#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

#433: 10 Reasons Why Pope Francis’ Ecology Encyclical Is a Game Changer—Part 2

As Pope Francis begins his campaign for an environmental revolution by traveling to Latin America this week, I list 5 more reasons why his new encyclical may well mobilize enough support to bring real change. 

6. Francis Draws from Catholicism’s Core.  Conservative naysayers can complain all they want that France and should “stick with his job,” should “keep out of politics,” should “focus on making us better people.” It is all camouflage designed to disguise either their ignorance or the truth or both.  The fact is that Francis is synthesizing 20 centuries of an evolving Christian worldview and 125 years of modern Catholic social teaching to arrive at his positions.  His job as pope is to communicate the Catholic tradition to the world and offer its wisdom for the benefit of all.  That tradition, at its core, rejects hard divisions between religion, social justice, and politics. The Church’s engagement in social justice issues is long-standing, and its concern for the environment is rooted in the Book of Genesis. The naysayers don’t understand (or don’t WANT to understand) either Catholicism or the modern papacy (see #7).

Moreover conservative Catholics should be wary: by dismissing or undermining France’s integral vision they expose themselves as people whose economic and political values come from the conventional wisdom of modern secular culture, rather than from their own faith tradition. In short, Francis has become a challenge to their Catholic identity.

7. A New Role for the Papacy.  I have argued before that every pope since John XXIII (1958-1963) has transformed the papacy in some way.  Thus Francis was elected to an office vastly different from the papacy of Pius XII (1939-1958), who never left the Vatican but ruled his flock in isolated, regal splendor.  John XXIII deleted the pomp and opened the Vatican; Paul VI (1963-1978) became the “Pilgrim Pope” for his wide travels (including his historic U.S. visit in 1965); John-Paul I (1978) was the “Smiling Pope”; John-Paul II (1978-2005) was pope as global globetrotting superstar; Benedict XVI’s (2005-2013) resignation ended the papacy as a lifelong office.

Now Francis is positioning the papacy as the world’s most visible protector of the planet.  This also makes the papacy the world’s strongest voice promoting the future of humanity--and especially the future of humanity beyond the prevailing capitalist model.

8. Confronting Power with Truth.  Those committed to (or bought by) the system Francis criticizes have resorted to every sort of ad hominem attack, calling him “out of is depth,” “socialist,” “sounding more like Marx and Stalin than Jesus,” or even “anti-Christ.”

These people have two things in common: they all speak for the powers that be and they are all in denial.  They deny the science of climate change.  They deny the flaws of capitalism, especially its centralization of unaccountable power and its role in promoting inequality and thereby violence and terrorism.  They deny the exploitation of global trade.  They deny the ongoing destruction of our energy, our waters, our air, our food supply.  They deny the soul-deadening impact of consumer culture.  They deny what Francis has called “the globalization of indifference.” Above all they deny his call to make the common good priority #1.

But Francis speaks the truth, and he represents not the 1% who hold the planet’s power, but the 99%--and especially the very poor, whose future is bleak unless someone--someone like Francis--has courage, the humility, and the wisdom to speak truth to power. 

9. Breaking Down the Walls.  Perhaps the chief way the powerful protect their power is by constructing phony “walls” that separate life on our global home into neat compartments. This allows the powerful to pretend either (1) that all is well, since no one compartment threatens global disaster by itself or (2) but nothing can be done, since reforming any ONE compartment will not solve our problems--or, worse, will create others.

Against this phony worldview, Francis offers a comprehensive, holistic vision that breaks down the phony barriers.  In that vision, environmentalism and economics and business and public policy and politics and social justice and politics and human solidarity all fit together--for better or for worse.  Thus, when someone says that he should “avoid environmental issues and stick to talking about human sin,” Francis has this direct reply: our current environmental practices are human sin! 

In short, the pope’s “integral ecology” leaves no place to hide, no room for evasion, no loophole to pretend that our global life is just unconnected compartments.  For him, we are all one human family who inhabit one globe and need one a strategy to secure its future.

10. The “Bulliest” Pulpit.  One irony of Catholic social thinking, which tends to be more “leftist” than the Democratic Party, is that since 1891 most of its development has been driven by papal documents.  Thus a vision championing the poor and protecting the dignity of each person has emerged mostly through proclamations from on high. 

But in this encyclical we see a change.  Instead of a life-long diplomat (as was Paul VI) offering his Olympian views, we get a longtime bishop from the barrios of Buenos Aires.  Instead of a former academic (Benedict XVI) providing scholarly analysis, we get an activist. Instead of a native of Europe offering hope to the third world, we have a natural-born third-worlder speaking up for his own southern half of the world.  And instead of a document content to quote scholars and scriptures and official proclamations, we get significant input from the on-the-ground insight of bishops’ conferences from around the world.

