#478: Getting “The Two Popes” Right

By all means see the Netflix film “The Two Popes,”

 ---but see it for the wonderful thing it really is.

George Weigel takes pride presenting himself as someone who has known several popes, so he rightly claims to be “credentialed” for inside insight into recent papal history.

But a film critic he is not.

And even professional critics sometimes make the mistake he commits in his review of the movie “the Two Popes,” criticizing a film for what it is NOT rather than analyzing what it IS. Sadly, this leaves Weigel—and others like him—unable to appreciate the film before his eyes. He saw “baloney on steroids,” and missed what was actually on the screen: a delightfully plausible parable aimed at inspiring the viewer.

Weigel begins by saying the film claims to be “based on actual facts.” This is not true. The screen title at the movie's start reads “Inspired by true events”—which is an entirely different matter. Both the screenwriter and the director have explained that they wanted to make the movie because of their admiration for Pope Francis, combined with being intrigued by the events surrounding the resignation of Benedict XVI.  They asked themselves: “What if these two were to arrange something together?”

Weigel says the movie reveals more about the screenwriter and the director than about the historical figures. Well, duh—the whole point of film art is to express the creators’ vision. Weigel makes the common mistake of testing a film about historical figures for its historical accuracy. But this is not a documentary, or even a docudrama.

Could anyone really think that images of the College of Cardinals entering the conclave to the tune of Abba’s “Dancing Queen” could be about documenting events? Or that setting Benedict’s announcement of resignation to three different versions of the Beatles’ tune “Blackbird” aimed to serve historical accuracy?

The Filmmakers are exercising what is generally referred to as “artistic license”; typically they care less about veracity and more about verisimilitude. Yet they land on some verities.

So they contrive a two-day meeting in which both men change by coming to terms with their differences. My personal reaction: I left feeling, “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if this had happened—and even better if such things happened more often!” I took it as a parable for our time, a time in which people of differing views –in our Church, in our communities, in our nation, in our world--have stopped listening to each other. Imagine the Church as a public model inspiring people to resolve their differences!

Weigel is entitled to consider the film’s characters as “stick-figures,” despite the screenplay being nominated for both a Golden Globe and an Oscar. But his comparison of “one–dimensional portrayals of popes” with Xavier Rynne’s New Yorker coverage of  Vatican Council II is a simple category mistake—the proverbial “apples and oranges.” While Rynne claimed to be reporting, these filmmakers openly admit to inventing. One can search numerous sites detailing what is historical and what is apocryphal in the film.

Still, the characters' positions on issues are consistent with the public record. Weigel complains that the film misrepresents Benedict’s attachment to the papacy, quoting him that “I am not a man of governance.” And while it is true the film shows him urging cardinals to support him at the conclave in 2005, it also has him arguing for his own resignation by saying “I’m a scholar, not a manager.”

And while Weigel sees “self-knowledge, spiritual detachment, and churchmanship” in Benedict, he ignores how the film portrays precisely those qualities, thus humanizing a figure who has too often been stereotyped in the media as an ogre. Weigel writes as if the film were a hatchet job on Benedict. But every single viewer I’ve spoken with has come away finding Benedict a much warmer, more admirable character.

Weigel complains that the movie portrays the 2013 election of Francis as fueled by a desire for a reform movement, a course change from John-Paul II and Benedict back to engagement with the world. What motivated the voters is hard to prove, but there is ample evidence from Francis’ own public statements that he himself took his election as a mandate to make changes in the Church’s approach to the world—and that he took much of his inspiration from the two popes who preceded John-Paul II and Benedict:

Vatican II, inspired by Pope Paul VI and John, decided to look to the future with a modern spirit and to be open to modern culture. The Council Fathers knew that being open to modern culture meant religious ecumenism and dialogue with non-believers. But afterwards very little was done in that direction. I have the humility and ambition to want to do something.

Weigel further argues that the real motive behind Francis’ election was to choose “a tough minded, no-nonsense reformer who would quickly and decisively clean house"--that is, the Vatican itself, especially the curia. He implies the movie ignores this.

