Something has been bothering me about the reaction to Pope Francis in the run-up to and during the Synod on the Family, particularly amongst orthodox or traditionalist Catholics.
Those in the liberal camp, and the usual media suspects, of course, are spinning this as if it’s the beginning of the Great Liberal Revolution and so on. Plus ca change, as the French say.
But amongst those who profess loyalty to the Magisterium of the Church (I’m choosing my words carefully here), there seems to be a completely polarised reaction.
On the one hand, there are those who are freaking out, big time. There is a belief in some quarters, it would appear, that the papacy of Francis heralds The End Times, the End of the World As We Know It and generally very bad things. I exaggerate to an extent, although in some cases there are those who do seem to believe this.
For example, we have:
- Maureen Mullarkey’s essay which got her kicked off First Things (warning: that link contains some violent images of ISIS atrocities)
- Or this one from Michael Brendan Dougherty, endearingly entitled ‘Does Pope Francis fear God?’
- Or this example from Fr. Z, who is somewhat more restrained, even if he wants us all to ‘be sad and scared’ about the Synod, because apparently a little bit of anxiety will help us to ‘stay focused.’
- The blogger Scott Eric has a list of cases of what he calls ‘Pope Francis Derangement Syndrome’ going back to 2013.
On the other hand, there seem to be a good number of Catholics essentially shutting down any criticism of Pope Francis as mere hysteria. Move along, nothing to see here, they seem to say. This is from Catholics who are normally quite balanced and whose views I normally respect.
- For example, here is Mark Shea dismissing all criticism of Francis with some sweeping statements directed at First Things amongst others.
- Meanwhile Erin Manning, whom I have great respect for, looks at this same divide and concludes that those who are not worried about Pope Francis the Synod in the slightest are probably the side that have the ‘right’ of it.
- Here too is Artur Rosman with a similar viewpoint.
How do we have such incredibly divergent reactions? Whatever happened to the possibility of a balanced viewpoint? Every Catholic opinion-former I can see is either laying into Francis as if he’s the antichrist or else they’re whitewashing the whole Synodal process as if the massive debates and political shenanigans involved are inconsequential and Francis is blameless.
In exasperation, I remarked to somebody close to me that I just wished that there would be more balanced coverage somewhere. They replied, ‘YOU should write something more balanced.’
Oh dear. Well, I suppose I should.
Here’s what I think.
On the one hand, as Popes go, Francis is quite good. He’s incredibly pastoral, in the right sense of that word, meeting people where they are at, actually going out ‘into the marketplace’ as the phrase goes, trying to reach out to lost sheep person to person. He has done an excellent job of reminding us that we must reach out to the poor first and foremost, rather than getting bogged down in endless culture war debates, whilst simultaneously standing up strongly for life and marriage. I’ve been informed that his Apostolic Exhortation Evanglii Gaudium is excellent on joyfully preaching the Gospel (as its title might suggest) and I’m actually dying to read it.
At the same time, he’s not perfect. Many of his off-the-cuff remarks have been ill-considered; to take an example, I know Catholic parents with large families who were quite hurt by his remarks about ‘Catholic rabbits,’ which he later apologised for. Other remarks have been wildly taken out of context by the media worldwide, and yet they have done a massive amount of damage. Our Holy Father is not always prudent in his choice of words.
Moreover, some of his decisions regarding personnel at the Synod are questionable, to say the least, particularly his decision to grant Cardinal Danneels of Belgium a position as Synod Father. Besides his outspoken support of gay marriage and allegedly pressuring King Baudouin to sign Belgium’s abortion law, the good Cardinal has also been implicated in the cover-up of Belgian child abuse scandals. Why has he been given this position then? Why has a man who defended a bishop who abused his own nephew permitted to weigh in on the Church’s response to family matters? It beggars belief.
The Synod is worrying, if only because it will cause more confusion about what the Church actually stands for, something the Church does not need right now. I am particularly frustrated at the fact that this Synod, like the last one, has been spent to a large degree waffling on about proposals that go against Church teaching when the time could have been spent actually coming up with ways to deal with the multitude of issues facing the modern Christian family: divorce, separation, trying to raise children in a hostile culture, or local issues such as polygamy in Africa and Asia or the dangerously low birth rate in many Western nations.
