The 'concern' about Pope Francis
by REV. JAMES V. SCHALL, S.J.
November 30, 2016
A relative recently wrote an e-mail to me in which he made the following off-handed comment:
“What do you think of the pope’s recent course change on abortion?” Now, unless I missed something, on this subject the pope has not changed anything.
He has, no doubt, indicated that he wants to downplay its relative importance compared to other issues. He avoids right-to-life marches in Italy. Many of his ecological friends want to control world population.
But the questioner was perceptive, nonetheless.
Most people do think that the pope has or soon will change Catholic doctrine on abortion and many other related issues. What is even more surprising is that many think that he has the power simply to change doctrine as if he were a voluntarist potentate free to change things as he wills.
The same issue of changeability comes up with regard to marriage.
While the pope has not changed anything on the objective disorder of active gay marriage, most people, especially most homosexuals, think that he has. Their way of life, it is claimed, is simply “good” and must be recognized as such. Not a few passages in scripture, previous church teachings, and common sense, suggest that this recognition may not be such a good idea.
In the case of communion for the divorced, again most people and many bishops consider a radical change has been made. It is just wrapped up in obscure language and promulgated in a strange manner.
The pope is cautious in revealing his hand. Many people have given up on him. They do not understand what he is up to. They do notice the “leftist” tenor of thought of those who support his most publicized public statements.
Four cardinals recently sought, through normal legal and canonical channels, to ask the pope for a clarification of what he means in these areas in which he has written or spoken. (See Bishop Athanasius Schneider’s recent essay in Crisis.) Many are confused.
Has the pope, in his own mind, changed anything substantial; and, if so, on what basis?
Any change in these important questions would bring into question not only the truth of the issue at hand, but also the centuries-long record of consistent orthodoxy in the Church. This abiding consistency is one of the major proof-claims for the Church’s credibility.
Is it possible, I wonder, to articulate the “concern” that many people I know or read about have about the present Church without being sensational, inaccurate, or unfair? What, in other words, is the core of the “concern”?
As it is by now well-known, the pope, at least for now, “dismissed” or ignored these requests of the cardinals for clarity. He seems to maintain that anyone concerned with such issues is “rigid,” or a Pharisee, or even a bit psychotic.
Increasing numbers wonder why the pope cannot just give a brief direct answer to an honest, well-phrased inquiry. After all,
this protecting the integrity of what was handed down is the burden of the papal office. To avoid giving answers, when giving answers is your job, seems odd.
In absence of clarity, people look for reasons about why the Holy Father refuses to answer straightforward questions of some import. Is there something hidden that might explain it? People become detectives looking for clues.
The pope rightly maintains that not all questions need to be or can be answered. This is not unlike the notion that all the laws need not all be enforced. To see what laws are or are not enforced is a pretty good indication of what the law enforcer thinks to be important. Likewise,
the unanswered questions seem to point to what is really the problem.
II.
Pope Francis has had a good education as befits the Jesuit priestly tradition. But he makes no bones of the fact that he is not himself intellectually oriented in his overall outlook, as were perhaps John Paul II and Benedict XVI.
To be sure, Francis does at times display certain operative principles, like “time is more important than space.” This principle is evidently addressed to critical intelligence in a world in which time and space are inter-related in the scientific textbooks while space is measured in terms of light years.
Christ came in the “fullness of time” to a specific place, which, if it, or a place like it, did not exist, he never could have made it to this Earth in which time is also manifested. But of course, the pope did not deny the existence of space in preference for some obscure notion of time.
The point that I write about here is relatively simple.
The “concern” is not so much to “prod” the good Holy Father into answering his mail. Others have tried this approach and failed. Rather it is to articulate the core “concern” that many normal people have about their Church under Pope Francis’s leadership.
The Argentine pope certainly attracts crowds and generous media attention. He is seen kissing little babies, waving, smiling, and talking earnestly with almost anyone from scientists to politicians to mullahs and rabbis. We all recall his visit with the late Fidel Castro.
Pope Bergoglio has been on some twenty travels out of Italy and all over the known world. He dutifully attends to papal liturgical, diplomatic, bureaucratic, and ceremonial functions. At almost eighty, he seems full of energy and zest. He appears in public to enjoy being the pope. He even gets annoyed. He is human.
The people he seems to like the least are practicing Catholics and the poor ecclesial bureaucrats who have to do all the thankless grunt jobs in the Church. He certainly has a good press. [BUT] The crowds at papal audiences seem down, while observers do not yet detect any remarkable “Francis effect” in increased vocations, conversions, or Mass attendance.
