I was preparing a post about October being the Month of the Rosary and chock full of important saint's days, when I saw that Pope Francis has been interviewed yet again; this time in a secular Italian publication. Eugenio Scalfari, the veteran journalist and publisher who conducted the tete a tete, is a self proclaimed non-believer who also stresses that he is not anti-clerical. And he has reason not to be; after he deserted the Italian Army during World War II he was hidden in a Jesuit residence.
The interview is not long, and you can read it for yourselves, so I won't waste time with a line by line review. I'll just give a few impressions.
The Pope as Happy Culture Warrior
The Holy Father approaches the encounter as a meeting of minds seeking understanding, not as a missionary meeting a heathen in search of a convert (he calls proselytizing "solemn nonsense.") This doesn't mean that Pope Francis is somehow passive or without an edge. While it is very obvious that this is a congenial encounter, at one point the Pope makes Scalfari articulate what he believes in if not in God. It's always hard to judge tone in the written word, but it strikes me as a very forceful, passionate moment in the interview. The interviewer becomes the interviewee, with the new interrogator always respecting the person while probing the ideas, challenging assumptions.
Also, while some might accuse Francis of being too subjective when he says that a non-believer following his or her conscience, that is following one's natural inclinations as to good versus evil, would be enough to make the world a better place, he speaks of grace in purely objective terms. When Scalfari expresses incredulity that a non-believer could be touched by grace the Pope tells him that grace touches the soul, not the consciousness, so that we are unaware when of it. Scalfari protests that he doesn't believe in the soul, to which the Pope assures him that he has one irregardless of what he believes. The Pope is here to debate, but he's not accepting the world's terms, or acting like he has to necessarily defend Christianity's basic assumptions. He is willing to be challenged as well as to lay down the gauntlet himself, always with respect, vigor and joy.
The Worldly and the Spiritual Intersect
The Pope states that the most serious evils facing the world right now are youth unemployment and the loneliness of the elderly. He is asked if these are not matters for governments and trade unions to sort out. Francis agrees, but stresses that these conditions touch body and soul. They sap the person economically and emotionally, robbing them of hope for a better life and a feeling of belonging in the social community. But they also touch the soul. The Church as an institution is not to get involved with politics, but the People of God certainly have this responsibility to be involved in the shaping of the public order. Catholics do this not as people who seek to dominate, but rather contribute.
The Holy Father also stressed the importance of mysticism. The Church has a distinct role from that of government, which is secular by nature. We come to certain conclusions about what constitutes the correct social order because we have met Jesus Christ, not because we adhere to some political ideology. He states clearly that "Religion without mysticism is philosophy." While he does not see himself as being a mystic in the strict sense, he has had what he would describe as brushes with the mystical, particularly when he was elected and asked for a few moments to reflect before accepting. While politics and religion are distinct, you can gather from the Holy Father's words he believes that faith brings with it political implications, even if the Church as an institution needs to let the state do it's job free of interference.
The Liberation Theology Pope?
This is strictly me musing a bit, but a lot of ink has been spilt over Francis' views on liberation theology, and that his election signals a sea change in the Vatican's attitude toward that controversial theological school of thought. Both Bl. John Paul II and Benedict XVI were cool to LT, but with Francis, a native of the region where it was born, meeting recently with LT's founding father Gustavo Gutierrez there is much speculation that the theology of liberation's time has come. I think we need to take a pause and a deep breath on that one.
It is true that the Pope has spoken on economic justice, both as Archbishop of Buenos Aires and in his recent interviews and talks. It's safe to say that Francis, like most European and Latin American prelates, can probably be best described as a social democrat (as was JP II and BXVI). In other words he believes in more government oversight of the economy than your average Republican, but is no Marxist. He has stressed in the past that there is not one liberation theology, but rather theologies of liberation, some in greater accord with Church teaching than others. Someone at a private audience with the Pope after the sit down with Fr. Gutierrez indicated that Francis made it clear that the approval of the theologian's work given by a curial cardinal was that person's personal opinion and did not necessarily reflect Francis' point of view. Even in the latest interview the Holy father talks about the need for economic rules, but that "if necessary direct intervention from the state to correct the more intolerable inequalities" should happen (emphasis mine).
Again, I'm not arguing that Francis is a free market libertarian. He also said that "Personally I think so-called unrestrained liberalism only makes the strong stronger and the weak weaker and excludes the most excluded." He means liberalism in the classical sense, not in today's U.S. political usage. His words tell me that his threshold for when government should intervene into the economy would be lower than mine, but he still doesn't see the state as the first or only line of defense against economic injustice.
In other words Francis will not be afraid to appeal to elements of LT, but is a true believer in Christ, not in an ideology, even one that dresses in theological cloths.
Who's Wig is the Holy Father Twisting?
It is becoming a cliche to say that Pope Francis is the liberal (in the contemporary political sense) answer to Benedict and John Paul. There is no doubt that some conservative minded or traditionalist Catholics are nervous about the Pope's recent statements. As one friend said to me recently, "I love Pope Francis, I just wish he wouldn't talk so much."
If I can be so bold, both liberals and conservatives in the Church are getting things wrong. We can't view the Holy Father's words through the lens of ideology or politics. He is not advocating fundamental changes in doctrine but in structure and emphasis. Look to his words on clericalism and role of Church councils and synods in Church governance and you will find the key to understanding the Pope's mind.
Conservatives should be nervous about talk of conciliarism, but liberals shouldn't think they're off the hook when he speaks of clericalism. Clericalism takes many forms, and I've encountered it here in the States, but also in Latin America where the clergy has by and large abandoned the use of clerical dress and some like to think of themselves as a part of the "People's Church." It can take the form of priests overly concerned with liturgical pomp and circumstance and with those who are entrenched in diocesan bureaucracies more concerned with the maintenance of the Church "machinery" than in extending the mission they are there to serve. In my experience people who think of themselves as progressive fall into the trap of clericalism just a easily those on the right. If we think the Pope's words are meant for "the other guy," we better think twice. The call is to move beyond ideology and into the pure light of the Gospel, and that should make all of us a little nervous.
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