Pope Francis’ latest interview, with the founder and editor
of La Repubblica,
provides the clearest and bluntest signals yet about this pope’s vision and
agenda.
Just when I began to fear I had wasted 40 years
working in the trenches of a church unwilling to renew itself despite the
historic impetus of Vatican Council II (1962-1965), along comes the miraculous election
of a pope who begins to proclaim, in a loud global voice, the very things that
have gotten me blacklisted and even fired over many years.
A recent example: after a Catholic layperson proposed
by visit to his parish to discuss adopting my Fidelis leadership formation program, the pastor checked out my
blog. There he found that I had written this:
After nearly
35 years of Catholic officials obscuring the vision of Vatican Council II, the
new pope may already be rescuing its legacy
In reaction, the pastor wrote:
I went to his
blog and saw this line. That's all I needed to see. I didn't need to read
anything else.…To imply that JPII and Benedict have "obscured"
Vatican II makes my blood boil!!!!!!
Of course, I never referenced those two popes. I referred only to one “Catholic official” by
name: Bernard F. Law, who resigned in disgrace as Archbishop of Boston after
his role in the sex abuse scandal became public. For this the pastor accused me of being “heterodox”--something
less than an authentic Catholic.
But here is what Francis said when asked about the
place of Catholicism in global culture:
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.
Note these words:
“But afterwards very little was done in that direction.” In short, Vatican II
has not been implemented.
When the interviewer suggested, as I had, that Catholic
officialdom was to blame, saying “I think that the institution [of the church]
dominates the poor, missionary church that you would like,” Francis replied
this way: “In fact, that is the way it is, and in this area you cannot perform
miracles.”
Perhaps the pastor I quoted considers this pope heterodox
as well?
That same pastor also decided he could judge me
without ever meeting me, saying:
This Swain
beaut is NOT to be invited to speak at a group associated with St._____[parish]...Studying
heterodoxy as if it were orthodox Catholicism will NOT happen at St._____[parish]under
my watch!
I’ve encountered this sort of unprofessional, disrespectful,
judgmental, even un-Christian tone time and again over the years—usually but
not always from members of the clergy.
To me, such behavior simply does not compute with the role of pastor,
which ought to be marked by humility and service. Instead, in this case we got a name-calling
watchdog. Sadly, I was not shocked. I have seen it too many times before.
Pope Francis is not shocked either. When the subject of “narcissism” comes out in
the interview, Francis is quick to note the link between narcissism and power:
I don't like
the word narcissism…it indicates an excessive love for oneself and this is not
good, it can produce serious damage not only to the soul of those affected but
also in relationship with others, with the society in which one lives. The real
trouble is that those most affected by this - which is actually a
kind of mental disorder - are people who have a lot of power.
Often
bosses are
narcissists.
With the interviewer suggest that “many church leaders
have been” narcissists, Francis does not shrink from the truth:
You know what
I think about this? Heads of the Church have often been narcissists, flattered
and thrilled by their courtiers. The court is the leprosy of the papacy.
No doubt Francis has seen in his own work as
archbishop that narcissism also shows up among the lower-level heads of
parishes and dioceses.
Of course, whenever I, a life-long layperson, have
criticized pastors, priests, or deacons for such behavior, some people have
labeled “anti-clerical.” They mean it as
a negative judgment, even a condemnation of my character and good faith.
But Pope Francis makes it seem like a badge of honor.
When he notes that the interviewer is “a non-believer
but not anti-clerical,” the interviewer replies: “True, I am not anti-clerical,
but I become so when I meet a clericalist.”
Francis then smiles and says:
It also
happens to me that when I meet a clericalist, I suddenly become anti-clerical. Clericalism should not have anything to do
with Christianity.
This is not, of
course, a case of the pope attacking clergy.
In decrying “clericalism,” he is decrying certain attitudes and
behaviors: privilege, arrogance, presumption, paternalism--things that pertain
to power, position, and rank, but not to the ministry of a Good Shepherd. Such things are not conveyed by Holy Orders,
but they are nevertheless sometimes adopted by the ordained.
In effect, Pope
Francis is calling out the emperor’s new clothes--or, rather, the old trappings
of the imperial Church that Catholicism adapted from the Roman Empire. When he calls Vatican courtiers the “leprosy
of the papacy,” he is bluntly naming the rot that has infested too much of Catholic
life - - and not just at the Vatican itself.
I would not be
human if I did not feel some vindication and even validation in this. As a child of the 1960s, I chose the Church (rather
than politics) as a vehicle for social justice and peace; I brought up my kids
in an inner-city “ghetto” so they would live with the poor in a neighborhood more
like the rest of the real world than an American suburb; I devoted my work to
parish at great sacrifice, and I suffered the petty resentments and punishments
of officials too weak to deal with someone like me, who could exert influence
without the benefit of rank, office, or Roman collar.
For the last 20
of my 40 years in ministry, it has seemed like the bright promise that the Church
held when I started out was being worn away by the inertia of the institution’s
power structure. And as I saw the number
of “lapsed” Catholics grow, I knew they had not fallen away--they had been
pushed. This was a discouraging realization,
which called into question the years I had invested in Catholic renewal.
Finally,
however, we have a leader who speaks the truth: that the institution not only is
not always right, but sometimes does active harm to the Church’s own mission.
But the very
fact that the “man at the top” sees the problem and claims “the humility and
the ambition” to do something about it gives me great hope, both for my own
work and for the mission of the Church.
So I find great
kinship with the Italian editor who interviewed Francis, a non-believer who
nonetheless concluded by saying:
This is Pope Francis. If the church becomes like him and becomes
what he wants it to be, it will be an epochal change.
© Bernard F. Swain PhD 2013
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