Wednesday, September 18, 2019

Romano Amerio on the meaning of the Papal Title "Servant of Servants"


The Pope is often said to be the “servant of servants.” This has led some, including some errant Catholics, to think this means that this is a pious term, showing how the Roman Pontiff serves his fellow people. However, this is not the true meaning of the term. As Romano Amerio, a Catholic priest, noted:

When the Pope uses the title of servus servorum Dei, originally assumed by Pope St. Gregory the Great as a description of the power of the Supreme Keys, one must remember that the formula servus servorum is not a genitive of object, as if the pope were the one who serves the servants of God, but an hebraic genitive signifying a superlative sense as in saecula saeculorum, virgo virginum, caeli caelorum (literally: age of ages, virgin of virgins, heaven o heavens, but in fact: all ages, greatest of virgins, highest heaven), and so on. The formula therefore means that the pope is the servant of God more than all others, the servant of God par excellence, not that he is the servant of those who are the servants of God. Were it otherwise, the formula would tend to imply that the pope was the servant of men rather than of God, and would also imply that only the pope was not a servant of God, while everyone else was. (Romano Amerio, Iota Unum: A Study of Changes in the Catholic Church in the XXth Century [trans. John P. Parsons; Kansas City, Miss.: Sarto House, 1996], 150)