In other words, when we read Francis we are not reading simply one man’s words.  We are reading the words of many leaders, who work with many of the world’s poorest people.  Francis is not just speaking to the whole world he is speaking for the whole world. And his pulpit is not confined to a church; his pulpit is the planet itself.

Of course, no single document can change the world.  But a single document can be the catalyst, the tipping point that pushes a revolutionary vision from futile resistance to active momentum.  If Francis’ words can mobilize widespread suffering into discontented solidarity, than perhaps it will bring the courage that millions--no, billions--need to finally say “we want a better world, more livable future--and we can have it!” And with that, Francis will have changed the game from hopeless suffering to hopeful joy.

© Bernard F. Swain PhD 2015

#432: “Everything is Connected”—10 Reasons Why Pope Francis’ Ecology Encyclical is a Game Changer

The wave of media attention that initially greeted Pope Francis’ new encyclical was submerged almost immediately by last week’s news cycle, moving from the Charleston shootings to the free trade vote to the Obamacare victory to the legalization of same-sex marriage. But the real test is: what impact will Francis’ document have long term?

Few actions by any pope have received as much public attention (from media, candidates, office holders, scholars, and ordinary readers) as Pope Francis’ new ecology encyclical “Laudato Si’: On Care For Our Common Home.” Naturally, some embrace it, some dismiss it, some rationalize their opposition, others debate its pros and cons. But in the eyes of history, these reactions matter less than the answer to the most basic question: “Will it make any difference?” 

My quick response, after merely scanning the document and its commentators, is “Yes, this document could indeed turn out to be the game changer that alters the course of public policy, business practice, and personal behavior for years to come.” I offer 10 reasons. 

1. A Compelling Vision in which “Everything is Connected.” Many commentators wrongly described the encyclical’s theme as “climate change.” In fact Francis presents climate change as just one piece of a much bigger puzzle. He roots the problem of climate change in runaway carbon emissions, which are generated by our unsustainable reliance on fuels needed to power a runaway capitalist system that treats self-interest and greed as our most important social virtues. This system despoils the global environment while generating not only intolerable levels of pollution but also intolerable levels of inequality. The result, he says will be a progressive degrading of earth’s ecological systems which, while caused by the world’s wealthy, will disproportionately affect the world’s poor. Violent resistance (what Francis says is already "World War III") will continue to block the road to peace. The solution to this massively dysfunctional global system is nothing less than a planetary ethical revolution that dethrones runaway capitalism as we know it and replaces it with a system that reflects more authentically humane values. 

In short, rather than focusing on science or environmentalism or economics or public policy or social justice or religion--Pope Francis has integrated them all into one big coherent vision. No wonder he calls it “integral ecology”: it is not just the “big picture,” it is the biggest picture of all. 

2. Perfect Timing, Part 1. Elected in March 2013, Francis has arrived in the world stage at the very moment of history when our ecological challenges are approaching the crisis point. The signs of environmental decline are everywhere. The scientific consensus makes a compelling case for action, and the resistance to economic inequality is cresting. Across the globe, hundreds of millions of people--especially the poor--sense the urgent need for change and demonstrate their unwillingness to passively accept the words of those defending the status quo. It is at this moment that the papacy--one of the planet’s few truly global offices--is occupied by a certified champion of the poor from a southern hemisphere country, trained in chemistry, whose warm simplicity has made him the most popular man in the world and given his voice a public power without rival. At the very moment any revolution would need a moral authority to believe in, Francis is the man of the hour.

3. Perfect Timing, Part 2. In the next six months at least four major events will provide Francis high-profile opportunities to promote his message. In September he will visit the U.S., and will become the first pope ever to address a joint session of Congress, where his audience will include enough climate change deniers, unfettered free market apologists, and 1% millionaires to sink Noah’s Ark. They will have no choice but to listen, and they will also know that millions of American viewers are also hearing this stunningly popular man speak truth to power. They may not like what they hear, but they will dismiss his message at their own peril.
The pope will also address the General Assembly of the United Nations, where his message will have an international (even global) audience. And since the U.N. has already taken the lead on environmental matters, Francis will be linking his moral authority and the global reach of his Church (2/3 all Catholics live south of the equator) with the political influence of another international organization.

December will bring two more events. December marks the 50th anniversary of the closing session of Vatican Council II, which secured the support of the world’s 2000 Catholic bishops for much of the vision that Francis has embraced. And the U.N.’s own summit conference on climate change will be held in Paris, where delegates pushing for radical governmental reforms and regulations will find ample ammunition in Francis’ vision.

