminence.”

Mazzare folded his hands in front of him and seemed to be collecting his thoughts. As he did, Barberini noted that the up-timer’s posture was more studied, more implicitly cautious than usual. Antonio put his nose back into his note taking, but reflected that today’s session might prove very interesting, indeed.

Mazzare began. “Today’s topic troubles me more than any other, simply because the passage that Cardinal Wadding cited at the close of the last session seems implicitly contradictory. How can infallibility be transitory? Is the truth not the truth? Is the will of God not the will of God? We all agree that there is but one God and one Truth and they are the same. But then how is it that some of these timeless verities are ‘transitory’?”

Mazzare spread his hands. “I would offer the following answer, which is not entirely unlike the one Cardinal Wadding seems ready to propose: in short, although God and his truth are constant and unchanging, humankind is not. Vatican II was convened to make the Church more accessible. God loves his children, and as they grow, he wishes to communicate with them in a manner suitable to their new maturity. The delegates of Vatican II understood this and merely included a reminder to future popes and councils that, as the ages accumulate and humanity grows in grace and wisdom, the same process will probably need to be undertaken again. Our Holy Father is truly our Holy Parent, who shows his love for us by adjusting his lessons, his language, and his challenges to our level of maturity and readiness. He does not give us more than we can handle, nor does he keep us frozen as infants: he expresses his thought and love to us as befit our needs, just as we aspire to a greater understanding of Him. Neither side of the human relationship with God is static; it is perpetually a dynamic equilibrium.”

Vitelleschi’s right eyebrow rose slightly. “Cardinal Mazzare, you have not yet spoken to the matter of papal authority, of how the doctrines and dogmas of up-time popes should be received in this world.”

Mazzare shrugged. “I do not speak to it because the answer seems obvious; if they were popes, they were infallible in matters of faith and morals. And they were popes. On the other hand, they are dead popes. Their authority does not impinge upon the popes of this time any more than the popes who have died here in this world.”

Barberini looked up for a moment, surprised by the falling tone at the end of Mazzare’s statement. Clearly, this was all he intended to say on the matter. Which was surprising, because the final declaration sounded more like an evasion dressed up as an assertion, rather than a solid argument. Barberini was not surprised that Wadding was on his feet a moment later.

Vitelleschi glanced at Wadding, then back to Mazzare. “Cardinal Wadding seems eager to question you on this statement, Cardinal Mazzare.”

Mazzare smiled. “I rather expected he might. I am happy to share the floor with my colleague.”

Wadding wasted no time probing at the exegetical evasions that Barberini himself had detected. “Your Eminence, you say that the popes in your world are analogous to the prior ones in our own world, correct?”

“Insofar as their infallibility is concerned, yes.”

“But how can this be?”

“How can this not be, if they are all popes?”

“Let us leave aside the issue of infallibility for just a moment. Let us instead remain focused on the issue of whether the popes of your world are so truly analogous to the past popes of our world. I question the accuracy of this analogy for the most obvious of all possible reasons: my world’s long chain of prior pontiffs have exercised their Extraordinary Sacred Magisterium to establish dogmas and doctrines that are now binding upon the present pope, Urban VIII. Do you agree?”

“Of course.”

“By which you implicitly agree that no present pope has the power to set aside that which was infallibly decreed by a prior pope?”

Mazzare cleared his throat. “Depending upon what you mean by the word prior, yes, I provisionally agree with that.”

Barberini almost set down his paper to listen; he had never heard Larry Mazzare equivocate before.

Wadding smelled blood. “Unless there are additional meanings of which I am unaware, ‘prior’ means to come before, to precede in time. And that is the crux of the difference we must consider: the pontiffs who have gone before us in our world-the very same as those who went before Urban VIII in your up-time world-are ‘prior’ popes. But those who came after Urban VIII in your world are not prior to the papacy of Urban VIII in this world.”

Mazzare smiled. “Yet we are even now discussing the infallible doctrines and dogma decreed by up-time pontiffs, which were first presented to His Holiness Urban VIII two years ago. Their presence in the canonical records of the Church thus precede these discussions and, as you have conceded, their perfection derives from the same Sacred Magisterium that is immanent in the current and prior popes.”

“Yes-and as also manifested in the up-time popes who came after Urban VIII, who are later popes,” corrected Wadding calmly.

“Yet here are their dogmas and directives, now; their existence precedes this discussion.”

Even to Barberini, Mazzare’s argument seemed somewhat ingenuous-and thus, desperate.

Wadding was pointing at Urban, “So you would have this pope constrained by the decrees of men who lived long after he died, and who you assert will now never be born, since the history of this world has been changed by your arrival in it?”

Mazzare spread his hands. “At no point did I say that this issue would be free of paradoxes. So allow me propose an escape from this one: God intends all things, yes?”

Wadding’s voice and face were wary. “Of course.”

“So it was known to God that Grantville would come back in time?”

“He is all powerful and all knowing, so this must be true.”

“Then, if Holy Writ is divinely inspired, either it should furnish us with explicit guidance for how the Church should respond to such a paradoxical challenge, or it already contains an implicit answer for us. I assert the latter: no explicit guidance is needed because infallibility transcends all other considerations, including those of time and sequence.”