He seems to have missed the scenes when Benedict complains about the curia, pleads his inability to fix things (“I have lost,” he says) or when Cardinal Bergoglio (later Pope Francis) recounts how he had already cleaned up his ecclesiastical house in Argentina. When he expresses his intent to do the same in Rome, Benedict says "Well, good luck with that!"

Sadly, Weigel simply ignores a large part of the movie showing Bergoglio's own path to the priesthood, as well as his struggles as a leader. But viewers who saw the Oscar-winning films “City of God” and “The Constant Gardener” will recognize in these flashback scenes the world-engaging imagery of director Fernando Meirelles, full of vibrant third-world street scenes and the chaos of poor people’s lives. These scenes reveal that what inspired Meirelles to make this new film was precisely Francis’ career-long engagement with struggling people.

Finally Weigel calls the movie “fake news” and states his desire to “clarify the historical record.” But people who react to this movie as if it were (or claimed to be) a historical record of what actually happened have already failed to see the film on the screen. They just don’t get it. It’s their loss.

Oh, and I nearly forgot to mention the one point on which Weigel and I agree: the film is quite funny! In fact, several critics have called it a “buddy comedy”—and they are closer to the truth than Weigel.

The closing scene of the two popes watching the 2014 Argentina-Germany World Cup Final together may well be apocryphal, like most of the film—but the accompanying documentary footage of the Two Popes warmly embracing is not. When you see “the Two Pope” on Netflix, take it for what it really is: a hopeful fiction of how powerful but opposed leaders might come to see each other as (to quote Benedict's character) “only human”-- and even to become friends. 

© Bernard F. Swain PhD 2020

#445: “Ad Multos Annnos !” for Francis —and for HIS Council

The traditional Latin birthday toast “Ad Multos Annos !” (to many years!) had double (or even triple) meaning the last two weeks.

#429: 10 "Francis Effects"

It’s become commonplace to talk about “the Francis Effect.” Now, two years after Pope Francis’ election, we can see that does not mean one thing, but many things. Here are the key examples.

The First Papal Selfie

1. Rebranding the Roman Catholic Church. After 25 years of declines, 15 years of scandal and closings, and more than a decade of culture wars, the Catholic Church wore the brand of a tired, mismanaged, even corrupt institution ineffectively pursuing a stubborn holding action against modern life. Francis almost immediately injected fresh air into the Church’s wheezing body with his vitality,  humor, and easy manner—and sent the clear message that the Church would return to its core mission of serving the world with good news and love. This injection has been a booster shot for millions of discouraged Catholics, who once again have started feeling pride in their Church.

2. Reversing Catholicism’s Bad PR.  Anyone old enough to remember Vatican Council II (1962-1965) remembers clearly the euphoria that surrounded the Council and its activities.  This was partly, of course, a “John Effect” created by the popular personality of Pope John XXIII, but it was also due to the sense that the Catholic Church was finally responding to the challenges of modern life after centuries of defensive stasis.  The upshot was the most positive media and public attention the Catholic Church had received in more than a century, not only from Catholics but from other Christians, other religions, and even the secular world at large. 

It is safe to say that, after 1968, that favorable public image began to cool and weaken, reaching its lowest point in the last 10 years. This resulted from a combination of factors, including the gap between Benedict XVI’s brilliant ideas and his clumsy public communication skills.

Francis has reversed all that, as his own wildly popular public image has rubbed off on the institution as a whole.  We Catholics are enjoying the best PR of the last 50 years--at the very moment that we observe the 50^th anniversary of Vatican II!

3. Reviving the Ghost (spirit) of John XXIII.  One of the casualties of the long reign of John-Paul II was that an entire generation grew up in his shadow.  They were “John-Paul II

John  XXIII

Catholics,” and in too many cases his giant public presence overshadowed both the Council that had preceded and produced him and the pope that made it possible.  None of the papacies we have seen since 1965 could be imagined before that, and all of John’s successors depended on and benefited from his vision of the Church’s future.  Francis has made sure we do not forget John’s impact.  That is precisely why, when it came time to canonize John-Paul II, Francis ensured that John XXIII was canonized on the same day.

