#424: All in the Francis Family?

The 2014 Synod on the Family offered echoes of the past and hopeful clues to the future.

Last month’s Synod on the Family in Rome is still fresh news for two reasons.  First, its work will not really be done until the end of another Synod, to take place in the fall of 2015.  Second, the work the Synod has accomplished already provides significant pointers for the direction of Catholic life.

The Synod is shaping up, in fact, as the most promising transformative event in Catholicism since Vatican Council II (1962-1965).  For me, the Synod so far is notable for four things: (1) the leadership of Pope Francis; (2) the echoes of dynamics and themes from Vatican II; (3) the echoes of Vatican II documents; (4) the struggle to accept the truth about civil marriage.

1. The Leadership of Pope Francis.  It is obvious by now that the phenomenal worldwide popularity of Francis is due more than anything else to his personal manner.  In organizing the Synod, his style once again has reminded many of us of Pope John XXIII (who convened Vatican II). 

For one thing, Francis appears decisive, and unafraid of criticism.  For another, he stresses the pastoral dimensions of church life over the doctrinal requirements:  he speaks much more of God’s mercy than of “truth” or rules.  Francis showed this in his choice last spring of Cardinal Walter Kasper of Rottenburg-Stuttgart (Germany) to deliver an address to prepare for the Synod.

Kasper

Kasper, true to his progressive reputation, suggested the possibility of changes in the Church’s pastoral approach to divorced and remarried couples.  Francis’ style also showed September 14 at Saint Peter’s Basilica, when he presided over the weddings of 20 couples, some of whom were living together.

It showed again in his decision to have real live married couples address the Synod fathers, including one couple who spoke of their friends’ decision to accept their daughter’s same-sex partner. 

We have had many Synods since Vatican II, but none directed by a pope who acts like St. John XXIII.

Saint John XXIII in 1963

2. Echoes of Vatican II. Francis is, after all, the first pope since John XXIII who was not a bishop at Vatican II. He experienced it like the rest of us—he received its work as a challenge. He knows its history, and clearly he feels that its potential has not been fully realized.  No surprise, then, that his style reflects an attempt to complete John XXIII’s work.

Francis’ final address to the Synod reminds us of the addresses both John XXIII and Paul VI gave at Vatican II. He speaks of reading the signs of the times, of learning how to respond to contemporary challenges, of learning how to rethink the tradition in contemporary terms rather than reacting negatively to simply avoid reform. 

This stress on how best to reach out to the world around us, to focus on helping people rather than protecting doctrine, harkens back to the dynamics and climate of Vatican II, which Paul VI described as pervaded by a tone of “profound optimism.”

Pope Paul VI

 One Vatican spokesperson express the same outlook when he suggested that talking of unmarried couples “living in sin” or of gay people’s “disordered orientation”  is not the kind of language that attracts people to the Catholic Church.

Of course, there was a great deal of polarization among the hierarchy at Vatican II, and the same has been true of the Synod, to the point where some bishops have quietly talked about the danger of schism. This recalls Cardinal Ottaviani, the most conservative bishop at Vatican II, publicly hoping to die before Vatican II’s end.  “That way,” he said, “I will still be dying in the Catholic Church.” So too the Synod has begun to surface the misgivings of many conservative bishops about the direction Francis is taking, while also exposing them as minority voices--just as happened at Vatican II.

3. The Documents of the Synod also recall the documents of Vatican II.  When studying the Council, it is usually instructive to compare early drafts with final drafts, because they often showed movement as texts underwent debate, discussion, and finally votes.  The same thing happened in 2014.  Why?  First, because when the majority drafts documents reflecting the majority view, drafts have a reformist, progressive tone that is surprising, even radical.  Second, because the final drafts often step back from such progressive proposals.

This is not because the majority changes its mind, but because the ethos of hierarchical decision-making constantly seeks consensus. 

Synod Session

The documents are voted on, but no one wants a close vote.  Everyone wants each document to receive overwhelming approval (as did the documents of Vatican II).  But getting a “supermajority” requires that final drafts incorporate words and tone which attract the votes of conservative (minority) bishops.

Thus two lessons coming out of Vatican II apply equally well here: First, the final draft of nearly all of such documents is more conservative than earlier drafts because they water down the progressives’ main positions.  Second this means that a strong current at the Synod was more progressive than the final document reveals. So we should read the document’s tone as conservative political packaging of the Synod’s progressive pastoral agenda.

