The claim I will make here is not that Church discipline doesn't matter in the absolute sense, as if no one is hurt by the failures of the shepherds of the Church. Rather, what I am saying is that the claim that the Church is "indefectible" is purely supernatural in nature; it pertains to the supernatural aspects of grace and revelation. There is a supernatural reality that is there regardless of time or season. In the liturgy, we see eternity. Compared to that supernatural reality, the mundane things that we see barely exist. It is the ability to grasp that reality that defines the Christian life in faith, hope, and charity.
This is likewise the sense in which the Eucharist is "the source and summit of the Christian life." It is the quintessential act of faith. The only thing that matters, from a disciplinary standpoint, is that the faithful have access to the Sacrament. That is the respect in which one judges scandal, the idea that a minister would suggest to the faithful that the Church as a whole does not embrace this supernatural reality. This is exemplified by Canon 915: "Those who have been excommunicated or interdicted after the imposition or declaration of the penalty and others obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to holy communion." But in the end, it is possible for the minister to fail at this task; the Cross that the laity bears is that they must not fail in their faith. When the ministers of the Sacrament fail to protect them from scandal, those in the pews must not lose their grasp on the pearl of great price, for which they have sold their lives.
Divine revelation is likewise preserved supernaturally, but because it comes in written form with the concomitant need of interpretation, the supernatural aspects are not contained in the very thing itself as they are with the Eucharist. Here, there is necessarily a supernatural activity of conservation, and that supernatural activity is what is recognized with the eyes of faith, just as the Eucharist itself is. And just as the Eucharist is the source and summit on the Christian life, the keys given to Peter are the supernatural principle for the conservation of divine revelation. They are capable, by their nature, only of binding to the truth, and this is the principle by which they are capable of sustaining revelation. Perceived by the eyes of faith, the fact that the keys bind only to truth is the visible sign that the Scriptures are what they say that they are. This is why those three things -- the celebration of the Eucharist (Tradition), the oracles of God (Scripture), and the keys of Peter (Magisterium) -- work inseparably for the faithful as the true sign of the God Who reveals. Just as we perceive the Real Presence in the Eucharist by faith, we perceive the God Who reveals in the Church by faith.
But just as the Eucharist can be recognized in the midst of scandal by the minister, so can the power of the keys. St. Bernard of Clairvaux speaks of the Church of his time in Sermon 33 on the Song of Songs.
It was once predicted [of the Church], and now the time of its fulfillment draws near: Behold, in peace is my bitterness most bitter [Is. 38:17]. It was bitter at first in the death of the martyrs; more bitter afterward in the conflict with heretics; but most bitter of all now in the [evil] lives of her members. She cannot drive them away, and she cannot flee from them, so strongly established are they, and so multiplied are they beyond measure. It is that which makes its bitterness most bitter, even in the midst of peace. But in what a peace! Peace it is, and yet it is not peace. There is peace from heathens, and from heretics; but not from her own sons. At this time is heard the voice of her complaining: I have nourished and brought forth children, and they have rebelled against me [Is. 1:2]. They have rebelled; they have dishonoured me by their evil lives, by their shameful gains, by their shameful trafficking, by, in short, their many works which walk in darkness. There remains only one thing -- that the demon of noonday should appear to seduce those who remain still in Christ, and in the simplicity which is in Him. He has, without question, swallowed up the rivers of the learned, and the torrents of those who are powerful, and (as says the Scripture) he trusteth that he can draw the Jordan into his mouth [Job 40:23] -- that is to say, those simple and humble ones who are in the Church. For this is he who is Antichrist, who counterfeits not only the day, but also the noonday; who exalts himself above all that is called God or worshipped -- whom the Lord Jesus shall consume with the Spirit of His Mouth, and destroy with the brightness of His Coming [2 Thess. 2:4, 8]; for He is the true and eternal Noonday: the Bridegroom, and Defender of the Church, Who is above all, God blessed for ever. Amen.
Unquestionably, both then and thereafter, the Pope has been part of this failure, in some cases actively participating in it and encouraging it. But the authority of the keys is not different than the Eucharist in this regard; within his charism, the Pope is something more than he is. The keys he bears are more than human, even when wielded "in a human mode," as Johann Baptist Cardinal Franzelin describes the use of disciplinary authority. When the Pope exerts this supernatural power, it is like the case of the priest, a sinful man who confects something altogether beyond his power. The fact that the Pope may be an awful person, even in his exercises of disciplinary power, makes not one whit of difference to the efficacy of this power. He cannot negate his charism by his wrongful behavior any more than the priest can negate his own orders. As long as he has the office, he has the charism of the office. The only way that he can lose it is to leave voluntarily, for no power on earth can depose him.