But none of these issues seems to be what most concerns people. We are used to maintain that the principle of non-contradiction binds us to the truth of things. Catholicism is a religion that takes mind seriously.
Revelation and reason do not contradict each other. These affirmations about reason and revelation indicate a certain confidence in our Catholicism. When spelled out, what the faith teaches makes sense in all areas. We can articulate what we are talking about without claiming that we grasp absolutely everything about the mystery of being. In fact, we claim that we do not understand everything in all its intelligibility. We do not confuse ourselves with the gods.
What we can figure out by ourselves makes sense also. We hold that what was revealed by Christ still holds and was intended to do so over time. Among these teachings and practices that were revealed was that of the consistency over time of the content of revelation. This consistency of its intelligibility was to be upheld in particular by the office of the papacy.
Thus, what was taught by St. John, by Leo the Great, by Innocent IV, by Alexander VI, by Pius V, by Gregory VI, by Leo XIII, and by John Paul II would be essentially the same teaching, however well or ill it was explicated in a given era.
III.
In this tradition, the [16th century] Jesuit theologians, Francisco Suarez and Robert Bellarmine, at least considered the problem of a hypothetical pope who did not affirm what had been explicitly handed down.
In general, they held that a pope who might enunciate any heretical position would cease ipso facto to be pope. But this was an opinion.
The one or two instances in the history of the Church, when a given pope did state something dubious, were usually considered, on examination, to be merely private opinions or not taught infallibly. So the consistency record over time is pretty impressive from that angle.
In this light, the “concern” that exists today is whether the promise to Peter that what Christ did and held would be kept alive in its fullness. The Church thus must avoid contradicting itself; that is, teaching one thing in one generation or area and its opposite in another.
We are not concerned here with equivocation or impreciseness. If some pope did cross this line, we can at least suspect that he would not admit it or see the point. If he had the issue pointed out to him and saw its import, he would simply acknowledge what is the truth and be done with it. Otherwise, a drawn-out struggle would follow to decide who is right.
In a recent talk to the Jesuit Congregation, the Holy Father again spoke of seminaries wherein “law” was taught, where priests became “rigid.” Instead, he advocated what appears to be a version of St. Ignatius’s “discernment of spirits” as the alternative to this “legalism.”
It often seems that the real target is the encyclical Veritatis Splendor of John Paul II that spelled out the conditions for dealing with absolute evils. It is of some interest to reflect on this approach. It may explain the reason why Pope Bergoglio does not answer specific questions about the truth of doctrines.
In Aristotle and Aquinas, the virtue of justice was what upheld the law. The lawmaker is responsible for stating exactly what the law is. We cannot be held to what we do not know. However, the classic discussions of law included a second virtue known as equity or
epichia.
It was recognized by the law itself that laws are made for the generality of cases, whereas human action takes place in particular times, places, and circumstances. This awareness meant that observing the purpose of the law sometimes meant not following the letter of the law. As far as I know, no one has ever had a problem seeing this point.
Epichia, however, did not mean that there was no objective standard of right in any given case. It was not a “feeling,” but a judgment of insight about the real rightness or wrongness of an act that took into consideration all its aspects. The assumption was that in every act there was a “right” thing to do, which we searched out with our reason and insight and were obliged to follow.
In the older Jesuit tradition of casuistry, we find a tendency to take the lenient side in a complicated moral or practical issue. It was up to the lawmaker to make things clear. Judges in particular cases did little other than look into these particular complexities. And we should not be constantly changing the law as that too created uncertainty about what we can be expected to know and do. In this sense, the “liberal” position was not merely a subjective position.
The Jesuit tradition of “discernment of spirits” was designed to do just that — discern “spirits,” good ones from bad ones. Particularly, when sorting out one’s choice of a vocation in life, what God wanted this particular person to do, or what particular person to marry, or what task to undertake, we could, with the help of a wise advisor, gain some sense in the way the Lord was guiding us.
It seems to be from this background that the Holy Father derives his antagonism to “legalism.” Whether one can make an easy analogy of “discernment of spirits” and the sacramental confession and judgment of one’s sins is a reasonable question to ask ourselves.
When the Holy Father refuses to answer what appear to entail clear issues, the reason seems to be that he is looking at human action through the eyes of the 'sinner'." The sinner can always, as Aquinas intimated, give some sort of reason for what he does. There is no such thing as an absolutely “evil” act. Evil always exists in some good that can be articulated, and even praised.
On the other hand,
we too must “discern” spirits that are leading us away from our own good and from God. How we observe the commandments are signs of the direction in which we are going. The ancient spiritual fathers always taught that eventual damnation began with little things, small faults.