Francis of Assisi, Patron of the Environment

4. Linking Faith and Science. Since Galileo, faith and science have too often seemed at odds, going their separate ways and even forming separate and conflicting worldviews. (The Catholic Church has not always been the worst of offender: witness how fundamentalist Christians have dug in their heels by proposing “creationism” to deny evolution.) The result has been a scientific community that often shies away from ethical categories to avoid unscientific intrusions. But Vatican II’s vision called for the reconciliation of science’s power with the wisdom needed to guide it toward the common good. And now Francis has linked the wisdom of Catholic social teaching to the powerful scientific consensus of our day--and the scientific community is acknowledging that this can give their concerns both a popular and a political impact they cannot achieve on their own. This historic breakthrough might even restore the ancient notion that faith and reason are only truly relevant if they are together.

5. Preaching Beyond the Choir. Like John XXIII before him, Francis addresses not just Catholics, but “every person living on this planet.” He is speaking on issues that concern us all, and he is evoking facts and values that are relevant to us all. He seems perfectly aware that his papal office allows him to command worldwide attention, and moreover he seems perfectly ready to use the office to do just that. Stop and think: what other public official can command such attention?

NEXT: 5 More Reasons

© 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

# 417: Two Popes, Two Saints—But Only ONE Pole!

This week’s canonizations seem to unite opposite poles within the Church--but these popes were not really poles apart.

I celebrated Mass on Boston Common with Pope John-Paul II (and 400,000 other people including my wife, father, brother, and sister-in-law) in October 1979.  Eight years later, in September 1987, I saw him again at a special (and much smaller) gathering of lay leaders in San Francisco’s Saint Mary’s Cathedral.  On that occasion, I actually met the pope, shook his hand, and exchanged a few words with him.

This charismatic man’s papacy shaped an important part of my adult life and a good deal of my professional ministry in the Church.

By contrast I never either saw or met John XXIII. Yet this simple shepherd touched my life even more deeply than John-Paul II.  His papacy made my career possible--a career previous generations could never have imagined.  Absent John XXIII, I would no doubt have led an entirely different life.

As John and John-Paul became saints this week, it feels as if they are the first saints I can call my own--that is, saints whose lives changed mine during their own lifetimes.

The conventional wisdom is that canonizing these two men simultaneously is a shrewd political move by Pope Francis.  His aim, it is said, is to end the polarization over the legacy of Vatican Council II (1962-1965) by uniting the author of the council, John XXIII, with the man some blame for attempting to restore the Church to its pre-conciliar state, John-Paul II.

On the level of public relations, this makes perfect sense.  It is undoubtedly true that liberal Catholics lionize John XXIII while conservatives champion John-Paul II.  It is also obvious that they were dramatically different men who had highly contrasting papacies.  So the PR message is clear: if the Church’s “Hall of Fame” is big enough to embrace them both, then the Church itself is big enough to embrace both liberals and conservatives.

On the level of the debate rhetoric, this also makes sense.  The long-standing debate over Vatican II’s legacy has often pitted those claiming the Council brought “renewal and change” against those saying it offered “continuity rather than rupture.” It has pitted those claiming the Council’s agenda was really “ressourcement” (the retrieval of ancient, lost elements of Catholic tradition) against those claiming the Council was really about “aggiornamento” (updating or modernizing the Church).  It has pitted “reform” against “restoration,” and even lead to paradoxical proposals about “the reform of the reform.” Making John XXIII and John-Paul II partners in sainthood sends the clear message: they are not pitted against one another, and neither should we. 

But on the level of facts, the decision by Pope Francis to schedule both canonizations together is not really about saying “it is time to get past the polarization over Vatican II.”  It is about saying “such polarization was mistaken all along.”

As I’ve written often before: John-Paul II was himself a product of the vast changes that John’s Council unleashed.  He chose the name John-Paul (imitating John-Paul I) to confirm his intention to follow the conciliar path laid out by John XXIII and Paul VI.  He was himself a council father, instrumental in some of its major documents.  He vigorously implemented the “changes” from the Council in his native Poland.  He became the first non-Italian pope in 400 years thanks to the Council’s new openness.  He took up his three predecessors’ efforts to transform the papacy itself and turned it into the highly visible global office that it is today.

In short, had there been no Vatican II there could never have been a Pope John-Paul II.  Which means, without John XXIII: there would be no John-Paul II.  Their destinies were linked all along. These two popes were not opposite poles.  Only John-Paul II was a Pole!

Moreover, there is absolutely no doubt that John-Paul II understood John’s vision for Vatican II, as well as its impact.  In 2000 he announced the beatification of John XXIII in a homily that included this comment:

Everyone remembers the image of Pope John's smiling face and two outstretched arms embracing the whole world. How many people were won over by his simplicity of heart, combined with a broad experience of people and things! The breath of newness he brought certainly did not concern doctrine, but rather the way to explain it; his style of speaking and acting was new, as was his friendly approach to ordinary people and to the powerful of the world. It was in this spirit that he called the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, thereby turning a new page in the Church's history: Christians heard themselves called to proclaim the Gospel with renewed courage and greater attentiveness to the "signs" of the times. The Council was a truly prophetic insight of this elderly Pontiff who, even amid many difficulties, opened a season of hope for Christians and for humanity.

