Pope Francis Walks the Walk

Before the conclave that elected him successor of Pope Benedict, Cardinal Jorge Brogoglio addressed the cardinal electors, expressing his personal vision of how the Church should be. He said “The Church must come out of herself and go to the peripheries.” He criticized the Church for being “self-referent,” a condition he described as “theological narcissism” which “keeps Jesus Christ within herself and does not allow Him to go out.”

He suggested that the pope which the cardinals elect should be “a man who, from contemplation of Jesus Christ…will help the Church to come out of herself toward the existential peripheries.”

Cardinal Bergoglio was elected on the fifth ballot, and took the name Francis, an indication of his concern for the poor and for all on the peripheries.

Pope Francis’ first official visit outside of Rome (July, 2013) was to the periphery, to Lampedusa, Italy’s southern-most island, the door by which hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants from Africa, the Middle East and Asia attempt to enter Europe.

Thousands of these immigrants have paid “people smugglers” to transport them across the Mediterranean to an immigration center on Lampedusa. Many of those who made the perilous trip and arrived safely were summarily deported to Lybia.

IRIN (Integrated Regional Information Networks), an independent, non-profit media organization, guestimates that “there were 278,000 irregular border crossings (into Europe) in 2014,” many of them through the island of Lampedusa.

On July 8, 2013, Pope Francis celebrated Mass on an altar made of wood from the remains of an old fishing boat, commemorating the deaths of thousands of immigrants who have died in crossing the sea from North Africa.

He prayed with and for the immigrants, both Christians and Muslims. He thanked the citizens of Lampedusa for providing hospitality for the immigrants, and urged the rest of Europe and the world to overcome any vestige of indifference, reminding them of the parable of the Good Samaritan.

In his book about Pope Francis (The Great Reformer, Henry Holt and Company, 2014), author Austen Ivereigh recalls the “thousands of bloated bodies” which have washed ashore from capsized boats carrying immigrants to Lampedusa.

He wrote, “Francis learned from newspaper reports soon after his March 13, 2013, election that more than twenty-five thousand North Africans had lost their lives this way…Appalled that few seemed aware or to care, he (Pope Francis) opted to make Lampedusa, 180 miles off the coast of Africa, his first papal visit –to the peripheries of Europe. There, on July 8, he wept for the dead and made migration a pro-life issue” (p. 1).

In October of 2013, a few months after Pope Francis’s visit to Lampedusa, another boat capsized resulting in the deaths of 300 people.

IRIN reported on March 6, 2015, that “Italy’s Mediterranean search-and-rescue operation, Mare Nostrum, was discontinued late last year after saving over 150,000 lives, because other EU (European Union) countries were unwilling to share the nearly US$10 million a month cost. Meanwhile, Germany and Sweden have taken in far larger numbers of Syrian asylum seekers than other states such as the UK which has accepted only 90.”

In his exhortation Evangelii Gaudium (Gospel Joy) Pope Francis wrote, “Migrants present a particular challenge for me, since I am the pastor of a Church without frontiers, a Church which considers herself a mother to all. For this reason, I exhort all countries to a generous openness which,  rather than fearing the loss of local identity, will prove capable of creating new forms of cultural synthesis” (210).

Pope Francis does not just talk the talk, he walks the walk –--he is present to those on the periphery, a reaching out consistent with his vision of what a pope should do and the Church should be.

Pity the People

Catholics across America (and perhaps around the world) are being pulled right and left by their pastors.

For six to twelve years a congregation hears homilies promoting the values of Vatican II and its subsequent practices. A new pastor is appointed and the congregation hears homilies about the dangers of Vatican II and its application.

The first pastor moves the tabernacle from the sanctuary, encourages girls to become altar servers, and engages the laity in a variety of liturgical ministries. The next pastor moves the tabernacle back into the sanctuary, prohibits female servers, and curtails the ministries the laity are permitted to provide.

The first pastor focuses on freedom, God’s mercy and forgiveness. The next pastor emphasizes law, sin and hell.

And the people are caught in the “tug and pull” of conflicting theologies and pastoral practice.

