The Pope's New Clothes

Abstract

I suppose that was the reason why a plenary indulgence was granted to people who gathered together before the basilicas on the great feast days while the Pope gave his blessing Urbi et Orbi. Fair enough. For, although such attendance was not precisely earth-shattering, it had important consequences: the large numbers made a great contribution to the honour of the Apostolic See and to the public profession of faith in the rock on which the firmness of the whole Church is built. This in fact was the object of granting the indulgence. The same reasoning could be applied to the indulgences proclaimed in Luther’s time by the people who collected alms for the building of St. Peter’s.So now we know. Hans Küng’s massive criticism of the critics of his views on infallibility reached me with the newspapers announcing that the Pope was to proclaim a Holy Year. It was the same week in which sensational headlines about the Lambton case gave way to the reassuring news that the heart of the establishment was sound: fox-hunting, hard-riding Anne would really marry her stalwart and even more hard-riding Mark.The juxtaposition is hardly fair. The announcement of Anne’s engagement may well have been timed without regard for less edifying events in high places. And Kiing’s worst enemies only find fault with him for his purely intellectual activities. Nor would the most narrow-minded curialist conceive the Holy Year as a counterblast to one theologian’s suspect views on infallibility. But institutions under attack have a way of seeking the support of the simple masses by providing them with an occasion for junketings: a marriage in England, a jubilee and indulgences in Rome.