4. Retrieving the Legacy of Vatican II.  Not a few Catholic leaders and commentators in the last 20 years arrived at the conclusion that the legacy of Vatican II was either accomplished, or at least on a settled path that could not change.  But Francis has clearly expressed the view that much of the Council’s vision has been left unfulfilled, and has personally described himself as “humble enough and ambitious enough to try to do something about that.” In that sense, his agenda as pope leapfrogs back over his predecessors Benedict and John-Paul II to the papacies of Paul VI and John XXIII.   

These were the popes who initiated and completed Vatican II.  These were the popes who set the Church on the course-correction called “renewal”--a course correction of historic proportions.  Francis has staked his papacy on recovering the momentum of that time.

5. Dethroning Clericalism.  This is hardly a case of the emperor’s new clothes, since the Catholic Church has worn imperial trappings for more than 15 centuries.  And the corrupting impact of human nature on the Catholic hierarchy has been largely ignored and evaded for generations.  Now Francis, in a pioneering move, has identified the symptoms that corrupt the vocations of ordained man in too many places within the Church.

Francis has made it clear that, after centuries of treating laypeople as helpless children and the ordained as faultless parents, too many clerics pursue the wrong motives for personal benefit, acquire habits that impede their service, and set themselves apart from the rest of the body of Christ.  He has even called himself “anticlerical” in the face of clericalism. Images of the many glum faces among his Vatican staff during his highly critical Christmas message reflect the wider alarm felt by Bishops and priests in many lands, who now realize that their ambitions of churchly glory have been exposed.

6. Elevating Humility.  From his very first papal moment on the balcony at Saint Peter’s, Francis has consistently eschewed any place of honor, privilege, imperial trappings, rank, or luxury.  In the true Jesuit spirit of poverty, he has refused to place himself apart from or above others, and has thus ironically elevated humility to the rank of the highest leadership gift.  His very unwillingness to pretend superiority has already made him stand out, not only among much of the hierarchy, but even among some of his predecessors.  That humility now becomes a model, not just for the hierarchy, but for all of us in all of our roles as we serve others in family, in workplace, and in community.  Thus Francis becomes the epitome of leadership not by command but by example. In the process, his humility has made him arguably the world’s most loved, admired, and respected officeholder.

7. Restoring Mercy.  It was at the opening address of Vatican II that John XXIII rejected condemnations and harsh execution of laws and rules as the norm for pastoral leadership in the Church.  Instead, he said we must replace such things with the “medicine of mercy.” Somehow someplace along the line, this message got lost.  Francis has brought it roaring back to life, making it one of the hallmarks of his papacy.  He never ceases to speak of the mercy of God, and makes it clear that this enjoins the rest of us to practice mercy as well.  For Catholics who grew up before 1960, John’s focus was a welcome relief from the notion that Catholicism was merely a set of rules to be followed.  In this day and age, Francis’s insistence on mercy brings warmth back to an institution that, in recent years, too many had found cold-hearted.

8. Promoting the Poor.  It goes without saying that the Gospel message, and the mission of the Catholic Church, has always given a central place to the poor of the world.  But it also goes without saying that the Catholic Church, as the world’s largest organization, has not always kept that priority in focus.  We now live in a world of unprecedented wealth, but also of unprecedented inequality.  Francis has made it clear that the desires for peace, prosperity, and a sustainable world will all be impossible if the problem of inequality is not solved.

This focuses our attention on the Catholic social teaching which calls for the redistribution of wealth when inequality reaches harmful dimensions. Thus Francis implies a great challenge for us and the citizens of other wealthy nations: how can inequality be reduced?  How can we redistribute the wealth? 

For Americans, of course, imbedded in the world’s largest capitalist society, this is complicated by the fact that we face not only the inequality between the wealthy and poor nations, but also the inequality between the 1% and the 99% in our own land.  In this sense, Francis has become an especially prophetic leader for Americans.  This will make his pending address to the U.S. Congress in the fall 2015 that much more intriguing and challenging.

