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Waiting For Historical Literacy in America

As part of his complaint about Pope Benedict’s visit to Cuba, Carlos Eire recounts previous papal errors. One problem with this is that he doesn’t have a terribly good grasp on church history: Pope Honorius I (625 -638) agreed with the monophysite heretics in a private letter, and his remains were later dug up and […]

As part of his complaint about Pope Benedict’s visit to Cuba, Carlos Eire recounts previous papal errors. One problem with this is that he doesn’t have a terribly good grasp on church history:

Pope Honorius I (625 -638) agreed with the monophysite heretics in a private letter, and his remains were later dug up and thrown into the Tiber River.

It may seem like a trivial distinction to many people today, but Honorius did not express agreement with monophysites in his letter to Patriarch Sergios. Honorius and Sergios were corresponding about the ongoing controversy over the use of the language of energy (activity), which had created divisions among Christians in the east, and Honorius fatefully proposed his solution to the controversy over energy by proposing that everyone refer to “one will of Christ.” The context of their correspondence was Sergios’ desire to promote Chalcedonian teaching among the non-Chalcedonian churches of the east. In other words, their correspondence was explicitly anti-monophysite. Honorius’ monothelete (one will) formulation was rejected by many contemporary theologians as unorthodox, and later overturned at the sixth ecumenical council in 680-681. Honorius’ statement was viewed as an endorsement of a heretical denial of Christ’s human will. So that’s the actual history of Honorius and his condemnation. Suffice it to say, I don’t think Honorius’ error has much bearing on Pope Benedict’s visit to Cuba.

It’s very curious that Eire would bring up this example in the context of criticizing the Pope’s visit to Cuba, which does not seem to have been quite the disaster that he claims. Honorius’ theological error is the main example used by non-Catholics and Old Catholics to refute the teaching of papal infallibility. I cannot think of anything that would be less likely to persuade the Vatican that it was in the wrong than bringing up the old Honoriusfrage. His other comparisons with Alexander VI (!) and Leo X could not have been more insulting to Pope Benedict if he had tried. Pope Benedict said in his homily, “The truth is a desire of the human person, the search for which always supposes the exercise of authentic freedom.” What could be a more powerful rebuke to a communist despotism than that?

Update: Pope Honorius aside, Eire’s assessment of the effect of the papal visit is mistaken, as I was suggesting at the end of the original post. This editorial from Investor’s Business Daily helps explain why:

But in reality, the pope did just enough to scald the legitimacy of the Cuban regime as news of his visit permeated the island. History has shown that papal visits to totalitarian regimes can plant the seeds of revolution even if they appear to co-opt despicable regimes.

Recall Pope John Paul II’s historic visit to Poland in 1979, a visit that never directly challenged Poland’s communist regime [bold mine-DL] but did lead citizens to embrace personal moral power as superior to state power. That led to individual conscience so that by 1989, they rose up on their own to destroy the morally bankrupt regime.

Popes can make poor decisions, but it is not at all obvious that the way Pope Benedict handled his visit to Cuba should be counted as one.

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