Heard on NPR this AM in an interview with the President of St. Mary’s college in Moraga, CA:
The Pope is a priest, a pastor, a prophet, a politician…
I grew up going to Catholic schools and can never remember the Pope being referred to as “a prophet”. In fact, it sounds very OT or even Mormon. Does the RCC actually recognize modern day prophets, and is the Pope generally considered one? Or, did this guy just get carried away with alliteration? Being the president of St Mary’s, I assume he’s no slouch in the theology dept…
At a guess, here, the speaker was mixing the titles “Priest, Prophet, King” applied to Jesus with either the concept of pope as Vicar of Christ or the somewhat recent theology that calls all Christians to exercise the roles of priest, prophet, king in immitation of Jesus.
The “politician,” then might have been a way to avoid “king” in an Amerian political context.
To be really sure what he meant, you might have to ask the original speaker.
The RCC has not picked up the habit from the Church of Jesus Christ of latter Day Saints of referring to their leader as “prophet” and does not expect him to make specific (foretelling) prophecies.
The specific words were probably chosen for their alliteration.
That said, “prophecy” does not necessarily have to mean predictions of the future. A prophet, strictly speaking, is nothing more nor less than one who speaks the word of God, and in fact most of the Old Testament prophets were mostly concerned with what was going on in their here-and-now.
Yeah, I definitely remember middle school religion classes talking about how christ, the priest in their role as christ on earth and us regular schmoes as christians are to be priests, prophets, and kings.
Except for the fact that you can open pretty much any Prophetical book at random and have a good chance of finding something that deals with the future.
Well, sure, but you can find something that deals with the future in every book. Doesn’t mean that’s the focus. When a prophet says “You’d better stop sinning, or God’s gonna be pissed!”, they’re talking about the present sin, not the future pissedness.
Yes, but you can open any newspaper and find economic and political commentators prognosticating about the future on the op-ed page. “We’re all going to hell in a handbasket!” is not a belief that only the religious can express.
There may be passages in the OT prophecy books than can be read as Nostrodamus-type predictions, if you are minded to read them that way. But that’s not really the core of the biblical notion of prophecy. A prophet reads the signs of the times, points out the gap between how people are behaving and how they are called to behave, and opines that This Will Not End Well.
And when they tried to get really specific and particular with future predictions, they didn’t always get it right either. They didn’t even get the Messiah’s name right.
In religion, a prophet is an individual who is claimed to have been contacted by the supernatural or the divine, and to speak for them, serving as an intermediary with humanity, delivering this newfound knowledge from the supernatural entity to other people. The message that the prophet conveys is called a prophecy.
I don’t believe that he has been “contacted” by a divine entity.
Do you have a cite for that? I’m not saying I don’t believe you, but I grew up Catholic, went to Catholic schools, and we never, ever were taught this. But I could have been snoozing in Religion class…
Yep. I’m just wonder what THEY think about it. And by “they”, I mean Church doctrine, not what your average Catholic on the street thinks.
Bear with me because I’m going from memory here, but I seem to recall that a “prophet” in the OT was not so much a predictor of the future as one sent by the Lord to keep Israel true to the Covenant and goad it back when it strayed (which was frequently). In that sense I think the term fits the Pope rather well.
Sounds like a Catholic academic over-excitedly gushing in sheer relief that he doesn’t have to feel embarrassed by this particular member of the hierarchy. I doubt if there’s any theological significance to it.