4. Accepting the Truth about Civil Marriage. This conservative shift to garner votes for the final draft was particularly significant with the Synod’s references to both homosexuals in general and homosexual unions in particular.  While earlier drafts had urged the Church to “welcome” gays, the final draft simply proposes that the Church “provide for” them.  And while early drafts suggested that homosexual unions might bring benefits for the partners, the final draft offered no such positive assessment.  In fact, the final draft reflected the bishops concern to stress:

There are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God’s plan for marriage.

But even here there may be hope of reform.  For even as the bishops reject equating heterosexual marriage and homosexual unions, at least some bishops are also ready to reject equating civil marriage with the sacrament of Matrimony.  This is significant, since the confusion of civil marriage with Matrimony makes people think that “same-sex marriage” threatens Catholicism’s sacramental teachings.

So far, most bishops--especially U.S. bishops--have claimed to be defending “marriage” without making any distinction between civil marriage and Matrimony.  In short, they have pretended there is only one kind of “marriage.” But of course the reality is that there are two kinds of “marriage” which differ in many significant ways.

First, they are different legally.  Civil marriage is a legal contract, a strictly civil procedure governed by state law and the requirements of the U.S. constitution.  As such, it is a civil right that the government may not deny any citizen without compelling legal justification.  It must be available to all, without prejudice.

Matrimony, by contrast, is a sacred covenant, a sacramental bond governed by the universal canon law of the Church.  It is not a right anyone may claim; rather, the Church reserves its right to determine both who is eligible for Matrimony and whether they meet the necessary preconditions.  It is available, for example, only to Catholics and their partners. 

Weddings at St. Peter's--September 14, 2014

Second, civil marriage and Matrimony are quite different institutions.  Marriages existed everywhere through all history, in all cultures; it shows wide variations in who can get married, what it means, and how it is practiced.  So civil marriage is a much broader institution than Matrimony. That sacrament appeared only since the first century, was found only where Christians lived, and has relatively fixed rules about who can marry, how they marry, and why they marry.

But civil marriage is also a much shallower institution.  It is a simple contractual agreement which may be performed by a justice of the peace without any particular ceremony or ritual.  Matrimony is a sacred covenant performed by the couple themselves (not a justice or a priest), and requires the sacramental rite of Christian Matrimony (as well as several other requirements) to be valid.

Third, these two institutions have quite different purposes and expectations.  The church has developed a clear teaching that Matrimony has two purposes: procreation and the unified life of the couple.  Thus couples must be willing to have children (and raise them Catholic).  Any intention to remain childless nullifies the sacrament.  So does any intention to preserve divorce as an option.  Moreover, the sacrament is not consummated until and unless the couple has (unprotected) sexual intercourse.  (Couples intending to remain celibate require a dispensation.)

Civil marriage, by contrast, has no such requirements.  It is valid whether or not people intend to children or even intend to have sex.  The private life of civilly married couples is not relevant to the civil contract, whose purpose is rather to access a long list of legal and social benefits and privileges (as many as 37 in some states) that only married couples have.  Once a couple completes the civil contract, they are eligible for those benefits and privileges, regardless of their intentions about sexual intimacy or children or family life.  People often think that civil marriage aims at promoting family life, but while that may be a societal benefit of civil marriage, it is not a legal requirement. So civil marriage confers many legal benefits but does not require any family intentions.  Matrimony does require both sex and the intention to have children--but it confers no legal benefits or privileges.

In many countries, these differences are made obvious by having two different ceremonies, but they are masked in the U.S., where the priest performs the civil marriage (acting as an invisible agent of the state!) During the same ceremony when the couple performs the sacrament of Matrimony.

Why do all these differences matter?  Because they totally alter the debate about same-sex marriage.  If marriage and Matrimony were the same thing, then the campaign for same sex marriage would directly  challenge a Catholic sacrament.  If marriage and Matrimony are the same, then “redefining” marriage equates to “redefining” Matrimony.

But if these are two separate institutions, one can redefine one without redefining the other.  Marriage can change while Matrimony stays the same.  This of course, has happened before, when some states prohibited mixed-race couples from marrying even when the Church accepted them for Matrimony.  Eventually these bans changed, but Matrimony stayed the same.

Thus same-sex marriage only threatens Catholic life directly if we insist on pretending that there is only one “institution” of marriage.  For more than 10 years I have been baffled watching the U.S. bishops maintain this pretense, and I’m relieved to see that some of them have finally realized that this does more harm than good. 

The best way to protect the sacrament of Matrimony is, on the contrary, to insist on the truth: Matrimony is not the same as civil marriage.  Thus the sacrament of Matrimony will remain the same no matter what happens to civil marriage.  Any changes in the sacrament would be decided in proper church channels, not by any court or government body.