9. “Cooling” the Culture Wars.  Catholic leaders in America in the last 10 to 15 years have often been characterized by their preoccupation with issues now identified as the “culture wars”: abortion, contraception, artificial insemination, euthanasia, same sex marriage, gay rights, sex education, etc.  Francis has been quite blunt on this matter. He’s not criticizing or questioning traditional Catholic teachings on any of these issues, but he is convinced that the culture wars made two mistakes. First, their preoccupation on these issues distracts them and Catholics in general from our mission to evangelize with mercy and joy.  Second, they distort Catholic tradition:

The proposal of the Gospel must be more simple, profound, radiant. It is from this proposition that the moral consequences then flow.

Francis has announced in no uncertain terms that he does not want culture warriors nominated to be future bishops, since he believes that the culture wars represent a distortion of our core priorities as Catholics.

10. The “Cooling” of the Papacy.  The first two years of the Francis papacy have been not only dynamic but remarkably congenial. Even when uttering controversial, off the cuff remarks, this pope tends to be lighthearted, quick to smile, easy to approach, comfortable in his own skin.  The image of Pope Francis beaming into the camera on the cover of

Rolling Stone magazine now overshadows the radiant, even regal image of “John Paul Superstar” on the cover of Time magazine. 

Francis lacks both the looks and the charisma of John-Paul II but, like John XXIII, he projects a down-to-earth, human appeal that people find nearly irresistible.  It was one thing to attract 3 million youth to the World Youth Day in Rio (his two predecessors had performed similar feats). 

Listening to a reporter's question on the plane from Rio

But the 90 minute interview on the plane back to Rome showed a man willing to walk back to the press seats and mingle with the media in a familiar, ingratiating way.  And his decision to wade into Rio’s worst slum on foot to greet poor residents showed a fearless love of people that is making him the most beloved pope in many people’s memories.

So the papacy itself has suddenly become cool! Two short years ago, few Catholics would have believed that this could happen, and none of us believed it could happen so fast. 

Francis himself speaks as though his papacy will probably be a short one.  But the accomplishments of his first two years are already enough to mark him as a historic figure--and a gift from God.

© Bernard F. Swain PhD 2015

#425: Francis’ New Way Out of the Wilderness

We are beginning to see what actual changes the new pope can make.

When Jorge Bergoglio was elected Pope Francis, his unique style was immediately apparent to all.  But many questioned whether that style could translate into substance--whether, in addition to inspiring people, he could actually implement practical changes.  In the last few months of 2014, the contour of those changes has become clearer, as he has taken practical steps consistent with his rhetoric. 

He convened a Synod on the Family that could make Catholicism more welcoming to divorced people, gays, and alienated Catholics everywhere. He has delivered a blunt critique of his own Vatican bureaucracy, the Curia, which makes a change of the Vatican’s culture (and probably the rolling of some of its heads) inevitable.  He has named bishops who share his vision to new posts, and expelled some with conflicting vision.  He was instrumental in convincing President Obama to make his diplomatic opening to Cuba.  And he is supporting the move to make Bishop Oscar Romero an official martyr of the church, emblematic of the Church’s fight for social justice for the oppressed and the poor.

In my view all these moves put to rest the question of whether Francis offers big rhetoric but little action.  And so, less than two years into his reign, we can begin to see not only how he is leading the church with his unique style, but where he is leading it with his decisions.  But to grasp what this means, we must see his actions in their full context--in fact, in four different contexts. 

BEFORE: The Regal Papacy of Pius XII

1. The Context Before Francis. To understand what is really going on, it is important to see how the office Francis holds has been transformed even before he was elected.  I often tell listeners that, since the death of Pius XII in 1958, every single subsequent pope has changed the office in a visible and important way.  The result: today’s papacy looks and acts dramatically different from the 1950s papacy.  In fact, I would argue that no public office on the planet has changed as much as the papacy.

Of course, this transformation all started with John XXIII, who convened Vatican Council II (1962-1965).  And the 50 years since then have been marked by the continuing, chronic, so far unresolved struggle over the meaning and impact of Vatican II.  Francis is, of course, the first pope since John who did not participate at Vatican II.  He experienced it as we all (who are old enough) did, from the outside looking in. Thus he brings a fresh view that may yet finally cement Vatican II’s legacy for the Catholic world and beyond. 

