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Talking Texas History
Talking Texas History
In Conclave: A Texas Canon Lawyer's Guide to Papal Transition
The passing of Pope Francis on April 21, 2023 set in motion ancient protocols refined over two millennia of Catholic Church history. For the 1.4 billion Catholics worldwide—including approximately 40% of Texans—this moment represents a pivotal transition guided by traditions few outside the faith fully understand. Religion is an important part of culture and history for many Texans, yet often overlooked by historians.
We're joined by Benedict Nguyen, a canon lawyer and Associate Vice President at St. Thomas University in Houston, who expertly guides us through the intricate process of papal succession.
Whether you're Catholic, belong to another faith tradition, or simply appreciate the historical significance of religious institutions, this episode offers valuable insights into the governance structures that have profoundly shaped Western civilization and continue to influence our cultural landscape today.
For more information, see Papal Death & Conclave Presented by Benedict Nguyen on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/live/xvKdoO867W0?si=RCvS_kwycUi--LhS
This podcast is not sponsored by and does not reflect the views of the institutions that employ us. It is solely our thoughts and ideas, based upon our professional training and study of the past.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Talking Texas History, the podcast that explores Texas history before and beyond the Alamo. Not only will we talk Texas history, we'll visit with folks who teach it, write it, support it, and with some who've made it and, of course, all of us who live it and love it. I'm Scott Sosby and I'm Gene Preuss, and this is Talking Texas History. Welcome to another edition of Talking Texas History. I'm Gene Preuss, I'm Scott Sonsby. Scott, I wanted to let you know I mean I know you already know right the news right now.
Speaker 1:Let me know that sounds ominous.
Speaker 2:It is because the Catholic Church is without a pope and Francis died April 21st. Normally we don't record this timely an interview. Uh, I think this is the most timely interview we've done.
Speaker 1:Oh by far, because you know us. We've commented many times you and I are about the most untimely people there's ever been.
Speaker 2:In fact, gene preuss is well known for not even being on time for anything, so my, my wife just informed me that, that she used to be on time until she met me and then the past 26 years she's not been on time.
Speaker 1:I have known you those same number of years and I agree with you, I'm always there at the right time.
Speaker 2:I wanted to talk about this. You know, in the world there's 1.4 billion Catholics. In Texas Catholics make up about 40% of the population. It's a tremendous figure. And you know, religion is not something we as historians talk about that frequently. You and I are political historians. We study politics. Now we get into some social, into some other types of history. But you know, religion is kind of like the 600-pound elephant sitting in the room. We've been talking about it, it comes up in American history at various times, but we don't do very well in Texas history talking about it. And you think Carlos Castaneda wrote seven volumes in our Catholic heritage back in the 40s, 30s and 40s. So let's talk a little bit about the Catholic Church and today being without a pope. We have two Texas bishops, cardinals really, in Rome right now voting in the conclave, although one wasn't born in Texas. Well, neither one were born in Texas.
Speaker 1:No, yeah, I was going to say neither one were born in Texas.
Speaker 2:And to help us, because you know, to be totally honest and I'm sure all of our friends know this, we don't know that much about this. We've invited Ben Nguyen.
Speaker 1:We're ignorant in many many fields, Gene.
Speaker 2:Yeah, not just this. We've invited Ben Nguyen. Ben is Associate Vice President at St Thomas University here in Houston. He's also the Dean of Students and he is a canon lawyer.
Speaker 1:That means his intellectual plane is much higher than you, and ours are by far.
Speaker 2:Well, he's on natural gas and we're running on.
Speaker 1:That's right. We're still on like kerosene, and I'm looking forward to this more than I think any podcast we've had, because I don't really know that much about it. I'm learning about it these days. I do know that. What I know, you know, we're historians on my conclave. I'm assuming this conclave will not turn out like the 1605 Second Conclave, where cardinals had broken bones and fistfights broke out over the appointment of Paul V. Right, that wouldn't happen, ben correct.
Speaker 2:They aren't always nice. Let's introduce Ben. Ben welcome to Talking Texas History.