Statistics suggest that many Catholic couples preparing for marriage opt out of a Catholic wedding. In one diocese, for example, parish “A” has 1880 active households but only four Catholic marriages and three interfaith; parish “B” has 1220 active households but only two Catholic marriages; parish “C” has 4000 active households but only three Catholic marriages and ten interfaith.

Are pastors refusing to witness the marriage vows of couples who are cohabiting? Are some church buildings considered poor settings for a wedding? Are couples coming for wedding preparations warmly welcomed or subjected to intense interrogation?

Many Catholics are “shopping” for a parish, looking for a welcoming community and a pastoral practice consistent with what they believe to be authentic and faithful to the Gospel. The geographical boundaries of parishes today are very porous.

The pope is calling on the faithful (laity as well as clergy) to “reach out” to people on the periphery (the marginalized, the “unclean”) and reinstate them. He preaches that we must show compassion and reflect “God’s ‘logic,’ the logic of love, based not on fear but on freedom and charity, on healthy zeal and the saving will of God.”

Some Church leaders, however, insist that the Vatican is being misunderstood, that the main-stream media have it all wrong, that the pope can’t really mean what he is saying. The resistance to Pope Francis and his agenda is in some cases palpable.

Pity the people who hear one thing from the pope and something else from their pastors.

Pity the people who are encouraged to adopt one style of liturgical practice and then are told that style is all wrong.

Pity the people who have been urged to see themselves as a priestly people but are later advised that only the ordained clergy can approach the altar or retrieve the Eucharist from the tabernacle.

The current tension between theologies or spiritualities claiming to be authentic Gospel may be comparable to the tensions in the early Church. The New Testament records the conflicts over which practices of Judaism had to be retained when one became Christian. Paul’s notion of “Christianity” clearly differed from that of many of his contemporaries.

What are Catholics to think? I wish I had the answer. I have heard it said that some younger Church leaders think we need only to wait for the current but aging generation of  “Vatican II priests” to die off and “then we can get the Church back to what it is supposed to be.”

My own conviction is that Catholics have been given a sense of direction by the Second Vatican Council. In the theology and spirituality of that Council are the foundations for living the Catholic faith today.

It is now 50 years since the Council ended. The papacy of Pope Francis reflects the Council’s direction. Perhaps it will take another 50 years to resolve the tension. In the meantime, pity the people.

Sabotaging the Consultation and Sensus Fidei

Pope Francis has called for widespread consultation of the faithful in preparation for the 14th Ordinary Synod scheduled for October 4-25, 2015, which is called to discuss and develop a response to the challenges facing families and marriage in today’s world.

Bishops who will gather for the meeting have been given the results of last year’s preparatory synod. This document of guidelines (lineamenta) will serve as a basis for discussions.

In a letter to Bishops around the world, Cardinal  Lorenzo Baldisseri, General Secretary of the Synod, urged the dissemination of the document and widespread consultation with the Faithful. Included with the Lineamenta were a series of questions to help with the study of the document and the consultation.

In my humble opinion the committee which formulated the 46 questions attached to the Lineamenta has undermined the consultation process.

The questions are academic, esoteric, and sometimes downright enigmatic. What, for example, are we  to understand by question #5: “How do Christian families bear witness, for succeeding generations, to the development and growth of a life of sentiment?” Even put in the context of sections 9-10 of the Lineamenta, the question lacks definition.

Question #9 (in reference to section 13 of the document) is at best torturous: “What human pedagogy needs to be taken into account –in keeping with divine pedagogy—so as better to understand what is required in the Church’s pastoral activity in light of the maturation of a couple’s life together which would lead to marriage in the future?”

Dioceses around the country will post these survey questions and ask Catholics to offer their observations. I suspect many who want to respond will lose interest by the time they get to question #10.

As I see it, Pope Francis’ desire for widespread consultation with all segments of the People of God is an exercise in tapping the so-called sensus fidei, which the Catechism of the Catholic Church describes as “A supernatural appreciation of the faith (sensus fidei) shown by the universal consent in matters of faith and morals manifested by the whole body of the faithful under the guidance of the Magisterium" (92).

