"Pope Michael" & The Question of Moral Authority

I have as much authority as the Pope, I just don't have as many people who believe it.

- George Carlin

Where does your authority on moral decisions - on what's right and wrong - come from?  I don't mean a person who exemplifies what is good - I mean the person that guides you on what is good.

Most of us are inclined to answer, "my conscience." Or is it your clergyman? A holy book? A political party? The president? The pope? Or is there just no such thing?

I found myself wondering about the question of moral authority as I watched the unique new documentary Pope Michael by Adam Fairholm (full movie embedded above).

This film - which sometimes feels like a collaboration between Flannery O'Connor and Harmony Korine - paints a fascinating psychological portrait of a strange southern man named David Bawden who believes that he, not Benedict XVI, is the Bishop of Rome.

In 1990, six people gathered together to elect a new pope. They were not in the Vatican, but a thrift store, a half hour outside of Topeka, Kansas; and they were not cardinals, bishops, or even priests, but average people. Two of the electors were married, and a third, the elected, was their son; two of the original six electors have since ceased following the "pope" that was elected that night.

Of course, to most of us, this situation looks about as sane as Joe six-pack being elected President of the United States by his drinking buddies.

So how did these people get it in their heads that John Paul II wasn't the true pope, and that a new pope had to be elected in some bizarre underground meeting - in Kansas, of all places?

"Pope Michael" in 1990

David Bawden, aka "Pope Michael I," and his small band of followers are sedevacantists (Latin for "empty chair"), a sect of ultra-traditionalist Catholics who believe that every pope since the death of Pope Pius XII in 1958 has been a false pope, and that the chair of St. Peter is technically empty. (Mel Gibson's father Hutton Gibson is a well-known defender of this position, which is rooted in a rejection of the reforms of the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s.)

There have been many anti-popes throughout history, usually during very turbulent times in Rome; but the Catholic Church still boasts an unbroken line of papal succession stretching back to Peter, Jesus' right-hand man - and "Pope Michael I" unfortunately doesn't make the list.

Of course, Bawden would readily admit this - because in his mind, such a list is the invalid concoction of invalid authorities. He occupies the cramped but air-tight circle of logic reserved for those with delusions of grandeur. In the words of GK Chesterton: "The insane explanation, if not conclusive, is at least unanswerable...if a man says that he is the rightful King of England, it is no complete answer to say that the existing authorities call him mad; for if he were King of England that might be the wisest thing for the existing authorities to do...his mind moves in a perfect but narrow circle."

This is the fascinating thing about the film. We do get a partial glimpse into the sedevacantist platform (which includes blasting John Paul II and Benedict XVI for their ecumenical outreach to other religions). But for the most part, the film is not about their arguments, but about them - it's a profound character study.

What drives these people? What do they want?

As I watched Bawden, his mother, and his seminarian try to expand "the Church" beyond their farmhouse, I felt (as many of you probably will) disturbed by their strange little lives. The isolated existence, the dim and dusty settings, their strict confidence in a woefully out-of-touch world view - all of it rings the "cult" alarm. It's an odd duck indeed that will ebulliently join Bawden's ranks after watching this documentary.

Still, I was drawn to the fallible and fragile humanity of these people, especially the young seminarian, Phil - the Sancho Panza to Bawden's Quixote. Even if you think they are completely nutty, they are at least well-meaning, and certainly pose no real immediate danger to anyone. They are fighting for the truth as they see it, from their anti-papal perspective.

In fact, as the film unfolded, I began to see "Pope Michael" as somehow the archetypal post-conciliar Catholic, and his "Church" as reflecting a deep truism about the modern Church.

Consider this passage from a recent New York Times article on religious authority:

"There was, perhaps, a time when the vast majority of Catholics accepted the bishops as having an absolute right to define theological and ethical doctrines. Those days, if they ever existed, are long gone. Most Catholics...now reserve the right to reject doctrines insisted on by their bishops and to interpret in their own way the doctrines that they do accept. 

The bishops' claim to authority has been undermined because Catholics have decisively rejected it. The immorality of birth control is no longer a teaching of the Catholic Church. Pope Paul VI meant his 1968 encyclical, "Humanae Vitae," to settle the issue...in fact the issue has been settled by the voice of the Catholic people." [Emphasis mine]

It's strange that we find "Pope Michael I" to be so strange. He is, in fact, aligned with the spirit of the modern American Church - a sort of fun-house reflection of prevailing Catholic attitudes.

Like Bawden, Catholics today tend to construct their own theology and ethics - and in doing so, establish themselves as the ultimate moral authority, above and beyond what the Pope and Bishops have to say. Personal experience trumps papal encyclicals.

Whether you think this is a good thing or a bad thing, this has been an undeniable, empirical feature of the modern Church for over forty years.

Of course, very few Catholics don a white zucchetto or call themselves "Pope" - but the underlying principle of rejecting the Vatican's authority is the same. Comedian and lapsed Catholic George Carlin articulated this kinship with Bawden when he said: "I have as much authority as the Pope, I just don't have as many people who believe it."

Whether you elevate yourself to the title of "Pope," like Bawden, or knock the Pope down to yourself, like Carlin, the goal is the same - to rob the Pope of any unique authority.

Of course, for non-Catholics, that old guy in Rome never had any moral authority to begin with - not in any binding way.

But this raises new questions, stemming from the original question: where does moral authority come from?

If you answered the Bible, how are disagreements between reasonable, well-intentioned people about the Bible's moral messages resolved? How do we deal with a wide spectrum of conflicting moral proclamations from over 30,000 Protestant denominations - from the Westboro Baptist Church to the United Church of Christ - all holding up Bibles as their authority?

If you answered that "my conscience" provides authority, the same difficult questions come up. For example, when your conscience tells you to do something different than someone else's conscience, which conscience is morally correct? Against what standard is one conscience more "adjusted" or "defective" than another's? Law? Popularity? But then, more than just consciences conflict - entire eras conflict. How do we explain major shifts in the social sanctioning of practices like infanticide, genocide, slavery, eugenics, etc.?

Dostoevsky

The issue is even more complicated for an atheist. If morality is just a product of evolution, or associated with our rationality - why are we bound to obey it at all? Of course, you can be good without God - saintly, even - but are you obligated to? If moral authority is just a smokescreen for human power and societal order, aren't you are free to make your own rules, as long as you don't get caught? Was Dostoevsky right that without God, everything is permitted?

There are clearly questions about moral authority that need answering - the most glaring of which is: who really has it? Truth, in the modern world, seems to be a bouncy, aimless creature in a Dr. Seuss book - "your truth, my truth, his truth, her truth." But how do we get at the truth?

Not through Pope Benedict XVI, most of us say - and certainly not through "Pope Michael I." But through what?

The heart? The mind? The barrel of a gun? Nothing?

You? Me? The majority? No one?

In order to harmonize with our increasingly pluralistic society, most of us will happily fire off the politically correct response: "Well, everyone is entitled to their opinion; this is just what I believe is right."

Of course, deep down, we don't believe that for a second - we think that we are in fact right, otherwise we wouldn't think what we think. We think we are the final authority - we appeal to our own consciences, our own understanding, as Gospel truth.

The thing is - and this is the kicker - so does everyone else. "Pope Michael I" included.