Speaker 3:Hey Gene, hey Scott, Thank you very much for having me on. It's a pleasure to be with you.
Speaker 1:Well, we're glad you're here Now. I'm the one that's more ignorant about this than anything, so let me just start off. Canon Lawyer. Now, that is an interesting title, so why don't you tell our audience what is a Canon Lawyer?
Speaker 3:Yeah, a lot of people don't realize that there are guys like me out there the Catholic Church being not only just a religious institution but a social institution as well. We exist in time, we exist as a visible body in existence for 2,000 years and in that society how we get along with each other needs to be regulated. So the legal system that popped up from you know, coming from Jewish law, coming from even ancient Roman law, all these things came together. The church, once it became kind of more of a visible society, had to put down these norms and these norms started to be called canons. And it started really with church councils way back, council of Nicaea you can kind of see it at Acts 15, with the Council of Jerusalem, where at the end of a decision they would put like certain regulatory things at the end, and these became known as kanon in Greek, meaning a rule or a measure by which your actions can be measured.
Speaker 3:So over the centuries that developed into what really now is the longest continuing legal system in the Western world, continuously functioning legal system in the Western world.
Speaker 3:So that throughout the years, particularly in the Western world, the church's canonical system, the canon law, the legal system, the Catholic Church has become highly influential in all kinds of systems, has become highly influential in all kinds of systems. Even our own American law was highly influenced by it, via the law of England, via the Napoleonic codes, things like that. And so canon law is still a functioning system. We have just like any other legal system courts, we have court tribunals, we have judges, we have lawyers like me who specialize in it. We have scholars in it. It's its own science, it's its own legal system, and so the people who practice in it are called canon lawyers. They have to get a pontifical, at least a licensure degree, which is the church's law degree. But you can go on and get a doctorate in it too if you want to do some more scholarly work in it. So I have a licensure from the Catholic University of America.
Speaker 3:I also have my law degree you know my doctorate's jurisprudence, so I'm kind of one of those that exists in both worlds, both in the American legal system and also in the church's canonical system.
Speaker 1:Found to be like one of the most interesting. I mean that's got to be, that's an interesting career. I think that that's got to be fascinating. I mean kind of put an intellectual world and then getting into the church history world. That just is fantastic on that. So I think that's great.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's really a fun thing. Of course, it plays out in very practical ways too. Most of my career has been working in dioceses, helping and advising bishops. Most of my career for the last, before I came here to the University of St Thomas, was working in chancery offices and I served in predominantly in the role of what's called the chancellor at the diocese, which is kind of like your chief canonical legal counsel for the diocese Takes care of a lot of documents and stuff. I always tell priests they have the ministry of presence, while we canon lawyers have the ministry of paper.
Speaker 3:So we take care of all the paperwork and everything so that they don't have to.
Speaker 1:So what kind of issues come up that have to cross your desk, that you maybe have to sign off on or give advice on to a head of a diocese about something like that would involve canonical law? Give us just an example, maybe.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the canonical law. Just like in American civil law, it touches just about every part of the life of the church. So, just like in civil law and in civil society, what part does American law cover? Everything from crossing the street, how you drive, how you get employed, how you receive benefits. Same way in the church. So canon lawyers deal with just about everything. We deal with sacramental law. We deal with property law. We deal with personnel law. We deal with theological issues. We deal with clergy appointments and removals. We deal with religious life and religious institutions. We deal with procedural law. How do you bring a case forward? How do you have a complaint? How do you do some sort of an appeal? All those things are in there. People have rights, people have duties and we're there to help them through that.