Vatican II’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church (Lumen Gentium) acknowledged this concept in section 12: “The whole body of the faithful who have received an anointing which comes from the holy one (see 1 John 2:20, 27) cannot be mistaken in belief. It shows this characteristic through the entire people’s supernatural sense of the faith, when, ‘from the bishops to the last of the faithful,’ it manifests a universal consensus in matters of faith and morals.”

Pope Francis and the Synod are asking, “What do we believe? How should we apply the Gospel to the conditions found in our world? How do we best minister to the people in the light of Christ’s mercy and love?”

Sensus fidei (sensus fidelium) is an elusive but nonetheless orthodox concept. It does not imply that the voice of the majority is therefore sound doctrine, but it does recognize that the experience of the faithful is a source for theology. It is why we are called "catholic." Some in the Church, however, are afraid of an application of  the concept, skeptical that consultation with the faithful can bring acceptable (orthodox) replies.

Pope Francis recognizes the presence and power of the Holy Spirit in all levels or increments of the Church. His desire for a consultation with laity as well as clergy is an appeal for the Holy Spirit to speak and an opportunity for all the Church to take ownership of the Church’s message, mission and ministry.

While I am personally disappointed with the formulation of questions posed for the consultation I do recall the manifestation of the Spirit on Pentecost and that the crowds who gathered heard the message each in his own language.

Though the synodal questions have been composed in one language, it can be our prayer that all who participate in the consultation will hear them in his own tongue and be inspired to answer those questions accordingly.

The Church Gets On My Nerves

I’ve had a number of conversations with Catholics who are upset with one thing or another about the Church. My usual response is to congratulate them. I’ve come to believe that if a Catholic is never troubled by what the Church says or is doing, then he or she doesn’t take the Church seriously enough.

The Church’s witness to the Gospel is bound to be a challenge to our pride, greed, envy, lust, and more. The Church’s failure to live up to the Gospel is bound to be unsettling and put our faith to the test.

The revered priest and spiritual writer Romano Guardini noted in his book The Church of the Lord  that “everything in the Church is so full of the human  elements: commonplace, ordinary, even wicked human elements.”

Social activist and convert to Catholicism Dorothy Day was fond of saying, “The Church is the cross on which Christ is always crucified” --a quote she attributed to Guardini.

Both of them recognized that "the Church as lived” is not a perfect society, the same idea which prompted Pope Benedict XVI to acknowledge that the Church has a “disfigured face.”

Catholics confess that they believe in “one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church” but experience on a daily basis a Church divided and sinful.

They are told “Even in the liturgy the church does not wish to impose a rigid uniformity in matters which do not affect the faith or well-being of the entire community” (Sacrosanctum concilium, 37) and yet an awkward English translation of the Roman Missal is imposed for the sake of uniformity.

Catholics are invited to give their observations for a synod about the challenges facing family life in today’s world, and yet the questions posed for their consideration (“What analytical tools are currently being used in these times of anthropological and cultural change?” or “How do Christian families bear witness, for succeeding generations, to the development and growth of a life of sentiment?”) are more abstruse than the challenges they are supposed to probe.

Parishioners are subject to the ideologies of their pastors concerning the physical arrangements of their parish church. One pastor persuades (convinces?) the congregation that the tabernacle should not be in the sanctuary (behind the altar), but the next pastor insists there are good reasons to restore the tabernacle to that very position.

Catholics are encouraged to pray for “more vocations,” which generally means the hope that more young, unmarried men will come forward for ordination to the priesthood, when in fact they believe there would be plenty of priests if the discipline of celibacy were made optional. Parishioners see family men in their own parish who could easily and with dignity preside at the Eucharist.

They hear about Church leaders who complain that the Church has been “feminized,” and at the same time see  these same prelates dressed and parading about in satin and lace and fur.

Ecclesia reformans et reformanda  is a time-honored principle which acknowledges that the Church is always in need of reform, a work in process. Each generation of believers must translate that observation into the Church of its own time—a difficult and painful process.

The New Testament bears to witness to many quarrels and disputes: conflicts among Jesus’ apostles, disagreements about how Gentiles should be received into the community, squabbles among Christians in the Churches of Galatia and Corinth and Thessalonica. 