One thing leads to another until we had a habit of separating emotions surrounding the good from the good itself. We impose our will, in other words, on objective reality.
IV.
Where do such considerations leave us with regard to the “big” current issues of marital fidelity, abortion, homosexuality, euthanasia, and other issues? No one seems to want us to apply the same kind of thinking, say, to thievery or murder whereby we go through such agonies to decide what is good.
Generally, the expression of “bringing the Church into the modern world” has meant, on examination, that we should devise some way to accept these wide spread and civilly enforced practices as goods.
If we do accept these practices as “good,” we need, at the same time, to recognize that we deny the tradition we are to uphold. We lose all claims to revelation as a consistent guide to action.
To put the best face on it,
if we apply the “discernment of spirits” approach to the way we deal with these issues, we ought not to intend, at the same time, to deny the objective standards that are the objects of justice and epichia. If we do, then we have simply contradicted ourselves and should acknowledge it.
In other words, the epichia tradition with its emphasis on an objective “rightness” that we are seeking to know and follow cannot be replaced by a “discernment of spirits” tradition that somehow, wrongly, would justify intrinsically immoral acts.
At their best, both traditions can look at the ones held to live according to the norms of reason and revelation to inquire how they see the issue in the concrete.
Neither ought to be a subtle methodology to justify evil or make everything so subjective that no objective order any longer exists. [What one might call TOTAL RELATIVISM, which seems to be Jorge Bergoglio's default mode.]
Rather both, at their best, seek not just to know what was thought at the time the problem arose, but to instruct and guide us to live by those standards that do embody the true good of each person, standards found both in reason and revelation.
So, briefly, to conclude, what is the “concern” that so many have? It is whether a shrewd way of undermining what had been handed down has been introduced into the Church.
I myself do not think opposing “legalism” in favor of “discernment” is a good idea. Law and equity, discernment of both good and bad spirits, are necessary.
Not all questions need to be clarified immediately. I, at least, belong to the school of thought that thinks that the most important ones should be clarified. It is not “legalism” to do so. We are not a people who seek to live in darkness. We seek to live in the light that teaches us about what is.
How the ‘dubia’ drama will end
Pope Francis has declined to answer four cardinals’ ‘doubts’
about his teaching on marriage [and morality in general]
The Church is now in uncharted territory
by Fr Mark Drew
Wednesday, 30 Nov 2016
Prognostications are a dangerous pastime for commentators, and in the papacy of Pope Francis the business of making predictions seems a particularly dangerous one. Back in April, when Francis issued a document called Amoris Laetitia (“The Joy of Love”), I warned readers to expect ongoing controversy around an unanswered question. This time I was not wrong.
The unanswered question was the one which had been hotly debated at the two consecutive synods of bishops held in 2014 and 2015 – namely, whether divorced and remarried Catholics might be admitted to the Eucharist in certain circumstances. At the two synods the proposal, pushed by prelates handpicked by Francis, faced strong opposition from many bishops and failed to achieve the necessary consensus. The document produced by the 2015 meeting came up with an ambiguous formula, essentially fudging the issue. [They did not just fudge the issue but evaded it altogether - in quoting chunks of Familairis consortio but deliberately omitting the three sentences by which John Paul II had closed the issue. And the deliberate omission was clearly because the synod fathers knew those three sentences could not and would not be upheld by the current pope - who, however, has no difficulty acknowledging John Paul II's 'last word' on NO to women priests, but is openly REFUSING TO REAFFIRM his predecessor's 'last word' on communion for RCDs (also the abiding word of the Church, as is the NO to women priests). i.e, He, Bergoglio, will choose what of the existing Magisterium he wants to uphold.]
After the synod all eyes were on Francis to see if he would intervene with a clear decision. Popes usually publish “post-synodal exhortations” after these gatherings. Most are anodyne and soon forgotten, but this one aroused feverish hopes and anxieties in a polarised Church. When it arrived, readers thumbed hastily through more than 300 pages to find the eagerly awaited response. That answer, hidden away in two footnotes, was once again ambiguous.
The past six months have seemed at times like a war of attrition. The controversy has centered largely on how the Pope’s words are to be interpreted. Some national bishops’ conferences – Germany, for example – seem more or less united in favour of liberalising the discipline, while others – such as Poland – insist that nothing has changed.
The bishops of Buenos Aires produced a document suggesting that the way is now open for Communion for the remarried in some cases where subjective guilt might be diminished. The Pope responded with a private letter commending this interpretation as the right one. In what has become a familiar aspect of disputes around the Pope’s real intentions, the purportedly private exchange was leaked – a transparent attempt to give momentum to the liberalising tendency.