At the same time, Catholicism has witnessed an enormous demographic shift: now 2/3 of all Catholics live south of the equator.  Francis is, of course the first pope from the southern hemisphere, so he brings yet another new perspective. 

The last 20 years have also witnessed a rash of scandals, crises, and closings that have heavily damaged both Catholic life and Catholicism’s public image.  Indeed, in America the Catholic Church is hemorrhaging members faster than any other religion.  And despite his academic brilliance, Pope Benedict XVI seemed incapable of keeping his foot out of his mouth. 

The net result of these recent developments has been a reversal of the incredibly positive PR Catholicism gained from Vatican II.  One may argue that, prior to the election of Francis, the public image of Catholicism had never been worse in our lifetime.

2. The Context of Francis. That public image shifted dramatically almost at the moment of Francis’ election.  As the first southern hemisphere pope, as the first Jesuit pope, as the first Francis, he signaled a shift in papal leadership in the first 10 minutes of his first public appearance, when he asked the assembled crowd to bless him before he blessed them. This show of “Franciscan” humility has marked his papacy ever since.  But when, soon after his election, he accepted an Italian editor’s open invitation for an interview, he went beyond humility to indicate a new, ambitious direction:

Our goal is not to proselytize but to listen to needs, desires and disappointments, despair, hope. We must restore hope to young people, help the old, be open to the future, spread love. Be poor among the poor. We need to include the excluded and preach peace. Vatican II, inspired by Pope Paul VI and John, decided to look to the future with a modern spirit and to be open to modern culture. The Council Fathers knew that being open to modern culture meant religious ecumenism and dialogue with non-believers. But afterwards very little was done in that direction. I have the humility and ambition to want to do something.

AFTER: The "Cool" Papacy of Francis

Notice the way Francis linked humility and ambition--and linked both to a retrieval of Vatican II’s lost legacy. This combination of humility and ambition quickly made Francis a huge PR success, reflected by Time magazine selecting him as 2013’s “Person of the Year.”  And when his smiling face appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine, it was clear that he had become the first “cool pope” in history! 

But this stunning reversal of the Church’s appalling public image--which is no small matter, for it led millions to abandon the Church--was not the whole story.  Instead, Francis has emerged not only as an inspiring figure but as an agent of reform, whose course correction for the Church includes battling corruption, careerism, obsessive preoccupation with the culture wars, and also battling the trickle-down theory that dominates the wider culture and economy.

(On this last point, note that a new book by La Stampa's Vatican watchers, Andrea Tornielli and Giacomo Galeazzi, titled Pope Francis: This Economy Kills, is being released this week in Italy.)

3. The Context of Mercy. Francis is not the first pope to put mercy at the center of his agenda.  In fact, this was a hallmark of John XXIII on the very day that he opened Vatican II:

We see, in fact, as one age succeeds another, that the opinions of men follow one another and exclude each other. And often errors vanish as quickly as they arise, like fog before the sun. The Church has always opposed these errors. Frequently she has condemned them with the greatest severity. Nowadays however, the Spouse of Christ prefers to make use of the medicine of mercy rather than that of severity. She consider that she meets the needs of the present day by demonstrating the validity of her teaching rather than by condemnations…the Catholic Church…desires to show herself to be the loving mother of all, benign, patient, full of mercy and goodness toward the brethren who are separated from her

There’s nothing new about an emphasis on mercy, of course. Catholics have long subscribed to (though perhaps many of today’s Catholics are not aware of) the action-steps known as the “Corporal Works of Mercy” and the “Spiritual Works of Mercy.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Works_of_mercy)

For Francis, Mercy lies at the center of the Church’s mission:

Throughout history, some have been tempted to say that the Church is the Church of only the pure and perfectly consistent, and it expels all the rest.  This is not true!  This is heresy!  The Church, which is holy, does not reject sinners; she does not reject us all; she does not reject us because she calls everyone, welcomes them, is open even to those furthest from her; she calls everyone to allow themselves to be enfolded by the mercy, the tenderness, and the forgiveness of the Father…

But besides quoting the pope on mercy; we must also ask: what does he mean?  The question matters because the English word “mercy” badly translates the pope’s words.  “Mercy” comes from a Latin word meaning “wages.” It referred to God’s reward gives for those who do good works. 

