KEEPING
OUR FINGERS CROSSED
To all my non-Catholic, disaffected Catholics, Jews,
Muslims, atheists, and other friends and readers, you’ll have to forgive me for
devoting the last three blog postings to the papacy. But, like many Catholics who for decades
have been shaking their heads in dismay and disappointment at the ways of the
Vatican, the selection of Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina as Pope Francis is
a breath of fresh air, if not a badly needed whiff of oxygen. I feel almost giddy, like I did as a young Jesuit
seminarian in my early 20’s when Pope John XXIII introduced aggiornamento (a bringing up to date)
that led to Vatican II and many needed Church reforms.
The selection of Francis I was beyond
my wildest dreams, considering all the Cardinals voting for the selection had
been appointed by John Paul II and Benedict XVI, both deep disappointments to
many progressive Catholics. To be sure,
there are questions lingering from some of the positions Cardinal Bergoglio took
in Argentina, among them the language he used in his public spat with the
government over same-sex marriage. Nonetheless,
we are still “keeping our fingers crossed,” a Christian symbol dating back to
the early Church when Christians crossed their fingers to invoke the power
associated with the cross.
The early signals and symbolic
gestures by Francis offer reasons to hope that this new Pope understands how
deeply irrelevant the papacy and the Vatican have become. The fact that he insists on wearing simple
priestly garb versus the garish, ornate costumes reflective of an imperial
monarch is heartening just in itself. This
was reinforced when in one of first acts as Pope he refused to sit on a throne
or any elevated chair and turned down the red cape with ermine by saying: “No
thank you, Monsignore. You put it on instead. Carnival time is over!”
But most heartening has been his emphasis
on the Church’s predilection for the poor and disadvantaged. This week, for example, he is going to
celebrate Holy Thursday in a Mass at a youth detention center rather than at
the basilica, which is the seat of the Bishop of Rome. This focus on the poor is a tradition he
started long ago as Cardinal Bergoglio in Argentina. Also deeply encouraging is the new Pope’s outreach
and embrace of other religious faiths and traditions: Jews, Muslims, Orthodox Christians, and
atheists, raising hope the Catholic Church will truly become “catholic” and not
just in name only.
I am starting to gush and I apologize. But, I can’t help it. It’s been a long time since I was truly proud
of a Pope. Admittedly, it is still too
early to tell what Francis will do in terms of more substantive issues. But, I am heartened by the fact that he had a
Jesuit formation and didn’t come out of one of these cookie-cutter priest
factories that spawned John Paul II or Benedict XVI clones and look-alikes. As a member of the Jesuit Order for almost 12
years, I know how rigorous that training is and how much emphasis was put on
teaching seminarians to think and to challenge, not just repeat what they were
taught. It’s an experience I will always
treasure.
This is why I believe, or hope, that
despite what he might have said as a Cardinal in Argentina, closely monitored
by the Vatican thought-police, he will re-examine some of these traditions that
rigidly traditional Catholics have deemed immutable and unchanging. Don’t look for doctrinal changes on
abortion. The Church will never approve
abortion because it believes that that life begins at conception and there is
compelling evidence for that. That said,
I would like to see the hierarchical Church respect those who disagree and
shift the public focus from condemnation of abortion to embracing and taking care
of women who have made the agonizing abortion choice and to the care and
upbringing of their children.
I do believe that Francis will move
sooner rather than later to provide women full partnership in the Church,
including allowing women to be ordained priests. That should be an easy one, despite its
centuries-long tradition. I try to
imagine having a conversation with any Jesuit I know and hear him say: “The Church can never allow women priests
because Jesus did not pick a woman as one of his apostles and therefore that’s
part of the Church’s immutable traditions.”
That is just too stupid an argument for a Jesuit to ignore. Whether Francis doesn’t want to engage on
that issue in the short term and chooses to kick that can down the road is
another matter.
As for same-sex marriage, I hope to
see some movement there, but I don’t think that will happen anytime soon. It will happen over time but now the Church
is still too focused on the “physical act” of marriage and whether it is open
to procreation and not enough on the larger issue of love and commitment
between two individuals, regardless of their sexual orientation. It all comes down to what “marriage” means
and the Church is still too focused on the erogenous zone and not enough on
upper regions of the heart and mind.