Speaker 2:I did not know until we had our former Archbishop, daniel Cardinal DiNardo, a retired March I think 25th was his last day and there was a turnover to a former auxiliary who's also here from Texas, and that's Joe. Vasquez right who had been. I remember him when he was a priest in San Angelo. I didn't know this. All property in the Archdiocese is under the individual archbishop's name and so when that transfer is over, there's a bunch of paperwork in transferring that property over. Can you explain some of that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, there's different models that different dioceses do for how property is held, and it goes back with a fascinating history, back to the 1800s, because of course you had the United States. That was predominantly a Protestant country, and so you had a lot of religious organizations that were much more congregational and localized. But then all of a sudden you have the Catholic Church and other organizations such as the Orthodox Church who hold property qua diocese as much more collective. And so over the years the question has arisen well, how do you do that? How do you have that sort of local ownership of the property while still having that oversight from the hierarchical ecclesiastical authority? And so different places had different models that came up.
Speaker 3:One model that was rejected pretty quickly was the fee-simple model in which the bishop just simply owned all the property himself. Highly problematic, bishop would die, you know, some long-lost nephew would come and try to claim the parish as his property. So bad, bad idea. So they backed away from that a little bit. Two models then became very predominant. The first one that became very, very popular was really made popular by Cardinal Mundelein, who was up in Chicago. Mundelein came up with this thing called the corporate soul model. The corporate soul model is that all property is owned by the bishop, but not the bishop as an individual, the bishop ex officio in his capacity as the bishop, as a corporate soul. So you have a corporation made up of one person, and so via the corporate soul model, then that allowed that local flexibility to get the local parishes can still administer the property, but then the bishop still has that oversight.
Speaker 3:Over the years, though, that became kind of frowned upon a little bit, because liability when it attaches would attach to the entire entity, and so some of the weekend lawyers and others thought, well, maybe there'd be a better model. New York, the diocese up in New York, came up with this model that became known as the New York model, which is you would have in a sense a bishop in trust, where the property would be owned locally, but the local corporation of St Such-and-Such Parish would be comprised of five people. You would have the bishop, you would have the vicar general, you would have the pastor and then two lay trustees, and so there would be a local corporate board for each parish, each local property. That was a way of kind of balancing out local ownership with oversight and control, hierarchically as well. So a lot of dioceses, particularly with the abuse scandals and things like that, started to switch over to this New York model, this parish corporation model, as they call it.
Speaker 3:However, about half the dioceses in the United States still are under the corporate soul model. I was not sure whether Elks in Houston was under the corporate soul model. I was not sure whether Yeltsin Houston was under the corporate soul model.
Speaker 1:Still, it sounds like it still is, but that's something that I'm not aware of you know that brings up something I'm thinking of over on the Protestant side and I just wondered what you would think about this. You know the whole ownership of property has come up quite in the Episcopal Church as well as the Methodist Church with their divisions, and they're having to figure that out. I wonder, did they borrow from Catholic canon law maybe to come to some of the agreements they came to during that? Because I mean there wouldn't have been anything like that amongst many of those Protestant groups.
Speaker 3:Yeah, very much so. As a matter of fact, a lot of courts looked over to the Catholic models for some guidance on that. You know, I have studied and I studied at an Episcopalian seminary One of my degrees is from there and it was fascinating. I was studying there during the time where the Episcopal Church was going through some major splits in North America, about 10 years ago or so ago or so, and it was fascinating to see because in that mediation process that was going on, because you kind of have, you know, with Episcopalian church you have kind of have a localized community congregation but you still have this hierarchical structure but it's not as developed as would be in, say, the Orthodox church or Catholic church, and so a lot of mediations and court mediations to get around the First Amendment issues would try to come up and try to look at other models, such as these types of parish corporation models, just to see how ownership can be done and be treated fairly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's extremely interesting. Well, canon lawyers you get to work about like a secular lawyers do quite a lot of things.
Speaker 3:There's a lot of overlap, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Another thing a pope will retire a bishop. This happened recently, Tyler north of me here in East Texas. From time to time. How does canon law allow that to happen? And I guess we could ask the question does that ever happen to the pope? I guess he's not subject to such things like that, Right, but what is the law on retiring a bishop?
Speaker 3:Yeah, the pope.