When the Synod on the Family returns in 2015, we can hope that its work will advance in several ways. 

First, we can hope Pope Francis’ leadership has gathered even more followers (especially among bishops).  Second, we can hope that the optimism of Vatican II is rekindled once and for all.  Three, we can hope that people will treat the Synod documents respectfully but also realistically, so their conservative packaging does not blind us to their reformist core.  And fourth, we can hope that discussions about changes in civil marriage will not be confused with discussions about the sacrament of Matrimony.

   © Bernard   F. Swain PhD 2014

# 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

#414: The Pope and His Saint: 10 Keys to Understanding Francis

Here are 10 reasons why our first Jesuit pope may in fact be the greatest “Franciscan” of all.

Once a pope makes the covers of Time and Rolling Stone, it’s obvious the PR machine is hard at work shaping that man’s public image.  This makes Pope Francis both more visible and easier to misunderstand, since PR is prone to pigeon-hole people so that our impressions of them are reduced to the mental equivalent of sound-bites.  When Rolling Stone says Francis is to John XXIII as Keith Richards is to Chuck Berry, it creates a sharp image for a generation raised on rock music, but gives us no insight into the difference between guitarists and popes.  To understand this pope, we need a more nuanced perspective.

Everyone knows that Francis is Jesuit.  And everyone knows he named himself after Saint Francis of Assisi.  So is worth asking: why choose the founder of the Franciscans rather than the famous Jesuit missionary Francis Xavier?  And the answer opens the gate to deeper understanding, for it turns out that our new pope is, in many ways, as much a “Franciscan” as he is a Jesuit.

Most Americans have a vague sense of Saint Francis’ importance.  San Francisco bears his name.  The California missions reflect the legacy of Franciscan missionaries.  The San Diego Padres are named after them. Some Americans attend Franciscan schools, and many coffee-lovers know that cappuccino is so named because its color matches the traditional Franciscan “capuche” (hood).

But to grasp this pope’s “Franciscan” identity, one must look to Saint Francis himself.  In a recent re-reading of Donald Spoto’s biography The Reluctant Saint, I found 10 ways in which the pope echoes the saint.  Each is a key to a fuller understanding of Pope Francis.

1. Identifying With the Poor.  Saint Francis made the poor a chief focus of his work.  This was a radical move in a time when (much like ours) the Church was seen as a place of privilege and ambition.  Spoto says “Francis’ identity with the social fringe could have been seen as a revolution against the Church.” He also points out that Francis chose poverty for himself as well.  This “did not primarily mean having no possessions but rather not been possessive about anything or anyone”--to make sure that nothing wedged into the bond between himself and God.

Pope Francis has likewise made the poor his priority from day one, and his work and lifestyle in Argentina and in Vatican City embody a commitment to a simple detachment from possessions.

2. Action Over Theory.  Saint Francis was a man of prayer, but he was no theologian.  Rather than ponder the subtleties of scripture, he acted out its Gospel spirit.  Thus he mixed contemplation and action, breaking the monastic tradition of cloistered living.  This fusion of the “via contemplativa” and the “via activa” proved a powerful inspiration for several 20^th century heroes: Thomas Merton, Dorothy Day, Dag Hammarskjold, and Martin Luther King.  And it inspires Pope Francis today as he calls for a Church that proves its spiritual values by acting them out. This contrasts sharply with Benedict XVI, who never escaped the persona of an ivory-tower intellectual more comfortable in his study that in the trenches.

3. Preaching Peace and Service.  Saint Francis was known as a powerful but simple preacher, and Spoto tells us that the theme of his preaching was “Invariable: peace among individuals.” By this Francis meant the refusal to seek vengeance to defraud, to hurt others--but also it meant “the conformity of every life to the spirit of the gospel, which meant an ethic of loving service.”

Clearly Pope Francis has embraced Peace as his own theme: thus his early decision to wash the feet of prisoners (men and women, Christians and Muslims alike) and his recent public appeals for peace in Syria and Ukraine.

4. A New Model of Evangelization.  When Saint Francis abandoned the old monastic model, he introduced a new but simple strategy: he went out to people, “meeting them wherever they were and speaking to them in their own language and style.”

From the day of his election, Pope Francis has modeled himself on the saint: asking for the crowd’s blessing on his first appearance, wading into the slums of Rio during World Youth Day, proclaiming to clergy everywhere the need to become less enclosed, less “self-referential,” and to reach out to others.  When an Italian journalist (a non-believer) published an open letter to the pope, Francis personally called him to arrange an interview.

