St. Francis & Pope Francis: To teach by gesture.

ver since the elec­tion of Pope Fran­cis, it has been bemus­ing to watch the reac­tion to the unusu­al style of his papa­cy, young though it is. Left-lean­ing com­men­ta­tors in the sec­u­lar press, many of whom pos­sess no clear, ratio­nal, or even sen­sate com­pre­hen­sion of the Catholic Church, seem fond­ly to imag­ine that Fran­cis’s non-Ratzin­ger­ian style, and his advo­ca­cy for the poor, will lead to a New Lib­er­al Utopia.

fantasia and cheek

At Newsweek, which I cite as but one exam­ple, A.N. Wil­son (author of a decon­struc­tion­ist biog­ra­phy of Jesus) vain­ly spec­u­lates that the “gold­en oppor­tu­ni­ty for change,” the “relief,” brought about by a “new man,” might even mean the even­tu­al renun­ci­a­tion of papal infal­li­bil­i­ty. Mr. Wil­son admits that to put such a hope into print would be “cheeky”; but where would the author of Jesus: A Life be were it not for cheek? The only evi­dence Wil­son has to go on in putting this mad fan­ta­sia of his into print is that Bergoglio is not Ratzinger. Of course, an intel­li­gent flea might have point­ed that out. But here’s the key pas­sage in Mr. Wilson’s loopy arti­cle:

Pope Fran­cis is high­ly tra­di­tion­al in his inter­pre­ta­tion of the church’s teach­ing on such mat­ters as gay mar­riage, women priests, and abor­tion. But he is also rad­i­cal enough to believe that these mat­ters, much as they occu­py the minds of head­line writ­ers in the news­pa­pers, are not the essence of the Chris­t­ian Gospel. Christ lived among the poor, he was him­self a poor man, and he told his dis­ci­ples that inso­far as they had fed the hun­gry, clothed the naked, vis­it­ed the pris­on­ers, they had done it to him, the Incar­nate God. This is the Christ wor­shipped and served by the new pope.

Some­one might kind­ly point out to Mr. Wil­son, in the way you would point out things to a small child, that this is also the Christ who was wor­shipped and served by the for­mer pope. And regard­less of whether one thinks that the issues of gay mar­riage, women priests, and abor­tion are the “essence” of the Gospel, they are hard­ly neg­li­gi­ble either. Pope Fran­cis, in fact, called the push for gay mar­riage “a machi­na­tion of the father of lies”—hard­ly the kind of thing you’d say if you thought the top­ic was inessen­tial.

More­over Fran­cis, much as he has spo­ken, in the ear­ly days of his pon­tif­i­cate, about our oblig­a­tion to the poor, has also spo­ken quite fre­quent­ly about war­fare against Satan. And while Christ said, “What­ev­er you did to the least of these you did to me” (Matt. 25:45), he also defined mar­riage in the con­text of God cre­at­ing us male and female (Mark 10:6), and he said that it were bet­ter for a mill­stone to be tied around your neck than that you would harm a child (Luke 17:2). Is A.N. Wil­son the one to decide which of Christ’s words are essen­tial to the Gospel, and which are inessen­tial? I cer­tain­ly don’t recall Pope Fran­cis mak­ing any dif­fer­en­ti­a­tion of the kind.

traditionalists experiment with angst

Mean­while, as the lib­er­als have been glee­ful­ly attempt­ing to mis­read Pope Fran­cis as being one of them­selves, some (I empha­size some) tra­di­tion­al­ly- and litur­gi­cal­ly-mind­ed con­ser­v­a­tives in the Church are attempt­ing to mis­read Fran­cis as though he were the very embod­i­ment of mod­ernism and the “Spir­it of Vat­i­can II” [1]. Not one day into Fran­cis’s pon­tif­i­cate, some blog­gers were sound­ing the alarm that the pope, when he was Car­di­nal Bergoglio, had attempt­ed to sup­press Sum­mo­rum Pon­tif­i­cum, Bene­dict XVI’s motu pro­prio allow­ing the Latin Mass to be said with­out pri­or per­mis­sion. Such was the con­cern about this that Fr. Tim Fini­gan at The Hermeneu­tic of Con­ti­nu­ity—a blog no one would con­fuse as a bas­tion of Novus Ordo mod­ernism—took the time to doc­u­ment the exis­tence of the usus antiquior in Buenos Aires. For what­ev­er rea­son, that did not stop the did-he-or-did­n’t-he back-and-forth with­in the Catholic blo­gos­phere.

