When a totalitarian regime aids and
abets the rape of tens of thousands of children one would expect it to
be shunned by governments and citizens alike. And any statements it
might issue on matters of morality accorded no respect.
Why should we make an exception when the regime is the Catholic Church?
That
the Roman Catholic Church is totalitarian is undeniable. Church law
itself makes this clear. Canon 331 declares the Pope “the head of the
college of bishops, the Vicar of Christ, and the pastor of the universal
Church on earth. By virtue of his office he possesses supreme, full,
immediate, and universal ordinary power in the Church, which he is
always able to exercise freely.”
Canon
333 emphasizes the remarkable power this institution endows in one man,
“No appeal or recourse is permitted against a sentence or decree of
the Roman Pontiff.”
And whenever
the Pope chooses he can issue decrees related to faith and morals that
not only have the power of law but must be considered irrefutable, at
least since 1870 when the Church declared the Pope “possessed of that
infallibility with which the Divine Redeemer wished His Church to be
endowed.”
The entire hierarchy
of the Catholic Church is at the mercy of the Pope. He appoints bishops
and can impose his directives on the lowliest priests and nun.