But centuries ago, that word was replaced in the Latin languages for another word, which English never adopted.  The new word, “Miserecordia,” means almost the opposite of the English word.  Instead of the reward we get after doing good, it is the big-heartedness that impels us to do good in the first place.  Like the English word “compassion,” which means to suffer with another, Miserecordia refers to a heart that goes out to those in distress.  This is the word Francis uses, whether he speaks or writes in Latin, or Italian, or Spanish (it is the same word in French and Portuguese as well).

So while “mercy” in today’s English often means “pity” or “leniency,” we would do better to think of it as the impulse to help that comes from “big-hearted compassion”--as if it comes from the heart of God.

With this understanding, we can see why Francis might be regarded by some as a troublemaker, and why “mercy” might even seem a dangerous word.

For the pope’s emphasis on mercy pits him against an introverted Church in favor of a Church that reaches out to the poor.  It pits him against a Church committed to the “counter-culture,” in favor of a Church that promotes an “encounter-culture.” It pits him against any hostility to other religions, including Islam. It pits him against inequality, which makes peace impossible, and in favor of a restructured economy that redistributes wealth and honors solidarity. 

It commits him to a Church that “steps outside” itself, and thus to a Church whose mission is, above all, evangelization.  It commits him to a Church in which doing good is more urgent than arguing over doctrine. Indeed, he has criticized theologically-minded people who dispute doctrine endlessly, saying that we will not live long enough to see these disputes resolved but must act in the meantime.

In sum, Francis wants a new way for us to be Church:

The Lord wants us to belong to a Church that knows how to open her arms and welcome everyone, that is not a house for the few, but a house for everyone, where all can be renewed.

4. The Context of Our Lives. This new pope’s agenda touches us all as individuals, as families, and as communities.  For him, the dynamic is an active one that leads from the big-hearted impulse of God’s infinite  mercy, to the joy that brings us, to our mission to bring that mercy to the world.  For him, the works of mercy are like the beating of a heart, the systolic and diastolic rhythms of compassion and action. 

It is no surprise that among his favorite images from the gospel is the story of the prodigal son, of the father who watches endlessly for his son’s return and rushes out in joy when that return finally occurs.:

In the church, the God we encounter is not a merciless judge but is like the father in the gospel parable.  You may be like the son who left home, who sank to the depths…God is always waiting for you.  God embraces you, kisses you, and celebrates.  That is how the Lord is. 

For us, observing and listening to this man in action, the choice is clear. As he shows a way out of the wilderness that has lost Catholicism both its members and its impact, how do we respond? Do we identify with the Father who continues to reach out to embrace those who’ve been lost? Or are we more like the “good son” who stayed behind, resentful that others get the attention we might deserve, unhappy to hear that relieving their suffering is not only more urgent, but more important,  than our continued comfort? The choice is ours. But he is already showing us the way.

   © Bernard   F. Swain PhD 2015

#393: Lost and Found--Pope Francis Retrieves Vatican II

After nearly 35 years of Catholic officials obscuring the vision of Vatican Council II, the new pope may already be rescuing its legacy.

The recent homily in which Pope Francis proclaimed Christ has redeemed all humanity, even atheists, has triggered seemingly endless commentary in the media - - print, electronic, and online. (homily text & video at http://en.radiovaticana.va/news/2013/05/22/pope_at_mass:_culture_of_encounter_is_the_foundation_of_peace/en1-694445).

But most of it misses the point.  Amid the debates--over “Did the pope endorse universalism?” or “What is the difference between redemption and salvation?”--most observers (other than James Carroll) miss these facts: (1) Francis’ remark about atheists was neither new nor controversial; (2) his real shift was to leap back over the legacy of John-Paul II and Benedict XVI to invoke the extroverted optimism of Paul VI.  He thus retrieved Vatican II’s version of the Church’s mission - - a version that has been out of favor for 35 years.