But, before we get ahead of ourselves with our
expectations, let’s not forget that the new Pope’s absolute first priority should
be dealing with the Curia and the entrenched bureaucracy. That will take the heart of a lion and the
most intrepid of souls, and from what I have seen and heard so far Francis
appears to have the “right stuff.”
How he handles the Curia will largely
determine his papacy and the future of the Church. That’s a heavy lift and for that we all need
to keep our fingers crossed.
Jerry
Jerry, while I agree with much of what you've said, I think that you (and many Catholics hoping for change in the Church) are looking at Pope Francis through rose colored glasses. On some things you are right on -- his concern for the poor is well documented, and he did choose the name Francis, marrying the Jesuit pursuit of truth and scholarship with the Franciscan emphasis on helping the poor and social justice. His eschewing of some of the more ostentatious and "imperial" symbols of the Papacy come from the same sources, and yet the ceremonial aspects of the Church are what attract many people to it.
ReplyDeleteIn some areas, I think the jury is still out. Will he greatly reform the Curia, and will he work vigorously to rid the Church of sexual abuse by Priests? He hasn't, to my knowledge, said much, and his temporary reappointment of the Curia's members can be interpreted as either laying the groundwork for major change or just keeping his options open for now. The one indicator of how strongly he might act, his reaction to the "dirty war" in Argentina, is at best "iffy". He apparently didn't like what the dictatorship was doing, and one of the priests he basically handed to the government nevertheless later said he "did what he could". But, from where I sit, and recognizing the possible consequences of acting boldly, what he did was neither bold nor heroic.
The sex abuse scandal is a special case. First, I don't think the Church has been able to reconcile its complete opposition to homosexuality as an abomination and the fact that otherwise good men -- Priests -- have engaged repeatedly and often in homosexual behavior with boys. Second, I think it has misapplied the idea of forgiveness, a central tenet of the Church. Forgiveness involves penance, and what is needed here is "tough love". Yes, forgive the sin and try to bring the sinner back into grace, but part of the penance needs to be paying his debt to society (jail?), probably removal from the priesthood, and above all, no longer being exposed to the same temptation in a new place. I don't know at this point whether Pope Francis wants to do these things, or whether he can.
Then there are areas where he is on record. Aside from his concern for the poor, he seems to be pretty much a fundamentalist, challenging the Argentine government's movement toward same sex marriage and stating his opposition to liberation theology. I frankly think the best we can hope for is that, though his beliefs are often conservative, he is not so wedded to them that he chooses to make them a fundamental element of his Papacy, focusing instead on issues such as poverty and social justice. A clear indicator on these issues will be how he handles the concerns of the U.S. nuns seeking a wider role for themselves and for women in the Church. If he gives them room to disagree and to make their case over time in the Church, then there is hope on a wide array of issues where I, Jerry, and others hope for change.
Full disclosure here; I am not Catholic (you probably guessed). I think that gives me room to be a more neutral observer than many, but you may disagree. Yet the Papacy and the Church are truly powerful worldwide institutions that can be used for good or for ill, for all of us across the world. The bottom line is the one Jerry used to start this blog entry. We all need to keep our fingers crossed that Pope Francis and the church get it right.
I am heartened that Pope Francis is a Jesuit.
ReplyDeleteBut my biggest concern about the Catholic church is pedophilia. That is my personal hot-button issue.
Although I think that the church's stance on homosexuality and priestly celibacy is a factor in the rampant sexual abuse of children, I cringe when people use "homosexuality" and "pedophilia" almost interchangeably. One, because men who sexually abuse boys are NOT homosexuals; they are pedophiles. And two, because it all but ignores the sexual abuse of girls, which is more prevalent than the abuse of boys, but seems to shock and horrify people to a lesser degree.
As a Cardinal, Francis deliberately and methodically ignored charges of child sexual abuse in Argentina, even when priests were brought up on criminal charges. I have yet to see any quote from any point in his career where he specifically addresses this issue.
My only hope is that if he truly endeavors to reform the Curia, he will be successful in doing away with the aspect of the Catholic church that is most responsible for the rampant sexual abuse of children all over the world: the powerful hierarchy of men who run the show behind a thick shroud of secrecy.