Speaker 3:In the Western Church the pope has what's called universal jurisdiction. So, aside from the charism of teaching, of preaching, of liturgy and things like that, the pope, because he is the successor of St Peter, the successor of the Bishop of Rome, he is understood to havea universal jurisdiction, which means in administrative matters he has the totality of the decision-making on there. Through the years, however, how bishops are chosen has become varied. You know, you look at Scripture. There's really not a set way. It's really funny because in the Acts of the Apostles, right at the beginning, there in the first chapter, they chose the first bishop to replace Judas by casting lots. So it's basically let's see how we want to design this. So through the years you had certain things certain places had like a right of nomination. That was kind of one of the big questions, one of the big debates with the recent deal with China, whether or not the government over there could have some sort of a bigger say in the nomination and acceptance of bishops. You've had that in certain places. The predominant current way that it's done is that the Pope would do his investigation via what's called the Dicastery for Bishops. Pope would do his investigation via what's called the Dicastery for Bishops. Dicastery for Bishops kind of take the names through the nuncio of the Vatican to the country. He would gather the dossiers, the names and things like that, send it over to the Dicastery for Bishops. Their job is to try to do their research and then present three names to the pope, and then the pope can decide. He can choose this guy or that guy, or he can kick it back and say, no, let's try again, I'd like three more slaves, or something like that. Then he appoints them. So that's how bishops are chosen currently.
Speaker 3:Can that change? Sure, a lot of people have asked whether or not that model works anymore, whether that's a good model, for right now that's what we have. Because he's able to appoint bishops, he also has the right to remove them, and so removal of bishops is something that the Pope can ultimately do. Outside of that, though, there's a lot of local hands-off, if you will. That's one of the things that the Second Vatican Council really brought to the forefront.
Speaker 3:Was that well, to be the successor to the forefront? Was that well, you know, to be the successor to the apostle? Yes, the Pope is the successor to Peter, but the bishops are the successors to the apostles. So there's this collegiality that is at work there, and while the Pope is the first among equals, he is the first among equals, and so the Second Vatican Council said we need to move away from a model that is seen more as the bishop being kind of the field agent of the pope. The bishop really is the presence of the apostles in that diocese, and so a lot of changes in canon law happened that allowed that there's certain permissions that bishops don't need to get anymore from the Vatican in order to function in their diocese. At the end of the day, however, the appointment and removal is still reserved to Romans II and to the papacy.
Speaker 1:And it's absolutely. It's so complex I grew up a Baptist. We're not that complex. We just start another church if we want to do something.
Speaker 3:We just start another religious order when we don't get along but Baptists can remove, they can unordain their local pastor. Yeah, in congregational churches it's more dependent on the councils, how the councils are and how it's individually set up. It's basically you know where do you put the decision-making power. Usually in hierarchical churches like the Catholic Church, a little bit higher up, more higher up and usually more congregational churches. It's more localized.
Speaker 2:I mentioned earlier. You know, april 21st, pope Francis passed away kind of, you know I don't want to say suddenly, but it was kind of unexpected. Everybody thought he was getting better, he was recuperating, and then, you know, he has that aneurysm and dies. So what happens when a pope dies? What goes on immediately inside the vatican or and at the at his residence?
Speaker 3:yeah, there was a jewish historian journalist who did a work on the vatican, did some researches back maybe in the 60s or 70s, uh, and he made the observation that most men die in obscurity but the pope, uh, die in ceremonies, uh, and that was his way of observing that. You know, when there's a papal death and a transition, there's a lot of things that kick in all of a sudden. Now the reason for that is that you know, the Church has done this for a while 2,000 years, 266 popes. Now we're about to elect the 267th guy now. So we've been there a few times and it's been pretty messy in some of those times.