The question, then, is always this: is the Pope acting with the supernatural authority of his office? If he is, we trust it, not because of the man but because of the Holy Spirit. And this is true whenever the Pope uses the keys, the supreme Magisterium, to bind, even if only "in a human mode." The use of the keys most aligned with the purpose of the office -- as steward of the deposit of faith -- is that of binding to doctrine. This is why ex cathedra pronouncements have the maximum degree of this personal protection, referrred to simply as infallibility. But disciplinary authority of the supreme Magisterium, which is incidental to this role, is no less supernatural in nature, meaning that it must likewise partake of the same Petrine gift in order to provide us with a rational basis for obedience to the Magisterium. If we could be commanded to adhere to a denial of the deposit of faith by the very power given to preserve it, that would render the faith itself fundamentally incoherent and irrational. It would consign Catholicism to sheer fideism. Therefore, as St. Robert Bellarmine says, "it is gathered correctly that the Pope by his own nature can fall into heresy, but not when we posit the singular assistance of God which Christ asked for him by his prayer" (De Controversiis book IV, ch. 7).
Yet, on the other hand, it would be foolish to claim that what the Mellifluous Doctor has described as a "bitterness most bitter" is easy to swallow. We cannot dismiss the very real harm and pain that is caused by these morally defective pastors. When the priesthood is full of wrongdoers, who "cannot be driven away or fled," that is in some way even worse than persecution or battles with heresy. But we can never go so far as to deny the supernatural power of the keys, which the eyes of faith always must have in sight. Along those lines, I must agree with the comments by "riverrun" here (around 5:30) in discussing the authority of the episcopate (and especially the Pope) over the liturgy:
We have episcopal government in this Church that's fundamental. If you're going to dispense with that to save the liturgy, you've lost everything that was worthwhile in the liturgy to dispense with. It's gone. So help me out. I want priests and bishops before I want to be able to do whatever I want with ritual.
...
[12:13] "We're the shepherds; we're the guardians." Of course they are! Of course they are! If they aren't, then God help me! I'm doomed.
And the papal supremacy over the liturgy is simply a specific case of Church discipline. The failure of the shepherds in Church discipline is absolutely a bitter pill to swallow. But if it causes us to vomit up the nourishing food that the faith provides us, then we ourselves will have failed in our calling, although perhaps not due to our fault. Isaiah 38:17 goes on to say why we suffer this: "Behold, it was for my welfare that I had great bitterness; but in love you have delivered my life from the pit of destruction, for you have cast all my sins behind your back." Even this bitter medicine -- the failings of our shepherds -- is for our good, if we only recall that the Church is the ark of our salvation with Her visible head who bears the keys of St. Peter. But if we let it lead us to resistance against the supernatural authority of the keys, we will have taken the pill to our own sorrow.
Denial of the unique and personal authority of the Pope, this supernatural power of the keys, is the definition of schism; it is the wrongful failure to submit to the power of the keys. Those who willfully deny this supernatural authority and its concomitant protection from universally binding the Church to heresy have already embraced schism in principle. Obviously, one can question whether this is the case with the Eastern Orthodox or the SSPX, who hold a fundamentally different account of what the authority of the keys entails. If the denial is not willful, then it is only by "blessed inconsistency," because they have done avoiding schism in everything but formal act. But the more troubling case is that of traditionalists who ostensibly accept the power of the keys but who rationalize disobedience by such inconsistency.
In short, to make one's view Church discipline a condition to obedience to the Pope is the same Donatist impulse that makes the moral fitness of ministers a condition to validity of the Sacraments. On the contrary, this supernatural reality is accepted by faith without regard to the failings of the ministers. And in the case of the keys, the supernatural authority does not depend on one's judgment of the job performance of the Pope. The idea that we get to decide what doctrine is, that we can somehow "read ourselves into the Church" by any path other than sheer obedience -- albeit rational obedience with moral certainty -- to Her governmental authority is a Pelagian fantasy. It is only the grace of obedience to the mystical Body of Christ, in whatever imperfect way, that gives us any hope of salvation.
This is not to say that I have no sympathy with those who struggle with the bitter pill. How could we not? It seems inordinately cruel for those who love the celebration of Mass according to the older ritual would be prevented from preserving it. And although we can trust that God saves whomever He will save, so that not even one who is led away from the Catholic faith inculpably will be lost, the shepherds will be the ones to answer to God for their conduct in losing them from the community. But we must -- we simply must! -- avoid the Donatist impulse that would deny the supernatural authority of the Pope, including any suggestion that binding universal discipline over the liturgy or other matters can be heretical.
