America Magazine asks: What do we owe the office of the papacy?

r. Bill McCormick asks the ques­tion in con­nec­tion with a dis­cus­sion that arose after two arti­cles by Mas­si­mo Fag­gi­oli in La Croix Inter­na­tion­al. If you are inter­est­ed, you can read these arti­cles here. Michael Sean Win­ters had a response at the Nation­al Catholic Reporter and Pedro Gabriel at Where Peter Is. That’s just the back­ground; Dr. Fag­gi­oli is a Face­book friend of mine, thinks the Amer­i­ca arti­cle mis­rep­re­sents his argu­ment, and I don’t wish to wade into that dis­pute. I haven’t read any of these arti­cles yet, and can’t speak for them. My pur­pose is just to add a few foot­notes where I think Fr. McCormick gets the answer to his ques­tion exact­ly right.

The arti­cle begins:

Mas­si­mo Fag­gi­oli has cre­at­ed a stir with his provoca­tive arti­cles in La Croix about the lim­its and fail­ures of Pope Fran­cis’ pon­tif­i­cate. But Mr. Faggioli’s deep­est con­cern has gone unan­swered and, indeed, unno­ticed by most com­men­ta­tors. I am grate­ful to Mr. Fag­gi­oli for his input, but the ques­tion he implic­it­ly rais­es remains: What hap­pens when Pope Fran­cis dis­ap­points his sup­port­ers?

Well, often they wail like jilt­ed lovers (as I’ve not­ed before). Good heav­ens, the pope is Catholic. We expect­ed so much more! How can this be? How can I go on? But it both­ers me, this idea that the pope has “sup­port­ers.” He’s not a polit­i­cal can­di­date, and Catholics aren’t sup­posed to divide them­selves into fac­tions who are either “sup­port­ers” or “oppo­nents” of the Holy Father. The pope isn’t sup­posed to have a base; he’s sup­posed to have chil­dren.

This sense of betray­al [among the pope’s so-called “sup­port­ers”] mat­ters for many rea­sons. Among oth­er things, it par­al­lels how some crit­ics of Fran­cis assess the pon­tif­i­cate. Among a few promi­nent U.S. Catholics, the sup­port shown for the papa­cy under popes St. John Paul II and Bene­dict XVI turned out to be con­di­tion­al after 2013.

And it’s not sup­posed to be “con­di­tion­al.” You must not give the pope “sup­port” or with­hold it, based on whether or not he’s “your guy” or enacts “poli­cies” you favor. My crit­ics often enter­tain the idea that, once Fran­cis is no longer pope—replaced by Car­di­nal Sarah maybe—I’ll with­draw my defens­es of Peter. I’ll devel­op Pope Pius XIII Derange­ment Syn­drome (or what­ev­er name Sarah would take in that case). But no. Even if Car­di­nal Burke were to become the pope and take the name Boni­face X, hic est Petrus. My alle­giance to the pope has no con­di­tion. Whether his name be Joseph Ratzinger, or Jorge Bergoglio, or Ray­mond Burke, or James Mar­tin, he sits in Peter’s chair. That’s the only con­di­tion that mat­ters.

A vocal minor­i­ty is still a minor­i­ty, but it has become easy to for­get that there are also peo­ple of good faith with gen­uine con­cerns and ques­tions about Fran­cis’ papa­cy. [No doubt. I know many such.] There are also many Catholics of good faith who dis­agree with some of the pol­i­cy pre­scrip­tions for which Mr. Fag­gi­oli advo­cates. What faces the U.S. church is a grow­ing sense that the pope is a polit­i­cal offi­cial one sup­ports when he favors your agen­da or at least when he has the same ene­mies.

Yes; if you’re look­ing for the pope to enact items on some par­tic­u­lar agen­da you enter­tain, you’re like­ly to be dis­ap­point­ed. The pope’s a father; he’s a shep­herd. He’s not your own per­son­al San­ta Claus. For exam­ple, I don’t hap­pen to think there’s any­thing amiss about a female dia­conate, as long as no one thinks this con­sti­tutes sacra­men­tal “ordi­na­tion.” But the laity aren’t sup­posed to be lob­by­ists; if the pope decides against it, fair enough. There’s no rea­son to com­pose a dirge over it.

This is what I see as the trou­ble with much day-to-day analy­sis of the papa­cy. The rise of the glob­al papa­cy, 24-hour news, the inter­net, social media and so on has trained us to bet our cards on change, nov­el­ty and move­ment. It keeps us hun­gry and impa­tient for still more change. But it is not good at cul­ti­vat­ing our atten­tion on what is endur­ing, what con­tin­ues and sus­tains us across pon­tif­i­cates.

It is indeed both­er­some to con­stant­ly have papal actions and utter­ances ground up and dis­tort­ed by the news cycle. I’m not sure what to do about it. But a lot of what I have tried to do on this blog is to show how Pope Fran­cis’s words are entire­ly con­sis­tent with those of Bene­dict XVI, John Paul II, the Cat­e­chism, Vat­i­can II, the Church Fathers, and the Bible. The regret­table exis­tence of Pope Fran­cis Derange­ment Syn­drome has giv­en me an oppor­tu­ni­ty to exam­ine the pope’s words very care­ful­ly, and I have repeat­ed­ly been struck by how sim­i­lar the pope is to his pre­de­ces­sors. It reas­sures me in my Catholic faith—that the teach­ing office of Church is indeed pro­tect­ed by the Holy Spir­it. Pope Fran­cis speaks with­in a con­sis­tent tra­di­tion. There’s not much at all, I have found, that is nov­el. That’s a good.

The desire for the pope to enact a par­tic­u­lar agen­da, Fr. McCormick con­cud­es, deprives Catholics of an oppor­tu­ni­ty to “focus on what unites the church. Rather, it empha­sizes divi­sion and con­flict.”

If my real desire was that the pope be “my guy,” then I would have spent the last 7 years dis­ap­point­ed. To be (excuse the pun) frank, Pope Fran­cis has nev­er been “my guy.” I would have pre­ferred some­one much more sim­i­lar to Pope Bene­dict XVI. I want­ed Car­di­nal Sco­la to suc­ceed him. I don’t mean that Pope Fran­cis is a con­tra­dic­tion to Pope Bene­dict, only that dif­fer­ent popes have dif­fer­ent emphases, and Pope Fran­cis’s have nev­er real­ly been my own.

But that’s the very rea­son I need­ed a Bergoglio in Peter’s chair. Pope Fran­cis has kept me from iso­lat­ing myself in some nar­row cor­ner of Church teach­ing and has remind­ed me of the impor­tance of truths that I tend­ed to neglect. The next pope will, by God’s grace, have his own emphases. And thus, many papa­cies keep the Church in bal­ance.

That’s why we are to be sons and daugh­ters, not par­ti­sans. Hav­ing an alle­giance to the pope, who­ev­er he is—Ratzinger today, but Bergoglio tomor­row and maybe Sarah next year—is a check upon Catholics iso­lat­ing them­selves into a bunch of dif­fer­ent fac­tions. Fac­tions hurt Church uni­ty.

My two cents.