5. Rejecting Anger.  Saint Francis’ time was tainted, like ours, by corruption among clergy.  Yet he urged only charity in confronting them:

We must be careful not to be angry or disturbed at the sin of another, for anger and disturbance impede charity in us and others. 

In fact, this was the saint’s attitude to everyone: public sinners, reprobates, even felons.  That same attitude has been the pope’s all along.  He began by calling himself a sinner, uttered his famous “Who am I to judge?” about gays, and has proclaimed that atheists and non-believers can be good people and even partners in building peace and justice.  He has made himself a model of charity like his model saint. 

6. No Condemnations.  This attitude led both the saint and the pope to proclaim a God of mercy rather than condemnation. As Spoto observes:

There was in Francis none of the sanctimonious sensor; he rarely alluded to damnation, and he pronounced no condemnations against any person or any specific belief.  Such a loving, positive of the embrace of the Gospel had not been heard of in anyone’s memory. 

Clearly the pope has gone out of his own way to avoid anathemas, stressing God’s mercy at every turn and conveying the strong message that God’s church welcomes everyone.  Spoto refers to the saint’s “habit of forgiveness,” and we see this constantly in the pope.  Witness his recent moves to honor and rehabilitate the founder of liberation theology, Gustavo Gutiérrez, after years of Vatican censorship. 

7. Getting Beyond Rules.  When one of his friars became deathly ill fasting on Francis’ orders, Francis realized that his true power had to depend on something beyond rules:

From this time, he was on the alert never to set down all require adherence to an abstract set of laws; the norms of charity and good example would henceforth always take precedence.

When the pope washed the feet of laypeople instead of seminarians, when he refused to live in the papal palace, when he rode with fellow bishops to pay his own hotel bill, when he carried his own luggage--on all these occasions, Pope Francis shown a willingness, even a penchant, for making good example his priority even if it meant going beyond the rules, protocols, and customs that surround the papacy.

8. Courtesy.  Saint Francis was from a moneyed family. Early on he aspired to knighthood, and all his life he remained a francophile--so the spirit of chivalry was built into his character: “Ever the courtly knight, Francis believed that kindness and gratitude superseded mere human prescriptions.”

So for him, simple courtesy was often reason enough to set aside the usual norms.  When his old friend Jacoba arrived at his deathbed, she was challenging the rule against women in his private quarters.  But his chivalrous spirit prevailed even as he lay dying: “The command against it need not be observed in the case of this lady,” he said.

Pope Francis, like any pope, lives a life apart from others, yet he repeatedly demonstrates his own chivalrous nature.  Whether he is donning funny hats, waving a soccer jersey, joining a group of teens for history’s most famous “selfie,” kissing a man afflicted with skin disease, or simply allowing a young child to hug his leg while he continues preaching, the pope’s public appearances offer ample evidence of his natural kindness and warmth.

9. Doctrinal Conservatism.  Saint Francis broke no ground on church teachings.  Not only was he not a theologian or bishop, he was also essentially conservative in relation to the controversial movements of his day.  Against the heretical Cathars, he praised the material world.  He remained faithful to the Church’s creeds, he did not favor distributing vernacular bibles.  He did not even claim the right to preach doctrine at all.

So too, Pope Francis shows no inclination to challenge official teachings.  Rather, he seems bent (as was his namesake) on challenging the failure of even his fellow bishops to live up to those teachings or present them in an authentic way.  He seems especially convinced that many bishops have strayed from the central priorities of our tradition.  Like his namesake, he models a focus on the radical core of Catholic tradition over a preoccupation with its bells and whistles.  Ironically, this promotes a radical renewal without touching doctrine!

10. Resistance from the Guardians of the Status Quo. Spoto describes the gap between Saint Francis’ hopes for his “lesser brothers” and the clerical order the Franciscans became, and blames that gap on church officials bent on protecting the existing hierarchical system from Francis’ radical vision:

The hierarchy of the church, struggling to retain its identity against the tide of Muslims and heretics, simultaneously admired and feared Francis of Assisi…In the end, as institutions will do, the church did away with everything that identified the friars with the poor…The lesser brothers became a clerical order.”

Similarly, there are rumblings about disquiet among both the curia and the hierarchy about Pope Francis’ agenda--and the blogosphere is full of “traditionalist” Catholics already convinced this pope is dangerous, a heretic, or even the antichrist.

The difference, of course, is that Pope Francis has power that Saint Francis never had.  He can and has fired bishops, curial officials, and bureaucrats.  He can enforce his vision for a genuine, kind, non-judgmental Church that reaches out and makes service to the poor its priority.

In short, dealing with resistance is the one area where being a pope offers the advantage over being a saint!