Wadding smiled. “Cardinal Mazzare, do you really expect Holy Writ to include warnings about multiple realities and Churches? Should we really be surprised at the lack of specific injunctions to ‘hold only unto thine own pope?’” He turned to face Vitelleschi. “Father-General, I agree that Holy Writ is not deficient, but not because of the insuperable nature of papal infallibility. Rather, we may look to its elegant reliance upon the common context of the word ‘prior’ to understand the relationship between the infallible utterances of this world, and Cardinal Mazzare’s. Although we lack detailed documentation in this place-”

God be praised, thought Barberini with an irreverent smile.

“-I find that both down- and up-time constraints upon papal infallibility invariably stipulate that a prior pope’s ex cathedra statements and doctrinal decrees may not be overturned, contravened, or ignored by later popes. Consequently, I do not see a paradox at all as long as we accept that ‘prior’ is not a term subject to recontextualization: it means ‘to occur before.’ Nothing more, nothing less.

“Cardinal Mazzare suggests, on the other hand, that we must eschew such a common-sense definition of the word and instead dive into a maelstrom of temporal paradoxes from which we cannot ever hope to emerge. He also proposes to resolve supposed ‘contradictions’ in the footnote in Gaudium et Spes which asserts that some of its own infallible elements ‘have a permanent value; others, only a transitory one.’” Wadding smiled. “This statement neither contains nor engenders any contradictions. It is merely a reminder that the Truth that is God cannot be beheld by His children all at once. Indeed, as the Creator told Moses, no man may behold the face of God and live. Therefore, since we cannot survive exposure to the entirety of His Truth at once, we must have it relayed to us in successive parts, each new epiphany being withheld until our souls have grown enough to be ready for it.

“Cardinal Mazzare provided us with a most instructive analogy for this process: he likened it to the way in which children change. And what does the note to Gaudium et Spes say, really, other than this: that the basic rules we learn as spiritual infants are not tossed aside, but enriched and expanded as we grow. A five-year-old child might have a sense of right and wrong, and even justice. But would any one of us maintain that his understanding then will be the equal of that which he possesses when he is fifteen, or thirty-five, presuming he grows in Christ as he grows in his body?”

Father-General Vitelleschi was frowning. “Are you therefore suggesting, Your Eminence, that the population of the up-time world was more ready for complex truths than the population of our own world?”

Wadding nodded. “That is a distinct possibility. After all, the up-time world had three and a half more centuries experience in adapting to the complexities of religious toleration and political equality. The increasing phenomena of marriage between Catholics and Protestants, and then Jews and Gentiles, gave them ample opportunity to work out in daily practice what we down-timers see as unthinkably radical theological and social change.”

“And how does this instruct us?” asked Vitelleschi.

Wadding bowed his head. “It shows us that our Lord is truly a kind, loving, and above all, foresightful parent. He waited for the up-timers to grow into these accomplishments before he set them the challenges implicit in Vatican II. Allow me to illustrate what I mean in mundane terms: would you teach your little child to climb a cliff-face before he can walk? No, because it is imperative that, as a parent, you make sure that he walks, and then acquires other requisite skills, before he may confront the cliff-face. Similarly, God ensured the gradual maturation of the up-time world and Church, before sharing what was for them the infallible wisdom of Vatican II. For Cardinal Mazzare and his peers, Vatican II was an exhilarating new cliff to climb; for us, it would simply be a fast and fatal fall.”

Wadding folded his hands. “Our wise and Loving God would not impose the same challenge upon both societies, without regard to their respective levels of readiness. And so I argue the term ‘transitory,’ as it is used in Gaudium et Spes, simply reminds us that the perfect parental wisdom of our Heavenly Father is both firm and flexible.”

Wadding paused. “Popes-whatever else they may be-are still merely men, and are thus products of the time in which they live. They’re born into the same reality as the flock in which they are raised, and ultimately, of which they become shepherds. Thus, you might say, each pope enjoys a special Temporal Charism. The inspiration of the Holy Spirit ensures that they are, so to speak, the right pope at the right time for the right flock.”

Wadding turned toward Mazzare. “So let us allow that your John XXIII was such a pope, who called for ecumenicism in a world that teetered on the brink of man-made apocalypse. Let us assume that the same was true of your Pope John Paul II, who exerted his Sacred Magisterium to promulgate these infallible doctrines of tolerance. These papal actions may have played an essential role in ensuring the survival of your world, which was every bit as fear-filled and war-weary as this one.”

“But it was also a very, very different world from this one. Yours was a world which had already resolved many conflicts that we are not ready to set aside, or maybe, more to the point, know that God does not yet wish us to set aside. Either way, I put it to you that your popes made the right choices for the flock of their time. But this is not that time, and this is not that flock. And so the same choices are not right for us-no matter how infallible they were in the context of your up-time world.”

Wadding sat. Vitelleschi looked over at Cardinal Mazzare. “Your Eminence, do you have anything you wish to add?”

Mazzare shook his head. “No, Father-General; I am done.”

As Antonio Barberini concluded his transcription and began dating and witnessing the document, he watched Mazzare rise more slowly than usual and thought, Yes, Your Eminence, you were done about halfway through. And then he realized, If the up-timer has one more day like that, I suspect my immediate future will not include a papal Progress to a nice, safe haven somewhere in USE territory. Rather, I may be on the run in the provinces of Italy for the rest of my very short life.

Cardinal Antonio Barberini found that thought not only unappealing, but downright terrifying.