Here’s the thing: is it not simply possible, that rather being the personified ‘Smoke of Satan’ as I saw one writer refer to him, or rather than being yet another living Saint, as we tend to see all of our Popes of the last century (indeed, some were; I’m not questioning the Church’s judgement on this), that Pope Francis is simply a decent pastor, trying to do good work according to his own style, who like all of us has the capacity to make mistakes, even big ones?
After all, Pope Paul VI, the Pope who presided over the disastrous misinterpretations of Vatican II, was also the Pope who gave us the prophetic and courageous Encyclical Humanae Vitae.
After all, Pope Emeritus Benedict, the incredibly wise and gentle Pope who gave us so many clear, insightful teachings and genuinely tried to tear out the culture of child abuse and cover-up amongst certain members of the clergy was in the end unable to escape media portrayals and the machinations of his opponents in the curia.
After all, St. John Paul II, for all of his incredible work trying to reach out to the world, helping to bring down Communism, correct many of the excesses that went before and providing beautiful teachings on art and human love, made mistakes, including some terrible mistakes; think of his blind endorsement of the infamous Fr. Marcial Maciel, in spite of then-Cardinal Ratzinger’s deep-seated concerns about the man who did in fact turn out to be leading a terrible double life. This doesn’t take away from his canonisation one bit.
I think I know what the difficulty here is. We have fallen into a particularly Ultramontane view of the Papacy. A perfect storm of circumstances, namely the collapse of much of the Church’s traditional power bases and orthopraxy (that is, the correct implementation of Church teaching on the ground) coupled with new forms of instantaneous global communication have meant that many Catholics have turned to the authority of the Papacy, the one thing that seemed to be a common bulwark against collapse, unchanging throughout the turbulence of the twentieth century, a phenomenon which has gathered pace over the course of the last few decades.
Since the Pope is looked to for this kind of leadership and stability, as opposed to local Bishops’ Conferences and priests, an expectation of perfection is placed upon a figure who is, at the end of the day, a human being. The Vicar of Christ that man may be, but he is not Christ and not perfect. When this level of perfection is not met, there is a tendency to whitewash and explain away, or else to experience a strong negative reaction.
This state of affairs can last without a collapse as long as the papacy remains relatively unchanging and the throne of Peter is occupied by a man who is both holy and wise, a tall order in most circumstances. Of course, the abdication of Pope Benedict should teach us that nothing in this world remains constant.
We have been blessed with the Popes of the last century. They have been, to varying degrees, both holy and wise.
But let’s cast our eyes back to some of the Popes from before living memory. There were the Medici and Borgia Popes, amongst others, who wildly abused their power during the Renaissance period. Their abuses (sale of indulgences and positions, shoring up their power bases by making their friends and relatives Cardinals, using Church funds to launch personal wars, fathering numerous children) led directly to the Reformation.
Let’s face it. Pope Francis may have his faults, but they are tame compared to these.
We are guaranteed, according to Church teaching, that the Pope will not make an ex cathedra statement on faith or morals that is false. That’s all. There is presumably some kind of grace of state that goes with the Papacy, but like any grace one must embrace it freely.
We need to detach ourselves from an unhealthy reliance on the papacy, because as long as it lasts it will take one Alexander VI or a Pope along those lines to knock the feet from under us. We need to have both eyes open when it comes to the Holy Father.
Similarly, there needs to be more balance, charity and respect for the position of the Pope in the criticism levelled at him.
Pope Francis isn’t the antichrist. Neither is he God. He’s a weak human being, like the rest of us, who makes mistakes. And we need to stop tearing each other apart in debating those mistakes.
We need to stop the polarisation, the frustrating, divisive, stupid battles we fight against each other over the smallest of differences!
Although the examples of blogs above are coming from the USA and not Ireland, (something I hope to address soon) I think that we may be seeing the same kind of divide we see between the different camps I mentioned before here. The verbal battles over Pope Francis almost seem like proxy battles for a different polarisation between traditionalists and liberals, Camp A and Camp B (still haven’t thought of other names for those two!).
By Grace and Banners Fallen 