But all told, these 10 qualities go long way to explaining what makes our new Francis tick.  For all his Jesuit training and experience, he clearly takes special inspiration from the saint whose name he chose, and whose rare qualities he echoes so loudly today.  In that sense, Pope Francis may be the greatest “Franciscan” of all.

  © Bernard  F. Swain PhD 2014

#410: Who Wants Peace On Earth?

Pope Francis is first and foremost an evangelist, not a politician.  But Catholic Social Doctrine has always carried political implications. And the politics imbedded in Francis’ statements so far are quite clear, especially when it comes to committing ourselves to a realistic program for peace.

For Christians, peace is always a timely topic, but especially so now, as the 12 days of Christmas unfold.  The Christmas narratives themselves tell the birth of Jesus bringing the promise of “peace on earth,” and on January 1 the church also observes World Day of Peace.  In addition, Christmas 2013 ended the 50^th anniversary year of Pope John XXIII’s landmark encyclical “Pacem in Terris.”

Pope Francis thus finished his first calendar year in office by issuing a message (dated January 1) entitled “Fraternity, the Foundation and Pathway to Peace.” This document, together with Francis’ November message “The Joy of the Gospel,” offers a broad view of this pope’s vision for the world, as well as a powerful challenge to the world’s leaders.

One consistent theme emerges from these documents: peace is not possible using the current political and economic models that dominate world affairs.  In this, Francis echoes every previous pope of the last 50 years.  But if he (and they) are right, it means that the price of peace is to reject those models and replace them with something better.  But who among our leaders is willing to do that--or even suggest it?  In short, we must ask: who among them really wants peace on earth, and is willing to pay the price?

Specifically, Frances proposes that we will have to pay for peace in two ways.  First, we will have to reverse inequality.  Second, we will have to establish a culture of fraternity.

Inequality. In The Joy of the Gospel, Francis calls inequality “the root of all social evils,” and argues that peace will not be possible as long as inequality continues:

Until exclusion and inequality in society and between peoples are reversed, it will be impossible to eliminate violence…This is not the case simply because inequality provokes a violent reaction from those excluded from the system, but because the socioeconomic system is unjust at its root…Inequality eventually engenders a violence which recourse to arms cannot and never will be able to resolve…In the end, a peace which is not the result of integral development will be doomed.

To be concrete, Francis argues further that our current system is unjust “at its root” because of its blind-faith belief that free-market growth will solve our social ills:

Some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world. This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system. Meanwhile, the excluded are still waiting.

In light of this, the pope calls for urgent reforms to our current models:

 The need to resolve the structural causes of poverty cannot be delayed…As long as the problems of the poor are not radically resolved by rejecting the absolute autonomy of markets and financial speculation and by attacking the structural causes of inequality, no solution will be found for the world’s problems or, for that matter, to any problems.

Fraternity.  In his January 1 message, Francis is equally clear that fraternity is essential to peace:

A lively awareness of our relatedness helps us to look upon and to treat each person as a true sister or brother; without fraternity it is impossible to build a just society and a solid and lasting peace…Fraternity generates social peace because it creates a balance between freedom and justice, between personal responsibility and solidarity, between the good of individuals and the common good.

He refers once again to the danger of living in a world marked by “the globalization of indifference,” and cites Benedict XVI on the paradoxical challenge posed by the new globalized economy: “Globalization, as Benedict XVI pointed out, makes us neighbours, but does not make us brothers.”

Francis laments that “contemporary ethical systems remain incapable of producing authentic bonds of fraternity,” and cites the Biblical story of Cain and Abel:

The story of Cain and Abel teaches that we have an inherent calling to fraternity, but also the tragic capacity to betray that calling. This is witnessed by our daily acts of selfishness, which are at the root of so many wars and so much injustice: many men and women die at the hands of their brothers and sisters who are incapable of seeing themselves as such, that is, as beings made for reciprocity, for communion and self-giving.

Only by fraternity, Francis argues, will we outgrow inequality and poverty.  Noting the need for policies which can lighten an excessive imbalance between incomes, Francis invokes a teaching that has been part of Catholic tradition for seven centuries:

One also sees the need for policies which can lighten an excessive imbalance between incomes. We must not forget the Church’s teaching on the so-called social mortgage, which holds that although it is lawful, as Saint Thomas Aquinas says, and indeed necessary “that people have ownership of goods,” insofar as their use is concerned, “they possess them as not just their own, but common to others as well, in the sense that they can benefit others as well as themselves”... In this regard I would like to remind everyone of that necessary universal destination of all goods which is one of the fundamental principles of the Church’s social teaching. Respect for this principle is the essential condition for facilitating an effective and fair access to those essential and primary goods which every person needs and to which he or she has a right.

