Bishop Varden: ‘We’re never passive bystanders’

On praying in a papal interregnum

When the world’s cardinals enter the Sistine Chapel to elect a new pope in the coming days, Catholics everywhere will be frantically pressing the “refresh” button on their web browsers.

The statue of St. Peter in St. Peter’s Square. Michal Osmenda via Wikimedia (CC BY-SA 2.0).

It’s likely that much of the time, there will be no major news. Perhaps just a puff of dark smoke every now and again, and a few sightings of the celebrated “Sistine seagull.”

Could the nervous energy of 1.4 billion people be better directed? The Pillar asked Bishop Erik Varden, the Norwegian Trappist monk, author, and beer aficionado, for tips on praying — and staying calm — during a papal interregnum.

Bishop Erik Varden, O.C.S.O., splits a log — using a traditional log-cutter and the inverted ax head as a hammer — that will be used to smoke barley grain for the new Magnus beer. Credit: Anne Reisch.

The period between the death or resignation of a pope and the election of a new one is an anxious and uncertain time for many Catholics. Are we just passive bystanders watching a historic process unfold?

In the Church we are never passive bystanders. “If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together” (1 Cor 12:26). We know that Pauline line well enough. Its application is universal.

The Roman Pontiff, though, the successor of St. Peter, isn’t just any member. Catholic doctrine refers to him as “the visible head of the whole Church” (Lumen gentium 18). Of course: theologically speaking and in principle, Christ is the Head of the Mystical Body. But in the economy of grace, issuing from the logic of Christ’s Incarnation, invisible realities are given visible forms that effectively communicate God’s salvific agency.

At the moment we, concrete members of the Church, are in this concrete sense headless. It is an uncomfortable state of affairs. There is something ominous about a moving headless body — think of the way we invoke the image of a headless chicken, and of what that image represents.

This is a time to consent with hurting hearts, clear minds, and, in the midst of it all, gratitude, to the reality of what it is to be Catholic. That reality touches every aspect of our being.

We own our sense of loss viscerally, spiritually, intellectually while yearning for the body’s restored integrity, that it may appear in full stature, a worthy, credible image of Christ on earth, “ceaselessly engaged,” as the Second Vatican Council would have it, “in praising the Lord and interceding for the salvation of the whole world” (Sacrosanctum concilium, 83), head and members united in perfect harmony, melodiously.

What kind of time is a papal interregnum? Is it a penitential period like Lent, a gentler time of waiting like Advent, or something else entirely?

Something else. Let’s be clear: Lent and Advent prepare special manifestations of the mystery of faith accomplished in Christ. This mystery is unshakable, interregnum or no interregnum.

The process of mourning that follows the death of a pope, then the unfolding of the conclave: these are times of waiting for particular, significant dispositions, yes; but the Messiah has come, Christ is risen, our Christian hope is firm — so there is no need, really, to fret. In fact, I’d say this is a good time to do the exact opposite: to practice silence and peace.

A rising chorus of voices is assessing the papacy just ended and prognosticating for the next. Everyone is suddenly an expert. This is inevitable. In some ways it is helpful. But let us beware of reducing this time to gossip and more or less competent punditry.

We believe the Holy Spirit guides the Church. The fruits of the Spirit are “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Gal 5:22-23). Fostering these, we shall open ourselves to the Spirit’s inspiration.

Since the Church is a body, all of us have a part to play in cultivating, now, the peaceful attentiveness that enables intelligent, free obedience. Just think: it is hard to keep your mind on spiritual things if you suffer from restless legs. So wherever we find ourselves as members, let us do what we can to bring peace into the body.

Let us find time for silence, adoration, intercession, quiet. From this the whole organism will benefit. And we shall make ourselves ready, together, to receive whatever blessing and task the Lord has in store.

The Holy Spirit is often mentioned as playing a role in papal elections. Are there ways we can cooperate with the Holy Spirit during this transition?

We have already considered some. I would like to mention another I think of often. Vatican II’s constitution on the Church, Lumen gentium, speaks, as you know, about the universal call to holiness. That sounds nicely affirming from a distance: we can all fancy ourselves as saints; we may have an autohagiography and a personal emblem ready to propose.

The trouble is, Christian sanctity is of its nature cruciform, born of union with Christ Jesus who, “though he was in the form of God did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself” (Phil 2:6-7). The liturgy of Good Friday let us touch, just a few days ago, the extent of that self-emptying, which leaves us raw.

With this in mind, consider what the constitution teaches: “all the faithful of Christ are invited to strive for the holiness and perfection of their own proper state. Indeed they have an obligation to so strive. Let all then have care that they guide aright their own deepest sentiments of soul” (Lumen gentium, 42). In Latin the final clause reads: “ut affectus suos recte dirigant.”

We tend to take it for granted, today, that our feelings are true and reveal who we are: “I feel, therefore I am.” We readily claim the right to act on our feelings — we get miffed if others don’t respect the way we feel. Here, meanwhile, the Church reminds us that our feelings, as often as not, are in a mess, and that the affective side of us must be oriented before it will actually help us reach the goal we seek.

Affects and emotions run high at a time like this, some exultant, others hurt, some angry. All would like to see their emotions vindicated. But that isn’t what it is about.

If we can help one another by word and example to guide aright our deepest sentiments of soul during these days, I think we shall do important work as the Spirit’s cooperators.

Michelangelo’s “Last Judgment” at the east end of the Sistine Chapel. miketnorton via Wikimedia (CC BY 2.0).

Is it OK to pray that our favorite candidate becomes pope, or is that like praying that your sports team wins the cup?

The thing is: here it is not a matter of anyone winning. Do we think of the weight that will be placed on the future pope’s shoulders from the moment of his acceptance? Do we consider the account he will one day have to render to the Judge of all?

If you read Dante, or consider any number of medieval paintings of the Last Judgment, you will see no shortage of mitered heads in the nether realms. This is something I, as a bishop, consider with trembling. The stakes are vast.

The fortitude and faith required of the Roman Pontiff defy imagination: that poor man must be at once very strong and very pliable; he must be intensely present in this world’s affairs yet live an utterly supernatural life; he must practise dispossession to a heroic degree, with not a moment’s respite; he must consent from the depth of his heart to the Petrine call: “when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go” (Jn 21:18). Who can live up to this?

Instead of considering the College of Cardinals as a stable of horses, and queuing at the betting shop, I think we should think and pray in these terms: Right now Providence is preparing a man of God’s choosing to assume a supremely privileged share in Christ’s Paschal oblation, to live out this intimate charge until death, in the scrutiny of a prying world whose attitude is fickle, which, in a moment, will turn from shouting “Hosanna!” to hissing, “Crucify!”

The pope has a wonderful and joyful mission: to proclaim Christ to the world! But the head we await will be crowned with thorns in a variety of ways.

Soberly, then, we can recite the prayer designated as a collect in Masses “For the Pope to Be Elected” — and it is wonderful that we pray for him personally before we have the least idea of who he is: “God, as eternal Pastor you govern your flock with assiduous protection: grant your Church in your boundless kindness that pastor who will [best] please you by his holiness and be of [most] benefit to us through unsleeping solicitude.”

It’s a good prayer.