Francis may be simple, but he is not simple-minded, so his startling break with his predecessors is couched in his soft proposal to build a “culture of encounter.”

Why does this matter?  Because an “encounter culture” is quite different from the “counter-culture”--and that difference could re-set the Church’s course for years to come.

If memory serves, I first heard the Church described as a “counter -culture” nearly 30 years ago, when Bernard Law took

Bernard Law

over the Archdiocese of Boston in 1984.  Six years after the election of John Paul II, he used the term to express his conviction that Catholicism should not conform or even adapt its traditions to the demands of modern culture.  Rather than blend Catholic faith with the surrounding secular culture, he wanted Catholics to hold fast to an alternative way of life that would “counter” prevailing mores and values.

Back then I found his terminology clever but troubling.  As a child of the 1960s, I already considered myself a proud member of the “counter-culture”--but to me that meant a wave of progressive movements ranging from rock music to civil rights to antiwar politics to the sexual revolution to the questioning of all authority, including church authority.  We were rebelling against much of post-World War II American culture: its conformity, its complacency, its superficiality, its materialism, its militarism, its racism, its spiritual impoverishment.

What Bernard Law called “culture-culture” meant something quite different.  It included scolding Boston College (as well as the students and parents gathered for commencement) for not being true to  its Catholic identity.  It included refusing to allow women to serve as Eucharistic ministers.  It included refusing to allow a Knights of Columbus fundraiser to serve alcohol.  It included forcing the Archdiocese’s charismatics to move their annual conference to the cathedral (despite its inadequate seating capacity) and then imposing his own agenda on the day.  Law was not into questioning authority.  For him, “counter-culture” meant imposing authority to make sure Catholics behaved the way he wanted them to.

I admit I resented this theft and reshaping of the term “counter-culture.” But I soon learned he was not alone. Increasingly in the 1980s and 1990s, US bishops, conservative commentators, and some theologians promoted the “counter cultural” mission of the Church on issues like abortion, sexual morality, “catholic identity,” priestly celibacy, sex education, and eventually same-sex marriage. 

They were so successful that the term “counter-culture” lost its original meaning for people like me, and came to be a code-word for a move to establish a certain understanding of Vatican Council II. This understanding saw the modern world embracing a “culture of death” and countered it with a “culture of life.” The opposition was as clear as black and white, and treated every church position as non-negotiable.

Vatican II

Within the Church itself, this movement was labeled “the reform of the reform.” It was driven by the belief that Catholicism after Vatican II had become too friendly, too accommodating to the modern world around it, and was in jeopardy of losing its own identity.  Supposedly this was the fault of those who exploited the “reforms” of Vatican II as an excuse to abandon traditional teachings and practices in favor of every new cultural trend.  Only by “reforming the reforms” could the Church achieve its “true mission” as a counter-culture.

That is why, in rejecting this view, Pope Francis is provoking such reactions.  In theory, no one is more “counter” to Christian faith than an atheist.  Yet Francis asserted that:

The Lord has redeemed all of us, all of us, with the blood of Christ: all of us, not just Catholics.  Everyone!...  Even the atheists.  Everyone!

This is what Francis means by a “culture of encounter”: that whoever does good, regardless of their beliefs, creates a common ground where we can meet one another:

If we, each doing our own part, if we do good to others, if we meet there, doing good, and we go slowly, gently, little by little, we will make that culture of encounter: we need that so much. We must meet one another doing good. ‘But I don’t believe, Father, I am an atheist!’ But do good: we will meet one another there.

Such talk rings loud echoes for me of the talk Pope Paul VI gave at the final session of Vatican II in 1965:

Secular humanism, revealing itself in its horrible anti-clerical

Pope Paul VI

reality has, in a certain sense, defied the council. The religion of the God who became man has met the religion (for such it is) of man who makes himself God. And what happened? Was there a clash, a battle, a condemnation? There could have been, but there was none. The old story of the Samaritan has been the model of the spirituality of the council. A feeling of boundless sympathy has permeated the whole of it…But we call upon those who term themselves modern humanists…to give the council credit at least for one quality and to recognize our own new type of humanism: we, too, in fact, we more than any others, honor mankind.