If we unpacked this dense paragraph we notice several important points about John-Paul II’s perspective:

1.     John’s impact came from his unique personality and character.

2.     John’s vision was both conservative and dynamic: he did not change doctrine, but he did communicate it in a new way.  He brought Catholicism a new, modern style.

3.     This was precisely the “spirit” that inspired the Council.

4.     Vatican II “turned a new page in the Church’s history”

5.     Vatican II linked the gospel message to the signs of the times.

6.     Vatican II was John’s “prophetic insight” bringing hope “for Christians and for humanity.”

Notice that none of the familiar, polarizing debate rhetoric is found here.  Rather, John-Paul II clearly saw John and his Council taking a “middle way” between two poles--between those expecting substantial revisions of church teaching, and those asserting that Vatican II brought nothing new.

In fact, both men were theological conservatives who saw a little

need to change Catholic doctrine.  Yet both also embrace the notion that the Council was needed to “turn the page of history.” Why?  Because by the mid-20^th century, the Church’s ability to communicate the gospel message had badly deteriorated and needed updating.

In this sense, much of the debate about Vatican II has falsified both the Council and the vision that inspired both these popes.  Liberals have too often expected doctrinal changes that the Council neither proclaimed nor implied.  Conservatives clung to “traditions” that the Council wanted to replace with more effective ways of communicating the gospel message.

On the pastoral level, the wisdom of this “middle way” has always been obvious to me.  For more than 40 years I have been responsible for communicating the gospel message to others.  In my 20s I worked mainly with catechists and parents.  In my 30s, I worked with pastors, sisters, their lay colleagues, and with parish volunteers.  Turning 40, I edited a newspaper for Catholic readers.  Since then I have worked with parish staffs, clergy, religious communities, parish lay leaders, and done a lot of adult faith formation for ordinary laypeople.

In nearly all these settings, my goal has been to communicate the core of Catholic tradition in a new way, and apply it to the practical needs of Catholic life on the local level.  Almost nothing I communicated was actually new “teaching”--it was our tradition in modern dress.  In short, I have spent 40 years doing the work of Vatican II.

Yet over and over, people would react by saying, “Really?  That’s really what the Church teaches?  That’s really our tradition?  That’s really our faith?  That’s really what it means to be a Catholic?”

Such reactions came from ordinary laypeople, from Catholic school graduates, Catholic college graduates, and even the seminary graduates.  As a pastoral minister, my answer to all those questions was, “Yes, really!”

As an educator, their questions always made me wonder: Why are people so surprised?  Why do they think they’re hearing something new?

The answer to both these questions is, I believe, both obvious and instructive.  People are surprised by their own tradition, and they think they are hearing something new, because the previous explanations they got were so bad.  In short, Catholics everywhere were living with the legacy of generations of mis-education about their faith.

This practical experience over 40 years is instructive in two ways.  First, it tells us that John XXIII was right: we did need a new way to explain the faith, because the old ways had lost their ability to communicate the truth of our tradition.  Second, it explains why the debates over Vatican II have occupied such extreme positions and missed the middle ground occupied by John, John-Paul, and Francis: Namely, people on both sides were so embedded in outmoded and distorting explanations of Catholic tradition that they ended up fighting over the wrong things.  Conservatives fought to protect positions that were no longer communicating Catholic truth, and liberals fought to change teachings based on misconceptions of what those teachings were.

And so this double canonization, in my view, merely confirms what has been true all along: that once John’s Council “turned the page of history,” there could be no going back under Paul VI, John-Paul I, John Paul II, even Benedict XVI.  They are all products of Vatican II, they all embody a transformed papacy in a transformed Church.  And now Francis appears on the stage of history--the first pope since John who was not a Council participant--to lead us on the middle way that so many have needed for so long.

Still, I acknowledge one difficulty (albeit unintended) caused by John-Paul II’s papacy.  For many Catholics too young to remember Vatican II, his very charisma tended to overshadow the memory of the Council. 

Some, like George Weigel, argue that John-Paul II supplied the “interpretive key” to the Council’s meaning. But my experience is that, on the practical level, John-Paul II made reference to Vatican II superfluous. Many younger Catholics simply could not see past the towering figure of “John-Paul II, Superstar.” The effect eclipsed both Vatican II and John XXIII himself.

But now “Saint John-Paul II” will be forever linked to “Saint John XXIII,” whose Council made John-Paul’s papacy possible.

I pray that this double canonization thus makes John-Paul’s shadow newly transparent, so that all Catholics see his place properly: as one of a series of great figures beginning with John XXIII, whose courage and vision opened that new page of history which Vatican II turned for us all.

Abbey Robes

  © Bernard  F. Swain PhD 2014