Once again, this leads Francis to conclude that our current models must change:

The succession of economic crises should lead to a timely rethinking of our models of economic development and to a change in lifestyles

All this provides much food for thought.

For one thing, Francis is the first pope from the third world, where the gap between rich and poor, and the absence of a stable “middle class,” has been widespread since the colonial era in both Latin America and Africa.  Francis himself is eyewitness to such inequality, for until his election he lived and worked in the notorious slums of Buenos Aires.  Thus his condemnation of inequality strikes close to his home.

But it also strikes close to our home too.  For among all advanced industrial countries of the so-called “first world,” the U.S. has by far the greatest inequality--hence the now-familiar references to some Americans as “the 1%” and to the rest of us as “the 99%.” In this, the U.S. resembles most third world nations more than it resembles its peers in Europe and Japan.  This is not because we never had a middle class, but because the real income of most Americans has been falling since the 1970s, while a small percentage have enjoyed astronomical increases in income.

Yet if anyone suggests aggressive measures to redistribute income, cries of “socialist!” And “Marxist!” explode on the airwaves, the Internet, and in the press.  What the new pope is making crystal clear is that his call for reform is rooted, not in political theories or parties, but in centuries of Catholic tradition.

In fact, it every pope in the last 50 years has decried growing income gaps.  Even during the Cold War, pope after pope called for less obsession with East-West conflicts and more concern about North-South relations - - since the prosperity of the first world came largely at the expense of poverty in the third world.

The call for fraternity is also deeply rooted in Catholic tradition.  Catholic social doctrine has long taught that the common good trumps private interests and profits.  Christians have always believed the gospel notion that we are, in fact, our brother’s keeper.  We believe that if privileges exclude others, then privilege must be rejected.  We believe that love of neighbor is our second commandment, and is “like the first” (love of God).  We have always believed that the poor are blessed, and that caring for the weak is a hallmark of authentic Christian faith.

We Americans are proud to proclaim ourselves the world’s champion of “freedom,” but Pope Francis is saying that this is not enough to create peace.  Freedom can allow us to exclude others, to fail in brotherly love, and to promote competitive “survival of the fittest” systems that create winners and losers (Martin Scorsese’s new film The Wolf of Wall Street depicts the excesses this can produce).

Ironically, the pope’s view reflects neither Marxist-socialist perspectives nor America’s one-eyed focus on freedom.  If we must find a political partner, recall that the French Revolution proclaimed not only “Liberty” but also “Equality” and “Fraternity.” Without arguing the merits of that revolution and its legacy, it reflects this pope’s conviction that freedom untempered by equality and fraternity cannot bring us peace on earth. Francis is first and foremost an evangelist, not a politician.  But Catholic social teaching has always carried political implications. And the politics imbedded in Francis’ statements so far are quite clear, especially when it comes to committing ourselves to a realistic program for peace.

First, Francis has positioned the Catholic Church as the largest anti-capitalist voice in the world.  Second, he has positioned the papacy as the one public office capable of commanding a global audience for his inspiring vision. Third, he has challenged us to embrace fraternity and equality as the essential foundations of a peaceful world. 

Practically speaking, this means that peace on earth will only come if we alter the current capitalist model to reverse inequality and restore concern for the common good.  And it means placing concern for others above self interest. This is precisely the plea Francis makes for the world’s leaders:

I ask God to give us more politicians capable of sincere and effective dialogue aimed at healing the deepest roots – and not simply the appearances – of the evils in our world!..I beg the Lord to grant us more politicians who are genuinely disturbed by the state of society, the people, the lives of the poor! It is vital that government leaders and financial leaders take heed and broaden their horizons, working to ensure that all citizens have dignified work, education and healthcare.

The question is: if this is what it takes to get Peace on Earth--who wants that?

  © Bernard  F. Swain PhD 2014

#409: Francis: Person of the Year—Part 2

Conservative complaints about Pope Francis continue to mount. This man must be doing something right! Here are more selections from his first major document, Evangelii Gaudium (“The Joy of the Gospel”).

In future CrossCurrents I will offer commentary on some of the issues in this document. But in this edition (and the last) I am simply sharing some of the key passages from this remarkable document, available here:

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/francesco/apost_exhortations/documents/papa-francesco_esortazione-ap_20131124_evangelii-gaudium_en.html.

I’ve selected them to convey his central focus: motivating and equipping Catholics to take on the challenge of the New Evangelization.  Today’s citations are from the last half of the 90-page document.

