My hat is off to Elizabeth Scalia for some of the excellent points she makes in this post.
It seems to me that more than a few Catholics (media types in particular) have been relishing in their enlightened understanding of Pope Francis’ media blitz with few harsh words for those faithful Catholics not quite on the bandwagon.
I will not take much from her piece because it is worth reading in its entirety, but this snippet will give you some insight.
My point is that its no good “getting” Francis if all we derive of it is a satisfaction of the intellect, a sense of papal validation, and that dreadful by-product of hipness that such validation confers. If we have previously decried smug triumphalism, it will sting when we look into the mirror and find ourselves become smug triumphalists. And all that I hate I am become.
Put more bluntly, we who “get” Francis, it is worth asking ourselves the question: are you loving Francis because of what you are learning from him, or simply because you perceive him to be “sticking it to” people you haven’t liked much for the past decade or so? A little of both?
The Pope, to his credit, has repeatedly made the point about turning the Church’s gaze from its own navel to a hurting world. Yet, there has been a lot of inside baseball writing and score settling going on.
Perhaps turning our gaze is a process and this bloodletting is a natural first step, but I am already a little frustrated with it.
That’s all right. These things gotta happen every five years or so, ten years. Helps to get rid of the bad blood. Been ten years since the last one. You know, you gotta stop them at the beginning. Like they should have stopped Hitler at Munich, they should never let him get away with that, they was just asking for trouble. –The Godfather
It seems that the cottage industry of interpreting and explaining Francis is growing at such a pace that it must soon be exempted from Obamacare, or it would be if it weren’t a Catholic thing. And among the interpreters there is a new class of Oracles, given special agency to interpret the daily papal off-the-cuffisms. Any party that wrangles with topics such as prudence or continuity are quickly branded and marginalized.
None of this is helpful and none of it is actually what the Pope is asking for. “Who am I to judge? Unless of course you express reservations, then we can get all kinds of judgey on you cause that is what the Pope really wants.”
No.
I am confident that the Pope will become more media circumspect over time and focus his efforts on the curia. But the relationships damaged in this Al Capone style inside baseball batting will leave scars.
The Papacy and the Church will survive no matter where you fall on the Papal approval scale, of this there is no doubt. I am not so sure the same can be said for the communion of struggling saints.
October 4, 2013 at 1:48 am
Kindly excuse my typos…
A final point I'd make is this dramatic shift of alleged focus to the mercy of God is a crock. You'd think John Paul II and Benedict (one of the mildest mannered men ever to hold the office) were some kind of latter day Savanorolas, weekly condemning us all and threatening us with hellfire.
It never happened. Quite the opposite. The "shift" was necessary nor in my view is it prudent given the train wreck our culture has become. All Francis is doing is helping along the status quote, which really isn't very good. 55 million abortions in the USA, God knows how many other elsewhere. Oh but the youth are unemployed and that's worse I guess.
At least they made it out of the womb.
October 4, 2013 at 3:55 pm
In any two-way conversation, the responsibility of communication is first with the communicator. In a one-way conversation, all the more so. If somebody has a problem with that, well, they have a problem.I just wanna know what the hell the Pope is trying to say. That doesn't make me a "triumphalist," or the "loyal opposition," or much of anything else. It makes me a Catholic who is paying attention.
October 7, 2013 at 12:29 am
@JB: "Tom, he does not have the power to change any element of 'doctrine or dogma.'"
Thanks for your response. I do not wish to get too far off topic, but . . .. The Pope certainly doesn't have the authority to contradict Dogma, for which a deeper understanding can develop over time, but the dogmatic teaching can never be contradicted. I suppose that one could argue that he has the "power" to make certain declarations about what the Church teaches, but not the authority to contradict dogmatic teaching.
As far as doctrine goes, I was thinking of the distinction between doctrine and Doctrine. While I must admit that I do not fully understand that Church Doctrine can never be contradicted, certainly doctrine develops and can even be modified to the point that a earlier teaching may be modified to the point that it is significantly different than originally taught. I will admit, off the top of my head, I cannot think of an example of this, however. Perhaps purgatory?
If Church doctrine cannot be changed as you say, why did Pope Paul VI (actually called by John XXIII) consult the Pontifical Commission on Birth Control in the 1960s? My understanding is that the invention of the birth control pill presented a challenge to the teaching of the Church. Was the pill an illicit form of birth control? The majority on the Commission said no, and the Pope said yes. If he had chosen to accept the Commission's findings, would this have not constituted a change in doctrine? Wasn't Pope Paul VI authorized to do this? Or would it be claimed that it didn't constitute a change, as the reasoning was that the pill was not illicit, so he wasn't changing the Church's teaching that illicit forms of birth control are morally wrong, since, if he had accepted the Commission's finding, the pill was not regarded as an illicit form of birth control. Many Catholics would have objected that making the pill licit changed the Church's teaching. But the way it was reasoned, those who agreed with the change would argue, the decision did not constitute a change in Church teaching. Illicit forms of birth control are still forbidden; the pill simply isn't one of them.