The tra­di­tion­al­ist pan­ic attacks and angst (sic tran­sit glo­ria mun­di) have also been fed by hor­ror over the pope’s toned-down, Novus Ordo litur­gies (ad pop­u­lum), his deci­sion to do with­out the tra­di­tion­al red shoes and mozzetta [2], and his deci­sion to wash the feet of a few Mus­lim women on Holy Thurs­day [3]. Cer­tain­ly I sym­pa­thize with the unease of many. Papal accou­trements such as the red shoes and the mozzetta are not bling; they have impor­tant sym­bol­ic mean­ings. The pope wears red shoes because red is the col­or of blood; the pope walks in the blood of the mar­tyrs, ready to face mar­tyr­dom him­self for the faith if required. They are not about the man but about the papa­cy. To para­phrase C.S. Lewis, you don’t put on the red shoes because you’re haughty but because you’re hum­ble and obe­di­ent to the divine­ly-estab­lished Chair of Peter [4]. Bene­dict XVI under­stood that; and it is right to not want the papa­cy dimin­ished at a time when it is so poor­ly under­stood and respect­ed as it is.

consent to be taught

How­ev­er, I also believe that many of these fears—judging by how they have man­i­fest­ed them­selves rhetorically—are mis­placed; and I would urge my fel­low blog­gers to exam­ine their con­science and put greater trust in the wis­dom, guid­ance, and pro­tec­tion of the Holy Spir­it. God knows what He is doing. And even through—perhaps espe­cial­ly through—some of our dis­ap­point­ments and per­plex­i­ties, we need to con­sent to be taught.

I would be great­ly astonied if Fran­cis sup­pressed Sum­mo­rum Pon­tif­i­cum. Some seem to live in mor­tal fear of this. I would be astonied too if he inter­fered with the abil­i­ty of those who so desire it to have the Tri­den­tine Mass, or high and solemn litur­gies. Yes, it is true, the pope teach­es by exam­ple and ges­ture, and the pope’s infor­mal­i­ty and jet­ti­son­ing of litur­gi­cal rubrics sends uncer­tain sig­nals.

But there are not going to be any clown Mass­es or pan­tomimes, and there’s a prob­lem when the inten­si­ty of our dis­cus­sion about these mat­ters gets out of hand and leads to unchar­i­ty and lack of faith in the pope and the Holy Spir­it. One blog­ger I read went so far as to accuse the pope of divid­ing Catholics against each oth­er; anoth­er very unchar­i­ta­bly (and sin­ful­ly) point­ed out that that Pope Fran­cis, being 76, might not be around for that long any­way. It is rhetoric like this that led Patheos blog­ger Kat­ri­na Fer­nan­dez, who admits she’s been hav­ing a tough time with the tran­si­tion, to stern­ly call for a cease fire:

I’ve had to give up read­ing some of my most favorite blogs. The stink of the novu­sor­doist dis­ease is every­where and there’s nowhere to go? Pope Fran­cis is destroy­ing the Church? The very idea exudes a heart­break­ing lack of hope and Catholics are any­thing but hope­less. Please, stop it. Every­one. Just stop. The spir­i­tu­al harm you are caus­ing is far greater than any­thing Pope Fran­cis has done thus far in his short time as pope. … I love you all, pas­sion­ate lovers of the Church, but for the love of all that’s holy shut it.