Speaker 3:And so over the centuries, the church started to say, hey, let's use our ceremonial protocols and things like that to try to ensure as much as possible a seamless and a transition where you don't have a lot of people who are going to be pushing and pulling, because we all know, in an interregnum, in a period where we're in between leaders, the natives can get pretty restless and people can push and pull. There are a lot of questions on who has authority to do what and a lot of things could be very detrimental. And so the church says, hey, let's try to calm that down as much as possible. So everything from you know what do we do ceremonially once the Pope dies who confirms it, who's able to announce it, who has the position, who has the responsibility of telling this person and that person? That's all regularized down to the tea. So it's really, really strict and it's really precise, because we don't want people taking advantage of the situation when the Pope dies, a guy named the Camerlengo of the church. A Camerlengo is just another word for the Chamberlain. The Chamberlain is the cardinal that the Pope has designated and he's among the college of cardinals there who has certain roles that he has to fulfill right when the death happens. He's the one that has to certify the death, for example, because we want to know for sure that the guy has passed.
Speaker 3:In ages past we've had different types of tests that we do now with the medical examination. Once that's called, it's not official until the Camerlengo says yes, the Pope, you know Papa Mortuus S, the Pope is dead. That then kicks off the official procedure. The apartments are sealed so that nobody can get in there in this period because we don't want people kind of rummaging through the pope's things and files and things like that that's sealed until the new pope comes, nobody's allowed in or out. Then it kicks off the ceremonies for the papal death, which within four days or so four to six days you have to have the funeral. And the reason it has to be very quick is because it's forbidden for the Pope to have an autopsy and there's no embalming either, and so they put kind of like a cream to slow down the decaying process as much as possible. But the clock is ticking and so he's laying in state so people can come and pay their respects, but within four days or so, and that's exactly what we saw with Pope Francis.
Speaker 3:The Saturday following was the funeral. That then picks off a nine-day period of mourning called the Novum Dialis, which comes from two Latin words Novum, nine dies, days, the nine days. So it's a required nine days where on every single day there would be a mass. There-s days, the nine days so it's a required nine days where on every single day there would be a mass, there would be a reflection for the cardinals who are gathering. It serves two or three different purposes. One, to give us some space and time to kind of make that transition.
Speaker 3:We don't want to start the conflict just yet. We want to bury the guy. We want to make sure that we have that mental and spiritual transition. Two, though it allows the cardinals time to get to Rome, because they're kind of scattered all over in the world, you know. Nine days allows them time to start traveling to Rome to make preparations. The third thing is that it starts to allow the cardinals to have that reflection OK, now that the pope is dead, you know, what do we need? What kind of a leader do we need? What's the direction of the church? So, after nine days, then, and at the very least the very earliest 15 days after the death of the pope, at the very longest 20 days after the death of the pope, the conclave starts. And that's when again, very strict, very ceremonial where the cardinals then come, and that's what we saw just the other day here on Wednesday. So that's what yesterday was the start of that conflict.
Speaker 2:Is the role of the Cardinal. I mean, you know these guys wearing the red, you know which is you were saying in a video. I'm going to post the link to that video in the description below because I think it's real good. So in 1875, we had our first Cardinal in the United States, john McCluskey, and three years later Pius IX, pio Nono, dies. Mccluskey can't get to Rome in time, so can't participate. Muskie can't get to Rome in time, so can't participate. So he goes up and talks to the new pope. Well, I don't know about him, but another pope goes and talks to the new pope, gets it extended to 20 days 15 to 20 days afterwards so that people who were having a hard time traveling could get there on time. We don't realize that in today's world that it took a long time to get there. But is that their main responsibility is to choose the next leader?
Speaker 3:Yeah, as a matter of fact, the highest position in the Catholic Church is the bishop. The pope is the bishop of Rome. Cardinals are bishops. They are bishops who are given the designation of cardinal because their main focus is the election of the next pope. Now they're also advisors to the pope. They also serve in curio or office positions. You know different types of councils that he would put them on, different types of nunciature, those types of things, but their predominant duty is to provide for the election of the next cardinals.