In some ways it is the human element of the Church that is harder to accept than the divine. Our frustration that things are not the way they should be makes us question whether God is really present after all. And yet the Incarnation is where we meet the deep, puzzling mystery of the human and divine met in the one person of Jesus Christ, who chose not to shy away from but to enter into the brokenness of the human condition. God’s patience and providence continue to surprise.

When he was asked about the newly formulated Constitution for the United States, Benjamin Franklin replied, “I consent, sir, to this constitution, because I expect no better, and because I am not sure that it is not the best.” He did have some misgivings, but he proposed its acceptance. I sometimes wonder if Jesus feels the same about his Church. If he accepts it in its brokenness, who am I to reject it?

I can pray for its growth, work for its betterment, but to abandon what Jesus purchased at so great a price is hardly thinkable. It may not be what he had in mind, but he has not given up on it and neither should we.

A Report, A Review, An Address

As 2014 came to an end, three significant Vatican documents captured Church and world attention:

1)  The Relatio Synodi for the upcoming Synod of Bishops which is dedicated to “The Pastoral Challenges of the Family in the Context of Evangelization”;

2)  The Final Report on the Apostolic Visitation of Institutes of Women Religious in the United States;

3)  Pope Francis’ Christmas Address to the Curia.

A Report

An October, 2014, meeting of a select number of bishops and laity discussed issues surrounding family problems in today’s world in the light of the Church’s mission to reflect Gospel values.

This extraordinary synod produced a document  known as a relatio synodi, a summary of the  issues and theology proposed and debated by the participants. In his closing remarks Pope Francis described the meeting as a journey with moments of enthusiasm and ardor, moments of fatigue, moments of consolation and grace, moments of desolation, tension and temptation.

The summary or outline (aka lineamenta) will be discussed by Bishops worldwide in preparation for an October, 2015, synod, which is expected to draw conclusions and encourage a plan of action.

Prior to the meeting the bishops are asked to consult with Catholics at all levels to surface observations, insights and  recommendations about how to respond to family life problems around the globe.

The Vatican (read: Pope Francis) encourages responses that are compassionate and pastoral. The document recognizes that there are no easy answers to the multiplicity of problems threatening family life: violence against women, sexual exploitation of children, divorce and broken families, hard economic times, rising numbers of  “street-children,” pornography, etc. The Church’s response must be merciful, truthful, and consistent with the will of Christ.

Bishops will be provided with more than 40 questions to pass on to their people in this worldwide consultation in preparation for the three-week synod in October of 2015.

Basing our expectations on the relatio, we can conclude that the results of the synod will not overturn the constant teaching of the Church that marriage is between a man and a woman, nor will there be a change regarding the indissolubility of marriage.

But it is quite possible that a great deal more attention will be given on the diocesan and parochial levels to people in hurting marriage, to the divorced, to the divorced-and-remarried, to accompanying newly married couples in the first years of their conjugal life, to simplification of the Church’s process for declaration of marriage nullity, to welcoming people with homosexual orientation, etc.

The Review of  the Sisters

In December of 2008 Cardinal Franc Rodé, head of the Vatican’s Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, announced an “apostolic visitation” (a Vatican investigation) of religious sisters in the United States. Religious congregations of women were caught by surprise, even though “visitations” of one or more religious orders are not uncommon. That this visitation was directed to all the religious sisters in the US raised red flags and resentment.

Pressed for an explanation, Rodé admitted that he had decided to act because of complaints his office had received, charging some of the religious orders with having a secularist mentality, “perhaps even a ‘feminist’ spirit.” Rodé intimated that someone on a high level in the US Church had been critical of sisters and their attitudes.

An American sister, Mother Mary Claire Millea, was appointed to conduct the visitation, part of which would be done by mail and part by personal, on-site meetings with certain religious orders. Over a period of two years, at an estimated cost of one million dollars, the data was collected and preparations for a report were begun.

The final review is dated December 12, 2014. Cardinal Rodé is no longer head of the congregation on religious, His Holiness Benedict XVI is no longer pope. While couched in Church language and Vaticanese, the conclusion does not address with any specificity the charges which prompted the visitation and is more hortatory in tone than directive.

The report is probably more telling in what it does not say than in what it does. The sisters may well suspect that something of the “Francis effect” is present in the final analysis of the institutions of women religious in the United States. Some Catholics think the investigation and its report to be “much ado about nothing.”