It is impor­tant to under­stand that not every­one who has writ­ten on these top­ics, or expressed lov­ing con­cerns, is guilty of the “spir­i­tu­al harm” that the blessed and pas­sion­ate Ms. Fer­nan­dez calls out. Not all tra­di­tion­al­ists have harsh­ly and unchar­i­ta­bly judged the pope too ear­ly in his pon­tif­i­cate. Not all have failed to look for the good that the Holy Spir­it has in mind for the Church, or failed to trust in the divine prov­i­dence promised in Matthew 16:18. Not every­one is seek­ing to sow the seeds of doubt in the pope. But—and I have no incli­na­tion to name names or blogs—enough are guilty of it that Ms. Fer­nan­dez and Tay­lor Mar­shall have seen the need to call it out. Catholic tra­di­tion­al­ists, your love of the Church is with­out ques­tion, and I would ask that you exam­ine your con­science on this mat­ter, and that you would con­sent to be taught by the Holy Spir­it act­ing through the vic­ar of Christ. Give Fran­cis the ben­e­fit of what­ev­er doubts or con­cerns you may have.

if necessary use words

Which brings me to the real point of this post; name­ly, what I con­sid­er to be the best way of under­stand­ing the young papa­cy of Pope Fran­cis. I have been think­ing of this for some time in rela­tion to Car­di­nal Bergoglio hav­ing gone to St. Fran­cis of Assisi for a papal name. Most of the dis­cus­sion of this that I have heard has cen­tered either on their mutu­al devo­tion to the poor; or, in con­sid­er­a­tion of the thor­ough cur­ial reform that is need­ed, on St. Fran­cis’s hav­ing heard Christ say to him, “Rebuild my Church.” And while both of these con­nec­tions cer­tain­ly have a truth to them, there is anoth­er con­nec­tion that has been less-often men­tioned. It is these words, often attrib­uted to St. Fran­cis: “Preach the Gospel at all times; if nec­es­sary, use words.” That, I would say, is the key to under­stand­ing both what Pope Fran­cis has been doing thus far, and the real gift he is bring­ing to the Church.

I cer­tain­ly do not want to dimin­ish any one of the words that the pope has said. And Catholic blog­gers will need to be vig­i­lant in point­ing them out—both to delu­sion­al, day­dream­ing lib­er­als who fan­cy that the time for heresy is nigh; and to anx­ious, pho­bic tra­di­tion­al­ists, who dread that the time for con­se­crat­ing Pep­si is nigh. The pope’s repeat­ed talk of spir­i­tu­al war­fare is very impor­tant, and words like these should be a sig­nal of warn­ing to lib­er­als and reas­sur­ance to tra­di­tion­al­ists:

There has been, through­out the his­to­ry of the peo­ple, this temp­ta­tion: to chop off a piece of the Faith. … But when we start to cut down the Faith, to nego­ti­ate the Faith, a lit­tle like sell­ing it to the high­est bid­der, we take the path of apos­ta­sy, of dis­loy­al­ty to the Lord. [5]

Words like these prove that Fran­cis is not going to change the teach­ing of the Church. As the Holy Spir­it promised it would be. His devo­tion to ortho­doxy is sol­id and strong, as is his will­ing­ness to speak it; lib­er­als should be be wary and tra­di­tion­al­ists should be com­fort­ed. But I think the essence of what the pope is giv­ing to the Church, and what the Holy Spir­it has deter­mined that the Church needs right now, is of a dif­fer­ent nature. Fr. Z, call­ing Fran­cis the “real deal,” spec­u­lates that this may be “more of a pray­ing pon­tif­i­cate than a teach­ing pon­tif­i­cate.” But there are more ways to have a “teach­ing pon­tif­i­cate” than by writ­ing encycli­cals and books.