Speaker 3:They wear red because the notion of being a cardinal is that you would shed your blood for the faith, and hence the red. The red color is not just ceremonial, it's not just to be flashy, but it's to remind them and us that these are people who are willing to stand up, be witnesses for the faith and die for the faith. It comes correctly too. I had mentioned before in another presentation that's why the popes tended to wear red shoes. Also, I know there was a big controversy on Benedict wearing red shoes. That's too flashy and things like that Francis didn't wear. It's not a requirement that the popes wear red shoes, but the red shoes that the popes did wear was what was kind of reminiscent of that as well, that the pope needs to be willing to stand in a pool of his own blood in witness of the faith. You know, otherwise it'd be kind of a silly fashion statement where you have a white cassock and red shoes. You know, otherwise it'd be kind of a silly fashion statement where you have a white cassock and red shoes. It just doesn't quite go. But that's the idea, that kind of the theological message behind it is that martyrdom, that witness, that giving yourself up for the faith.
Speaker 3:Cardinals are appointed and designated by the pope. He gets to designate as many as he wants and whoever he wants. Who then would have the right of voting? They get to vote up until they're 80 years old, and it's very precise they have to be under 80 by the day before the Pope dies. So Pope Francis died on what? Was it April 20th or 21st or something like that? You take the day before that, count all the cardinals who are under 80 at that time. They're the ones who have the right to come.
Speaker 1:And vote Is who's going to be the Carmelingo decided before the pope passes. They know who that's going to be. Is that already a position or is that appointed when it happens?
Speaker 3:That's appointed well beforehand as a matter of fact, and usually the pope gets the decision on who to appoint that. But there's a certain position among what's called the College of Cardinals, which is the cardinals as a body, but that's determined well beforehand so that you know exactly who it is. We want the procedure of the set of a conte, the empty seat, the interregnum, that transitory period, to be as smooth as possible. That's not the time where the church wants more people being appointed here and there because of the lobbying, because of the pushing and pulling, the politicking, things like that. So the Carmelingo and all these other positions are decided well beforehand.
Speaker 1:And besides, of course, being the presider over the conclave and such like this, what other duties does the Carmelingo have after the passing of the pope?
Speaker 3:Yeah, the Carmelingo has a very practical function. He's the one that has to oversee the administration of the finances of the Vatican during the period. So in other words, that's just a fancy way of saying he just makes sure that the bills get paid and that paychecks are issued and things are signed off on. There's a Latin phrase that guides these periods. In between, we, canada, say sedificante nihil innovator. When the seat is empty, nothing new is to be innovated. So the idea is that you can't do anything that is a new initiative. You can't do anything that prejudices the rights, in other words, binds the rights and binds the hands of the person coming after you. You just have to hold the line, make sure the lights get turned off and on, people get paid, things like that. So the camera lingo is the main person who has to oversee those day-to-day operations during a set of a content.
Speaker 1:Hasn't there been some issue with the finances? I know there's been something come up during this time period a little bit. Did I remember that right?
Speaker 3:Vatican finances have always been an issue, and for decades now it's been an issue, and the last three popes have done a lot in order to try to reform the system with the Vatican Bank, the Institute for the Work of Charity and things like that. Francis himself did some major reforms structure-wise on how that's done, and so they're working through that and the Vatican again is running a deficit. That's not surprising. So, yeah, the finances can be a little bit of a mess over there. De Carmelengo, at this point that's really in a sense, not his problem. Those are kind of those structural reforms that he's not allowed to look at. He just needs to make sure that the day-to-day continues and that we get through this period, and so then the new pope can make those decisions.
Speaker 1:I saw something else on the East East team coming up. Because it's so fascinating and just so you know we're going to carry this over. This is probably going to be two episodes.
Speaker 2:Sure, no problem, don't worry about.
Speaker 1:Gene's clock.
Speaker 2:Well, okay, Scott, I guess this is as good a time as any. We'll go ahead and pause right now, and thank you all for listening so much. We've been talking with Associate Vice President and Dean of Students at St Thomas University, Benedict Wynne, on the processes of canon law that kick into effect when a pope passes away and there's a transition to a new pope and, as you know, we record these. And while we were finishing up episode one here, we got the word that the white smoke was coming out of St Peter's Basilica, which means a new pope was elected. So we're going to have a new pope and we'll be talking more about that in the next discussion. Join us again next time here on Talking Texas History. Thanks everybody, See you soon.
