The Pope Should Measure His Words more Carefully

We are trying very sincerely to understand and appreciate Pope Francis. He has said many things which have caused conservatives to wince. That's really okay; once you begin to think that you're 'all that' you might also fail to fully adhere to God's will and God's call. You may find yourself not being merciful and compassionate. Even when mercy and compassion may not seem, on the surface, to be merited, well, is that the point? We ought to be merciful and compassionate anyway, even when the objects of those noble virtues by their own actions reject them. Further, we ought to be humble even within what is right and just, for such are not right and just by our decree but by the will of God. The truth is what the truth is; we are not lords of the truth, only guardians of it.

We can accept also that God loves everyone, and so too we should love everyone. We must love even those who willfully and arrogantly do wrong yet assert it is right. We do ourselves at times. Maybe ours are not, indeed they certainly are not, their sins. But we must take care that we are not even inadvertently substituting the shame of our sins with any inordinate disdain for the sins of others. At some point we must realize that St. Peter will not be asking us about what others did in their lives but about what we did with ours. This is most certainly not to say that we ought not work against the ills of the broader society despite our own illness. Love, mercy, and compassion do not and cannot mean that we should not speak and act against a recognition of gay marriage in our nation. They simply mean that we should not demonize the person when condemning the action. It is a tightrope; it is, as the old philosophy teacher said, splitting hairs. Sometimes we must split them, and very finely.

But this latest interview, between the Holy Father and Eugenio Scalfari of La Repubblica, an atheist writer and editor, has us wondering whether Pope Francis needs to be more considerate of his words than he has been. It runs from the sublime to the ridiculous, and seems to us somewhat disjointed and, perhaps, confused.

The Pope says that 'The most serious of the evils that afflict the world these days are youth unemployment and the loneliness of the old.' With all due respect to His Holiness, and we hold the Chair of St. Peter and Francis himself in high esteem, we have a difficult time accepting these as the most serious issues we face today. To be sure, we want young people to have hope in tomorrow and we ought to venerate senior citizens. But the worst? Even arguing, and we are extrapolating here and not meaning to put words in anyone's mouths (especially the Holy Father's) that evils such as abortion and euthanasia arise from such issues, surely an actual abortion and the culture of abortion do not come solely from youth unemployment, do they? It just sounds as though the Holy Father was being flippant, a little too off the cuff; we hate to say it, but such blithe comments seem shallow. They seem to relegate the great issues of our times, indeed of all times, to the level of the catchphrase. Make people happy and evil will go away. We're not convinced that saving the world is all that easily done.

Pope Francis later asserts, “Proselytism is solemn nonsense, it makes no sense. We need to get to know each other, listen to each other and improve our knowledge of the world around us." To the latter point, yes, we need to listen. But we need to listen so that we can understand people and help them, not because their view may be right. To cut to the chase, if we as Catholics don't want to convert others to our Faith, what does it say of our faith? If he means that we ought not hit people over the head about it but prayerfully explain and cajole folks towards the truth of the Church, okay. But he should say that. As it is, he sounded very relativistic even as he explained his point (the interview can be found here: http://www.repubblica.it/cultura/2013/10/01/news/pope_s_conversation_with_scalfari_english-67643118/ ), and relativism works against everything the Church supports.

This is especially disconcerting when the Holy Father says “Each of us has a vision of good and of evil. We have to encourage people to move towards what they think is Good. … Everyone has his own idea of good and evil and must choose to follow the good and fight evil as he conceives them. That would be enough to make the world a better place.” Will it? There is simply no way to ask that question except boldly and bluntly: will it? We hope to find out that the Holy Father was taken out of context. We will let you know if we do.

We are only addressing certain parts of the interview. There are points where the Holy Father says very important things very well, and we encourage everyone to read the entire article for the sake of that. Not everyone, and especially not those who only want to hear what they want to hear of Pope Francis, will do that. The trouble is, it is those people who will make of the Pope's words more than there is to make, and for their own selfish purposes.