Under the heading “The Social Dimension of Evangelization,” Francis immediately roots Catholicism’s social mission in our most basic core belief:

The very mystery of the Trinity reminds us that we have been created in the image of that divine communion, and so we cannot achieve fulfilment or salvation purely by our own efforts…Accepting the first proclamation, which invites us to receive God’s love and to love him in return with the very love which is his gift, brings forth in our lives and actions a primary and fundamental response: to desire, seek and protect the good of others.

Calling on all Catholics to live out “the Gospel of fraternity and justice,” he reminds us that “God’s word teaches that our brothers and sisters of the prolongation of the incarnation for each of us.” This means that our Catholic faith is never a private matter:

What these passages make clear is the absolute priority of “going forth from ourselves towards our brothers and sisters” as one of the two great commandments which ground every moral norm.

This implies the Church’s active role in social and political life.  Those who accuse Francis of playing politics or being Marxist seem blind to the truth: his position is rooted in the ancient core of Catholic tradition:

183. Consequently, no one can demand that religion should be relegated to the inner sanctum of personal life, without influence on societal and national life, without concern for the soundness of civil institutions, without a right to offer an opinion on events affecting society…An authentic faith – which is never comfortable or completely personal – always involves a deep desire to change the world, to transmit values, to leave this earth somehow better that we found it…All Christians, their pastors included, are called to show concern for the building of a better world.

To exemplify what he means, Francis focuses on two principles social issues: poverty and peace. 

Paying his own bill to set a good example

Once again, he begins by rooting our view of the poor in faith itself:

87. Each individual Christian and every community is called to be an instrument of God for the liberation and promotion of the poor, and for enabling them to be fully a part of society…[This]means working to eliminate the structural causes of poverty and to promote the integral development of the poor, as well as small daily acts of solidarity in meeting the real needs which we encounter.

This leads to a distinctly Catholic notion about private property rooted in the concept of “solidarity” (made famous by John-Paul II, yet at odds with much of American culture):

189. Solidarity is a spontaneous reaction by those who recognize that the social function of property and the universal destination of goods are realities which come before private property. The private ownership of goods is justified by the need to protect and increase them, so that they can better serve the common good; for this reason, solidarity must be lived as the decision to restore to the poor what belongs to them.

Indeed, Francis finds that the priority of the poor in our faith is an unmistakable message in the Gospel texts:

Jesus taught us this way of looking at others by his words and his actions. So why cloud something so clear? We should not be concerned simply about falling into doctrinal error, but about remaining faithful to this light-filled path of life and wisdom.

It is no surprise that Francis, the first Jesuit pope, cites the famous Jesuit slogan: we are called to a “preferential option for the poor”:

201. None of us can think we are exempt from concern for the poor and for social justice…202. The need to resolve the structural causes of poverty cannot be delayed…As long as the problems of the poor are not radically resolved by rejecting the absolute autonomy of markets and financial speculation and by attacking the structural causes of inequality, no solution will be found for the world’s problems or, for that matter, to any problems. Inequality is the root of social ills.

This in turn leads Francis to a critique of our dependence on the dynamics of capitalism:

204. We can no longer trust in the unseen forces and the invisible hand of the market. Growth in justice requires more than economic growth, while presupposing such growth: it requires decisions, programmes, mechanisms and processes specifically geared to a better distribution of income, the creation of sources of employment and an integral promotion of the poor which goes beyond a simple welfare mentality.

He then displays his celebrated humility: he apologizes for offending but still defends his critique:

208. If anyone feels offended by my words, I would respond that I speak them with affection and with the best of intentions, quite apart from any personal interest or political ideology…But the current model, with its emphasis on success and self-reliance, does not appear to favour an investment in efforts to help the slow, the weak or the less talented to find opportunities in life.

Referring to himself as “the pastor of a Church without frontiers,” he notes that the welfare of migrants is a particular challenge, decries the prevalence of human trafficking, especially women, and then links these concerns to the defense of the unborn, clearly rooting the Church’s opposition to abortion in a consistent theory of human rights:

This defence of unborn life is closely linked to the defence of each and every other human right. It involves the conviction that a human being is always sacred and inviolable, in any situation and at every stage of development. Human beings are ends in themselves and never a means of resolving other problems. Once this conviction disappears, so do solid and lasting foundations for the defence of human rights, which would always be subject to the passing whims of the powers that be.

When he moves on to peace, Francis once again links faith and justice:

218. Peace in society cannot be understood as pacification or the mere absence of violence resulting from the domination of one part of society over others… Demands involving the distribution of wealth, concern for the poor and human rights cannot be suppressed under the guise of creating a consensus on paper or a transient peace for a contented minority. The dignity of the human person and the common good rank higher than the comfort of those who refuse to renounce their privileges. When these values are threatened, a prophetic voice must be raised…In the end, a peace which is not the result of integral development will be doomed; it will always spawn new conflicts and various forms of violence.

