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Rev. Jerry J. Pokorsky: The Church’s Dysfunctional Culture of “Respect and Obedience” – Brown Pelican Society of Lousiana

Rev. Jerry J. Pokorsky: The Church’s Dysfunctional Culture of “Respect and Obedience”

Americans Should Feel Uneasy About the New Archbishop of Washington, by Damian Thompson

February 17, 2025

Founder’s Quote

February 17, 2025

Ecumenical-council-V1-1. The ecumenical council of the Vatican, convened December 8th 1869 by John Walsh & Co., c. 1870 [Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.]

By Rev. Jerry J. Pokorsky, The Catholic Thing, February 17, 2025

Father Jerry J. Pokorsky is a priest of the Diocese of Arlington. He is pastor of St. Catherine of Siena parish in Great Falls, Virginia.

Subservience is ever ancient, ever new. In that respect, the hierarchy of the Church is not much different than the hierarchies of business and government. But servile obedience can foster a culture of self-destructive tyranny even within the institutional Church.

By God’s design, the Church is a hierarchy, not a democracy. The successor of Saint Peter is at the top of the pyramid – or, from another point of view, at the bottom of an inverted pyramid. The office of the papacy identifies the pope as the “servant of the servants.” The pope rules the entire Church and enjoys, by divine institution, the “supreme, full, immediate, and universal power in the care of souls.” (CCC 937)

The bishops are the successors of the twelve apostles. Jesus, through His Church, confers authority on the bishops (by the “laying on of the hands”) as “priests, prophets, and kings.” Their role is conservative – in the proper, non-political sense. They are dutybound to conserve, proclaim, and hand on the apostolic truths. They abide by the truths of Sacred Tradition – G.K. Chesterton’s “democracy of the dead.” ….

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