Paul is clearly talking about an encounter between the Church and secular culture that can produce a working partnership--and he knew full well that some Catholics would criticize the openness required for such an encounter:

The council…has been deeply committed to the study of the modern world. Never before perhaps, so much as on this occasion, has the Church felt the need to know, to draw near to, to understand, to penetrate, serve and evangelize the society in which she lives; and to get to grips with it, almost to run after it, in its rapid and continuous change. This attitude, a response to the distances and divisions we have witnessed over recent centuries…between the Church and secular society—this attitude has been strongly and unceasingly at work in the council; so much so that some have been inclined to suspect that an easy-going and excessive responsiveness to the outside world, to passing events, cultural fashions, temporary needs, an alien way of thinking...may have swayed persons and acts of the ecumenical synod, at the expense of the fidelity which is due to tradition…We do not believe that this shortcoming should be imputed to it, to its real and deep intentions, to its authentic manifestations.

Observers have mostly overlooked this key fact about Francis: he is the first post-Vatican II pope!  The last five popes were all participants of the Council between 1962 and 1965, but Francis was only a seminary student.  He heard about the Council like the rest of us, from various reports and the media and perhaps by word of mouth. Unlike Benedict, who by the Council’s end felt it was moving too far and getting out of his control, Francis received the Council’s work as a blessing.  He took Pope Paul’s openness as an inspired vision.  Indeed, in his homily he warned against negative attitudes that insist on a “counter-culture” instead of an “encounter.” As reported by Vatican Radio, he contrasts the “counter” of the apostles with the “encounter” of Jesus:

The disciples, Pope Francis explains, “were a little intolerant,” closed off by the idea of ​​possessing the truth, convinced that “those who do not have the truth, cannot do good.” “This was wrong...Jesus broadens the horizon.” Pope Francis said, “The root of this possibility of doing good – that we all have – is in creation.”

Francis is, in effect, depicting Jesus as a bridge-builder among people.  This fits perfectly with our belief that Jesus is the Christ that bridges the gap, not only between people, but also between the human family and the divine family we called Trinity.  And this also fits perfectly the role of the pope, whose titles include “Pontiff” (from pontifex, meaning bridge-builder).

Francis demonstrates reaching out to Encounter

Francis contrasts this open-minded bridgebuilding encounter with the close-minded attitude that leads to conflict: “This ‘closing off’ that imagines that those outside, everyone, cannot do good is a wall that leads to war.”

This reminds us again of Paul VI, who described the Church's role in the world this way addressing the United Nations in 1965:
We here celebrate the epilogue of a weary pilgrimage in search of a conversation with the entire world, ever since the command was given to us: Go and bring the good news to all peoples.

Paul VI Addressing the UN General Assembly

 I, for one, am delighted and encouraged to hear the new pope talk this way.  Such talk is important not because it is about atheists but because it is about Catholics.  Francis is saying we should not be a people content to “counter” those who differ with us.  We must, as a matter of our faith, have the courage to “encounter” them.  
This means we must engage in a true conversation--not simply sharing our faith-based message, but also listening to the message of modern, even secular culture with an openness to the possibility that its message also brings wisdom that can enhance and enrich us.

Not only that, but Francis is saying we must build an “encounter culture” that leads away from conflict to the peace that Christ promised:

“Doing good” is a principle that unites all humanity, beyond the diversity of ideologies and religions, and creates the “culture of encounter” that is the foundation of peace.

For me, there is hope yet that the real renewal of Vatican Council II has not been lost on this pope, a man who has the wisdom to see the dangers lurking in the modern world but also has the courage to reach out and encounter it.  This was the true message of Vatican II, which has been nearly lost amid all the “counter-culture” negativism of recent Catholic leadership. I’m beginning to think that Francis is just the man to rescue Vatican II for us--just in the nick of time.

  © Bernard F. Swain PhD 2013