He then proposes four principles that could constitute “a genuine path to peace within each nation and in the entire world.” 1. Time is greater than space, 2. unity prevails over conflict, 3. realities are more important than ideas, and 4. The whole is greater than the part. Unfortunately, each of these requires lengthier explanation then space allows.

But Francis notes that no principles matter without a dialogue that includes the Church:

In a culture which privileges dialogue as a form of encounter, it is time to devise a means for building consensus and agreement while seeking the goal of a just, responsive and inclusive society…We do not need plans drawn up by a few for the few, or an enlightened or outspoken minority which claims to speak for everyone.

He gives special attention to ecumenical dialogue:

The credibility of the Christian message would be much greater if Christians could overcome their divisions …We must never forget that we are pilgrims journeying alongside one another.

If we concentrate on the convictions we share, and if we keep in mind the principle of the hierarchy of truths, we will be able to progress decidedly towards common expressions of proclamation, service and witness.

He also specifically mentions dialogue with Judaism and with Islam:

As Christians, we cannot consider Judaism as a foreign religion…With them, we believe in the one God who acts in history, and with them we accept his revealed word.

Faced with disconcerting episodes of violent fundamentalism, our respect for true followers of Islam should lead us to avoid hateful generalisations, for authentic Islam and the proper reading of the Koran are opposed to every form of violence.

Francis clearly sees pluralism as an essential path toward faith’   s influence in modern culture:

255 A healthy pluralism, one which genuinely respects differences and values them as such, does not entail privatizing religions in an attempt to reduce them to the quiet obscurity of the individual’s conscience or to relegate them to the enclosed precincts of churches, synagogues or mosques. This would represent, in effect, a new form of discrimination and authoritarianism.

His final chapter is designed simply to “offer some thoughts about the spirit of the new evangelization.” First, he says, evangelizing requires both thought and action:

262. Mystical notions without a solid social and missionary outreach are of no help to evangelization, nor are dissertations or social or pastoral practices which lack a spirituality which can change hearts. These unilateral and incomplete proposals only reach a few groups and prove incapable of radiating beyond them because they curtail the Gospel.

Next he argues that all evangelizing must be rooted in a personal relationship with Jesus:

265. The Gospel responds to our deepest needs, since we were created for what the Gospel offers us: friendship with Jesus and love of our brothers and sisters.

But this conviction has to be sustained by our own constantly renewed experience of savouring Christ’s friendship and his message…We know well that with Jesus life becomes richer and that with him it is easier to find meaning in everything. This is why we evangelize.

Third, he calls us all to be missionaries:

272. We must constantly be missionaries…A committed missionary knows the joy of being a spring which spills over and refreshes others…We do not live better when we flee, hide, refuse to share, stop giving and lock ourselves up in own comforts. Such a life is nothing less than slow suicide.

Finally, he warns against fatigue and discouragement, and offers the Resurrection as our chief support.  We cannot, he says, be Christians who experience only Lent and never Easter:

276. Christ’s resurrection is not an event of the past; it contains a vital power which has permeated this world. …Such is the power of the resurrection, and all who evangelize are instruments of that power.

In a remarkable passage, Francis confides his own personal unsettling experience of the “interior certainty” the Resurrection offers in difficult times:

279. Because we do not always see these seeds growing, we need an interior certainty, a conviction that God is able to act in every situation, even amid apparent setbacks…It is true that this trust in the unseen can cause us to feel disoriented: it is like being plunged into the deep and not knowing what we will find. I myself have frequently experienced this.

In his final section, Francis explains why Mary is the star of the new evangelization:

288. There is a Marian “style” to the Church’s work of evangelization. Whenever we look to Mary, we come to believe once again in the revolutionary nature of love and tenderness. In her we see that humility and tenderness are not virtues of the weak but of the strong who need not treat others poorly in order to feel important themselves. …This interplay of justice and tenderness, of contemplation and concern for others, is what makes the ecclesial community look to Mary as a model of evangelization.

What I am struck by most in this document is how much it resembles the papacy of Francis to this point: relatively little of what he says is new; it relies largely on brilliantly synthesizing the work of his predecessors (John XXIII, Paul VI, John-Paul II, and Benedict XVI) and of Vatican Council II.  But his style brings a freshness, an energy, and--there’s no other word for it--a joy that is inspiring millions.

  © Bernard  F. Swain PhD 2013