Hans urs Von Balthasar on the Petrine Office

The loud-mouthed, Christian, mostly clerical rogues who take such pleasure in attacking Rome can study their own physiognomies in the satirical pictures of Bosch and Breughel…They have all the laughs on their side. But Peter must have seemed fairly laughable too when he was crucified upside down; it was simply a good joke…therefore, blessed the office—whether it’s the Pope or the bishops or simple priests who stand firm, or anyone else who feels responsible when people start saying ‘the Church should do this and that’—which offers itself to fulfill this function, to be the seat of the illness. There is no honor to be won in this role, but if the crowd is to have its fun, a face is needed which one can slap in order to try one’s own strength: the oscillation of the needle tells one infallibly how strong one is. And that too is a form of infallibility.

- “The Pope Today”, Elucidations, trans. John Riches, (London: SPCK, 1975), quoted in the following article http://www.ignatius.com/magazines/hprweb/cleaveland.htm