Although there may have been a collective sigh of relief from the sisters when the report was first generated, the conflict between the Leadership Conference of Women Religious and the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is not resolved.

An Address

   On December 22, 2014, Pope Francis held an annual pre-Christmas meeting with the Roman Curia and its staff. (The Curia is the collection of departments that are formed to help the pope lead the Church; it is the Church’s main bureaucracy.)

The Holy Father offered his Christmas and New Year greetings, thanked them for their service, and read to them an examination of conscience to encourage their improvement!

His address listed 15 weaknesses, temptations, or “diseases” which Curia members must strive to overcome and avoid.

He encouraged  them to be self-critical and to avoid the temptation to think of themselves as beyond updating; he also said that the disease of thinking oneself to be indispensable stems from a pathology of power and narcissism.

He urged them to avoid “Marthaism” (excessive busy-ness) and to spend quality time with family and to enjoy the holidays.

He cautioned them not to become hard-hearted but to recall the feelings and mindset of Christ.

He suggested that they be cooperative and to work as a team. He warned them about “spiritual Alzheimer’s” which forgets the history of salvation. He listed other “diseases” which need attention: the disease of rivalry and vainglory (as in excessive concern about appearance and robes and  honors); the disease of schizophrenia (as in hypocrisy and losing touch with reality); the disease of gossip and grumbling; the disease of courting superiors in the interest of advancing careers.

He warned about indifference, about wearing what he called “a funeral face,” about accumulating more things than needed, about forming cliques, and about turning service or ministry into worldly  power.

Pope Francis ended the examination of conscience by encouraging healing, noting that “these diseases and such temptations are of course a danger to every Christian and every curia, community, congregation, parish, and church movement.”

Most observers of Papa Francesco’s papacy agree that he has taken seriously the call from brother bishops to effect a reform of the Curia. Dissatisfaction with the Curia was obvious at the Second Vatican Council, but the power of the Curia waylaid most proposals for reform.

Fifty years later the conclave of cardinals who elected Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio discussed again the need for curial reform. In fact one may conclude that reform of the Curia was a kind of mandate given to the man the electors selected to succeed Pope Benedict XVI. By establishing his Group of Nine to study and advise such reform, Pope Francis has shown his willingness to pursue that reform. The reform of the Vatican Bank is well underway.

It was said by some at Vatican II that the Curia was impervious to efforts of reform. Even though the bureaucracy exists to assist the pope in the worldwide governance of the Church, the Curia has established policies, procedures, and protections to ensure its “supremacy.”

It was said: “Popes die, Councils come to an end, but the Curia goes on!”

At the very least Pope Francis has demonstrated his willingness to climb the walls of the citadel and confront the temptations which undermine the health of this important Church body.

Three documents (a report, a review and an address) shine light on the unfolding of a new year in the Church and its mission and ministry. Let one with eyes, see. Let one with ears, hear. Pray for the safety of Pope Francis.

Greetings This Holy Season

I favor keeping “Christ in Christmas,” but I am not offended by those who wish me “Happy Holidays!”

According to a Wikepedia article, the expression “Happy Holidays” became a Christmas greeting in American English in a 1937 Camel cigarette advertisement.  Previously it had been used in British English in reference  to the summer-time break from school.

The word holiday came from the Old English term haeligdaeg which means “holy day.”  “Holiday” originally meant “holy day!” The term “holiday” then has religious origins if not religious connotations today.

And so, when I hear “Happy Holidays,” I think “Happy Holy Days,” and I find no reason to be offended. I suspect most people who use that “Holiday” greeting mean no offense, and even if they use “Christmas” in their greeting they probably are  not conscious of all that this term means.

 "Happy Holidays" can also include the Jewish Festival of Lights.

The Old English expression was Cristesmaesse describing the liturgical celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ. Middle English transformed the word into Cristemasse. Both terms meant “Christ’s Mass.” It is, so to speak,  liturgical language.

In the literal sense when we wish someone “Merry Christmas,” we express the hope that their “Christ Mass” may be agreeable or pleasing. The implication of the greeting (though clearly not intended by most who use the expression) is that one’s attendance at the Mass celebrating the birth of the Christ may be a pleasant experience.