By no means am I attempt­ing to dimin­ish the the­ol­o­gy and the writ­ing of John Paul II or Bene­dict XVI. I love their writ­ing immense­ly; I believe they are both des­tined to be made Doc­tors of the Church; and what they have taught us will be with the Church always and should be stud­ied and pon­dered by all. But—and I am using this as pos­si­bly the most beau­ti­ful example—who can for­get the now-famous pic­ture of the pope embrac­ing Dominic Gondreau, a child with cere­bral pal­sy? Drudge had the most won­der­ful cap­tion I can think of for that pic­ture: “To turn hatred into love.” Fran­cis was, like his name­sake, preach­ing the Gospel with­out the need for words. That papal embrace was Evan­geli­um Vitae with­out the encycli­cal.

Here’s the point: We live in a visu­al cul­ture more than we do a print cul­ture. I am not entire­ly com­fort­able with that. But when we con­sid­er how souls are to be reached, isn’t the point of the episode in Acts of “talk­ing in tongues” that we are to reach peo­ple through the lan­guage they hap­pen to speak? John Paul II and Bene­dict XVI used their “teach­ing pon­tif­i­cates” to explain and elu­ci­date what the Church teach­es. Fran­cis is show­ing us what that looks like. Already there are indi­ca­tions that Fran­cis is induc­ing lapsed Catholics to return to the Church—not by nego­ti­at­ing away the faith, not by insti­tut­ing clown mass­es, but by show­ing us what the Gospel looks like. We need to see the Gospel. That is what Pope Fran­cis is about.

And if that is what the Holy Spir­it has deter­mined that the Church needs right now, who are any of us to ques­tion the Holy Spir­it? So let us con­sent to be taught.

ENDNOTES

[1] Because I great­ly admire and respect my fel­low Catholic blog­gers, and sym­pa­thize at least with the root—if not the manifestation—of many of their con­cerns, I am not going to “call them out” by name and link to them here. Read­ers who are inter­est­ed should eas­i­ly be able to find arti­cles of the kind I men­tion via their search engines.

[2] Eliz­a­beth Scalia had to call bull­shit on one vicious rumor about Francis’s refusal of the mozzetta, which some in the Catholic blo­gos­phere had been giv­ing cre­dence to. Vat­i­can Insid­er con­firmed that the rumor was what Ms. Scalia said.

[3] To tell the truth, after some ini­tial uncer­tain­ty and impulse to say “Who cares?” I have come to agree with those who were dis­ap­point­ed and have crit­i­cized the foot-wash­ing inci­dent. I am of the opin­ion that—at least with respect to Holy Thursday—the point of the rite is a cel­e­bra­tion of Christ’s insti­tu­tion of the Priest­hood, and that it should there­fore be reserved for priests and dea­cons. Jim­my Akin, although walk­ing a fine line, has a dif­fer­ent point of view. Fr. Z, the whole of whose com­men­tary on Fran­cis has been spot-on, has writ­ten sev­er­al valu­able posts on the foot-wash­ing inci­dent (here, here, here, and, very inter­est­ing­ly, here). Canon­ist Ed Peters also opines here.

[4] Here is the full quo­ta­tion from Lewis’s Pref­ace to Par­adise Lost: “A cel­e­brant approach­ing the altar, a princess led out by a king to dance a min­uet, a gen­er­al offi­cer on a cer­e­mo­ni­al parade, a major-domo pre­ced­ing the boar’s head at a Christ­mas feast—all these wear unusu­al clothes and move with cal­cu­lat­ed dig­ni­ty. This does not mean that they are vain, but that they are obe­di­ent; they are obey­ing the [cus­tom] which pre­sides over every solem­ni­ty. The mod­ern habit of doing cer­e­mo­ni­al things uncer­e­mo­ni­ous­ly is no proof of humil­i­ty; rather it proves the offend­er’s inabil­i­ty to for­get him­self in the rite, and his readi­ness to spoil for every one else the prop­er plea­sure of rit­u­al.”

[5] For more on this, see Fr. Z’s arti­cle here.