This is a man we must respect. This is a man chosen by God to be where he is because we need him right now, for whatever reasons God wills. Yet we have the right to question even the Pope so long as we do so charitably and in search of explanation and guidance rather than to chastise him. On the surface, we feel that the Holy Father must learn to choose his words more carefully. The world will not be so considerate of the big picture as he is apparently attempting to be. That will only work against him, and his work, in the long run.

Pope Francis is still Catholic

If you believe the mainstream media, the Catholic Church finally has a Pope who is living in, well, at least the 20th Century if not quite the 21st. After all, in an interview which took place in August 2013, Pope Francis has said that divorce and remarriage is okay, that gay marriage is okay, that abortion is okay, and maybe even that the Houston Astros will be the surprise winners of this year's World Series.

The only trouble is he didn't say those things. He said, in a nutshell, that God loves everyone. He did not say that practicing homosexuals were all right in their behavior; he did not say that abortion was okay. In fact, he said that Church teaching was 'clear' on these and other things. He says that we must preach salvation first, as a start, not as a recognition of rights which do not exist or of sins which are not sinful. We must preach love first. We must get folks in the door first.

He calls the Church a 'triage' unit: as the sick go to hospitals, the spiritually sick go to Church for the Church's help and guidance. The obvious inference, especially in reading the whole article and reflecting on the Pope's digression about the a hypothetical repentant woman who had had an abortion, is that the Church must be open to active homosexuals not on their merit or the merit of their actions, but so that She can help them. It's really no different than Christ's remark that he came for the sinners and not for the healthy. So gay rights, abortion, divorce, and women's ordination are not on the table. There is no rational inferring that through this interview, found in full here: http://www.americamagazine.org/pope-interview

That the Church must be open to everyone is nothing new. If the door is eternally shut for those who at any given time are outside of the grace of God, then She cannot be of service. Note, however, that an open door doesn't mean that everyone will enter or that anyone must enter. It only means that access to the Church must be available to all who want access and that an open door requires courtesy and charity so far as they can be had. If she does not clearly and unequivocally have such open doors, She fails Her mission.

The tale of the prodigal son comes to mind. His father gave him everything, yet the boy squandered it. Yet when he came to his senses and saw the error of his ways, his father welcomed him back. What kind of father would not, if he is any decent sort? Likewise, repentant sinners today ought to be welcomed back.

It strikes us that what the Pope is doing too is reminding us that there are other sins in the world which also require attention and instruction. This is something which, perhaps, the conservatives within the Church need to hear. But such is not to say that we must drop our concerns about gay marriage and abortion, but only to remember that there are other evils in the world. It would be nice to hear a similar paternal chastisement of the liberal churchgoers who think that the only sins out there are hunger, racism, sexism, or the improper exploitation of the environment. Still, not every word from the Pontiff's mouth must cover every issue. If today Pope Francis is gently chiding the right wing (and don't bother about him not considering himself right wing; he should not, nor left wing either) because he feels the need, then our job is to reflect upon his cautions. Be fair: we can be overzealous, friends.

Remember as well that in this same interview he laments the prospect of an unrestrained populism. “And, of course, we must be very careful not to think that this infallibilitas (infallibility of the Church in belief) of all the faithful I am talking about in the light of Vatican II is a form of populism," the Pope says. To wit, the eternal ideals which the Church defends are eternal; there is no going back on them by way of whatever the currently fashionable thought may be.

Pope Francis reminds us that every human life has tremendous value. It is that value which the Church recognizes and wishes to both preserve and increase within the person. If a person squanders his life, if he does not accept the grace of God through the Church instituted for him, well, that's on that guy. Yet if he squanders in part because he does not find a loving Church who really has his best interests in mind, then we are answerable to God ourselves at least so far as that goes. We must love even when it is not returned; we must love even when our motives are questioned and the world frowns upon us. God Himself loves even the souls in Hell. Why ought we not show love to those souls around us?