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Timo Soini, Finland's only Catholic parliament member (the rest are Lutherans or atheists), has given some invigorating interviews in the Finnish media during the last few years. He is open about his Christian faith, and is a refreshing solitary voice in this moral fiberless “land of one truth”. The secular media finds him interesting because he is intelligent, a patriot, and somewhat of a populist (populists tend to offer wonderful material).
Otherwise exceptionally orthodox in his views, at least as far as I understand the Catholic teaching, he said something in the interview in the latest Nyt-liite of Helsingin Sanomat that caught my eye. In addition to mentioning going to confession (only*) once a year, he called the doctrine of papal infallibility “a legend”. By legend I take it he meant something to not take too seriously.
Now, I may not know much about that doctrine, but I do know that most people know nothing. The most common misrepresentation of it takes the form “the Pope's supposedly always right”. Most objections to the doctrine are answered here and in Finnish here. After the doctine has been (over the years) successfully clarified to me, I've lost most my prejudices. The remaining problems are quite subtle and hard to formulate, I will not attempt an elaboration here.
Back to Timo Soini. Being neither a professing Catholic nor a media figure makes it difficult for me to foresee whether anyone will notice his obvious deviation from the official Catholic teaching. Come what may, I hope he succeeds in inspiring a few other Christians to “come out of their religious closet”. I almost voted for the man during the last elections, but thought his social beliefs were not global (or catholic) enough.
* I guess I shouldn't say only. I know two types of Catholics: the first group, that encompasses probably most parishioners, hasn't seen a confessional since their first communion, and the second group, a small number I presume, confess on a weekly or monthly basis and would probably be labeled “fundamentalists” by the first group.
6 months ago
3 comments:
Thanks Jason for the interesting post. I heard from a professor that in that interview Soini expressed his reservation on the topic of contraception, don't know the exact wording though since I haven't read the article.
I've read the Catholicism part in Soini's new book and he seems to like to promote his negative views on abortion and women priests, and he did have a slogan that sounded like he likes to go to confession often- which once a year is definitely not, although it's the minimum at least if you've sinned seriously.
Anyways. Perhaps a charitable interpretation would be as follows: Soini thinks Papal infallibility (read: impeccability) is something the Church doesn't really teach and he's right - but the Church does teach Infallibility and perhaps he's never read Vatican I.
But if less charitable interpretations are true, while any positive propaganda for the faith is always good, it is greatly discomforting to see that particularly (or even) those people with the opportunity and the 'authority' (to influence) are in fact dissidents, perhaps simply promoting their own likes and possibly leading many astray...
With power comes responsibility...
Emil,
Giving people the benefit of the doubt is an excellent thing. But I think it would be stretching it to say that of all people Timo Soini confused impeccability with infallibility. It is, however, possible that even he doesn't understand all the ins-and-outs of that superficially simple but theologically intricate doctrine.
Even if Soini doesn't believe in papal infallibility or has a reservation against certain points in the Church's teaching on contraception, he seems to be otherwise exceptionally orthodox. At least in Finnish Catholicism standards. What do you think?
I wouldn't be too worried about him leading people astray. I think there's more chance of the opposite happening.
I'm reading his political biography now, but I haven't got far yet. Thanks for a great gift.
FP, Jason
P.S. "Mr. Mystery" and "Crazy Theologian" and other aliases aren't perfectionists when it comes to spelling, but once we're down to serious doctrinal business, Emil tends to turn all capital-letterish! ;-)
Yea I think you're right. About which way he'd more likely lead people. He's probably sincere but hasn't taken the time and effort to go through everything he should've. Glad you're reading; you're welcome, Mr. Maisteri
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