The positions are alike in many respects.
How can harmful edicts be countered?
Pope Francis has the authority to decree what must be believed in order to be a faithful Catholic, to declare dogma. It is rarely invoked as such. It needn’t be in order to have practical effect if his goal is other than faith and morals. In order to influence the flock “encyclicals” are issued which are intended to influence, “order” the clergy and Catholic institutions as to what should be taught and portrayed as part of the Magisterium. Keep in mind that the Pope is more than an unassuming teacher, casting pearls of wisdom about, he controls mechanisms of influence and power by directive. Not as much as some might think, but still with substantial impact.
A justice of the Supreme Court’s power lies in being one of four or five who define what is allowed or not allowed under the US Constitution. He/she also has the power to bargain to essentially control decisions. Both the Pope and a Supreme Court justice have the power to essentially make law or the reference points to guide others as to what is to be acceptable within their realm. Both can be theoretically checked by recalcitrance within their realm but that counterweight can also be diminished by the decisiveness of the Pope or court majority.
Others can accentuate and help implement directives even if there is foot-dragging within the normal apparat. In the Pope’s case, his encyclicals might be promulgated by external elements normally hostile to the “Magisterium,” indeed later used to undermine or co-opt the Church. Using the same scaremongering, gross generalizations, calling for the mechanisms of control they advocate, substantially adopting and promulgating the narrative of such elements, makes the Pope essentially a tool, a so-called useful idiot if not a full scale collaborator of such efforts. Establishing the mechanisms of control is what is key to these elements, the population controllers, the Marxist one world government types. The Pope’s most recent encyclical empowers them. Any demurrals he voiced in that encyclical will be functionally ignored by the purely secular elements making decisions pursuant to what the Pope helped enable.
A justice’s power (influence) is subject to other branches of government for implementation but the system is skewed to automatically implement any edict. The bureaucracy is in place and will run with the ball. The recalcitrants will be circumvented if not run over by the enthusiasts. When the President is supportive of the justices’ edict, it basically takes 2/3 of the Senate and a majority of the House to inhibit a SCOTUS decision by funding restrictions (or perish the thought) jurisdictional limitations . . . something the same court will find a way to declare “unconstitutional”and congress folds. Strong leadership defending the Constitution can overcome the Court by sticking to those or other means but the elements rarely come together. A long-term solution of a Constitutional Amendment is an unlikely check, takes years to accomplish and thus the edict is essentially fait accompli.
So the Pope and Justice both possesses the cat-bird seat in their realm. The Pope is more able to directly manipulate policy proceedings within his realm, but a justice, with his roost mates, is able to sit fat and happy depending on governmental inertia and super majority thresholds to protect his pronouncements as “valid.”
Both papal and judicial positions are normally life or “able to sit up and take nourishment” appointments, as such protected by the bureaucratic cumbersomeness to remove them even when they are barely sentient. They can become creatures of their apparat for as long as they breathe (and beyond). This is not to say that such tradition actually makes them immune from inside or outside influence. Rumors abound about the siren song of favorable publicity and even blackmail.
Both are supposedly anchored in their powers by something somewhat controlling although in practice malleable. For the Pope it is the “Magisterium,” for a justice it is the Constitution. But those can be treated as mere talismans to wave in front of the unwashed in order to fend off criticisms of their authority when the truth is they are pursuing a personal and very fallible agenda.
As regards the malleability of those anchors it largely depends on the wilfulness of the pope or justice. They determine what is most controlling or fundamental in Church or Constitutional heritage. Both are supposedly guided by a tradition of interpretation but that is not sacrosanct to the current pope or justices, or only observed in the margins. Recognizing what, if anything, within tradition to invoke is up to them. Besides, spin is everything. To create a pathway or justification to their conclusions only requires an artful selection, narrative, interpretation or emphasis on faulty or misapplied precedent. They both can also go beyond such supposed tethers into other realms they may know little if anything about in order to gain support for their pronouncements. Science and sociology are subjects both can use selectively or be hornswoggled by because of their lack of depth.
What we are getting to in this extravagant work-up is the point that a pope and a justice are both fallible but institutionally protected even when wrong. They are able to have their influence leveraged or made effectual by their apparat or whatever secular zeitgeist that exists. They may humbly admit to their fallibility or blame others for misunderstanding their pronouncement but either way their edicts get implemented. They are loath to give up such power or exercise true humility on the pretext of protecting the institution.
The specifics of their fallibility on matters of concern are abundantly available. The dissenting opinions of conservatives on the Supreme Court are erudite and readable and found right alongside majority opinions. In all his humbleness Pope Francis has not provided for the publication of competing opinions Protestant or Catholic. Here are two profound ones in our opinion published last week in The Federalist.
From Maureen Mullarkey — Where Did Pope Francis’s Extravagant Rant Come From?
In his new encyclical, Pope Francis has diverted the gospel into a series of ill-supported political pronouncements.
From D.C. McAllister — Pope Francis Doesn’t Get The Gospel
By telling people their spirituality is measured by what they do, Pope Francis in his recent encyclical rejects the central message of the gospel: grace.
As to what can be done in response to these opinions, conservatives are not sitting still. More on related thinking to come.