Those who claim to know say that the greeting “Merry Christmas” was first used in an informal letter in 1699, and again in 1843 in Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. It is the English way of expressing greetings in the observance of Christ’s birth.

It is curious, however, that most Europeans do not put the word “Christ” in their season’s greetings. Most of them are wishing others “Happy Nativity Day!” Such is the Italian Buon Natale, the French Joyeux Noel, the Spanish Feliz Navidad.

The Germans, of course, say something different: Frohe Weihnachten, Happy Holy Night. But I especially like the Hawaiian way: Mele Kalikimaka (the phonetic equivalent of the English “Merry Christmas”). Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters have helped me to accept and enjoy that version.

However it is expressed, whatever the language, the greeting during this holy day season acknowledges the most extraordinary event in human history: that time when God took on the human condition and, in the picturesque language of John’s Gospel, “pitched his tent among us!”

Merry Christmas! Happy Holidays! Mele Kalikimaka!

Challenges of the "Francis Effect"

It seems to me that the so-called “Francis effect” (the modus operandi of Pope Francis) has had little influence on the agenda, statements, and actions of most Bishops’ conferences around the world, including the United States Catholic Conference.

Most of the People of God, especially the laity, however, are enthralled. And their acceptance of his papacy rests on more than the media's misrepresentations of what the pope has said and done since the evening he first appeared on the Vatican balcony.

The “Francis effect” is an echo of the “effect” of the Gospel, of the style of Jesus, of the values of the Kingdom as presented by the Christ.

Papa Francesco’s papal style challenges the old mind-set and  the bureaucracy of many Church leaders. He begins with people not law. He advocates simplicity. He admits we do not have all the answers. He questions whether the answers we have are in every case the correct or appropriate ones. He puts aside the royal airs and aristocratic bearing of some of our previous popes. His lifestyle is a threat to the episcopal lifestyle and wealth of some Church leaders. He does not fear to act, to move and remove, to tackle the tough issues of Church and world.

I suspect that some  bishops are thinking (maybe hoping) that Francis won’t last long, that his papacy is an anomaly, that his successor will take us back to the way things were. Such reasoning, however, is baseless. It is well known that “You can’t go back;” you can resist change or you can move ahead, but you can’t go back.

As the number of pastoral bishops increases during the Francis’ years, so the mindset among bishops will alter. Many of those in the chief pastoral office of their dioceses have never been parish pastors. Their degrees in Canon Law or their careers in bureaucracy have formed their attitudes and their vision of what it means to be Church.

Francis urges the People of God to ongoing discernment, to recognize that some Church customs are no longer meaningful or useful, even that some Church precepts “should be insisted upon with moderation ‘so as not to burden the lives of the faithful’ and make our religion a form of servitude” (Joy of the Gospel, 43).

A couple US Bishops have banned the hymn “All Are Welcome” on the grounds that it sends a false message. Francis says, “The Church is called to be the house of the Father, with doors always open wide” (Joy of the Gospel, 47).

Many bishops are so protective of the Church, perhaps so fearful of the Curia, that they hesitate to act, except perhaps in raising money or binding their people to strict interpretation of Canon Law. Francis says, “I prefer a Church which is bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a Church which is unhealthy from being confined and clinging to its own security” (Joy of the Gospel, 49).

Francis urged bishops to enter into pastoral dialogue “out of a desire to listen to everyone and not simply to those who would tell him what he would like to hear” (Joy of the Gospel, 31).

It is clear that Pope Francis is urging on Church leaders and all the People of God a new way of doing business.

The outcome of this new expression of papal leadership, the results of the “Francis effect” still lie in the future, but over time this papacy will have its influence on bishops, priests, deacons, religious and laity alike –not because it is new or challenging, but because it is Gospel-based, reflective of the values of the Kingdom. It is the way of the cross, the way of Jesus.

Jesus’ style was troubling to the religious leaders of his day. He promoted mercy, forgiveness and love. His priorities did not ignore Torah but they definitely challenged and changed some aspects of what was once thought the only way.

The “Francis effect,” however slowly it is implemented, will be effective because it echoes the “Jesus effect,” and Jesus simply will not go away.