The division doesn’t just run between national groups; it also divides episcopal conferences internally. Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia published norms for his diocese which made it clear that the discipline there would remain unchanged. Those in irregular unions might receive Communion only if they lived in continence.
His compatriot Cardinal Kevin Farrell, head of the new Vatican body overseeing family issues, criticised Chaput for jumping the gun on what should have been, according to him, decided collegially by the American bishops. Farrell clearly implied that such a policy should be more open to Francis’s favoured “option of mercy”. Amoris Laetitia, he said, was the Holy Spirit speaking.
Amid these manoeuvrings, a bombshell exploded. A letter was made public, addressed to the Pope by four cardinals known to be hostile to any change in the discipline. It took the form of dubia, “doubts”, traditionally addressed to the competent Roman authority by those seeking clarification of points of Church teaching or canon law deemed insufficiently clear.
Of the cardinals concerned, only one is currently serving, albeit in a role of reduced importance. He is Cardinal Raymond Burke, already well known as a conservative “bruiser”. The others cardinals are all retired: Walter Brandmüller, a highly respected academic historian; Carlo Caffarra, Archbishop Emeritus of Bologna and a distinguished moral theologian; and Joachim Meisner, Archbishop of Cologne until 2014 and one of the strongest supporters of the last two popes among the world’s bishops.
The dubia covered five questions, all referring to magisterial teachings of St John Paul II, contained notably in the landmark texts Familiaris Consortio and Veritatis Splendor.
It is evident that the questions, all put respectfully and with detailed arguments, were not innocent, in that their purpose is to suggest that there are difficulties in reconciling Amoris Laetitia, or at least its implications, with established Catholic doctrine. But neither are they purely rhetorical questions: they do present the Pope, or those liberalising theologians he seems to favour, with an opportunity to develop, with concrete and precise reasoning, their assertion that what is underway constitutes an authentic development of doctrine.
The Pope let it be known that he would not be delivering a response to the four cardinals. It was this determined silence which pushed them to make the dubia public. To many, this has seemed a direct challenge to Francis.
As if to confirm this, Cardinal Burke has even gone so far as to state that he and the others may make a “formal act of correction” if the Pope did not clarify his teaching. The clear implication is that the Holy Father is possibly teaching error.
What is the significance of Pope Francis’s silence? And how audacious is the cardinals’ initiative?
The Pope is in a difficult position. If he were to state that the principles taught by St John Paul II were no longer part of the Church’s teaching, he would cause a theological earthquake. Never in modern times has a pope publicly disavowed his predecessor. To do so would provoke open revolt among the many who cling tenaciously to the doctrine of previous popes – not merely the last two, but the entire Catholic tradition as it has evolved over the centuries. It might even provoke a formal schism.
What’s more, it would relativise Pope Francis’s own teaching authority – after all, if his predecessors got it wrong, why should anyone think his own statements had any lasting value beyond his lifetime?
On the other hand, if Francis reaffirms the previous teaching, then he must either abandon his attempts to reform the discipline of the sacraments, or come up with arguments to show that the contradiction is only apparent.
Defenders of the change, chief among them Cardinal Christoph Schönborn of Vienna, have said that the change they advocate is not a reversal of former teaching but a development of doctrine. I have so far seen nothing which convinces me that this is more than mere affirmation, unsupported by cogent, rational demonstration.
Is the Pope furious with the four authors of the dubia, as some suggest? I doubt it. He has, after all, called for parrhesia – courageous and frank debate.
The signs are that he believes in initiating processes, rather than dictating outcomes. [Go ahead, give him the benefit of the doubt, against all evidence that confirms the doubt (and the DUBIA).]
He should recognise, then, that initiatives which aim at balancing the discussion, even at putting a brake on evolutions judged by many to be inopportune, are a normal part of such processes in a Church which he has called upon to become more “synodal”, or collegial. [That might be so when the issues at stake are minor and procedural, not when they have to do with fundamental doctrine sought to be contravened de facto by unwarranted pastoral practices. Besides, were the two synodal assemblies not the actual exercise of that synodality/collegiality - and yet the pope chose to overturn their consensus on his chosen casus belli! In short, he's saying, "I'm willing to be collegial provided you agree with me, not when you don't!']
I am less convinced of the serene disposition of many who surround Francis and might seek to use his popularity to advance agendas of their own. There have been intemperate and angry reactions. Bishop Frangiskos Papamanolis, president of the bishops’ conference of the minuscule Catholic Church in Greece, charged the four cardinals with schism, heresy and even apostasy.
Nobody who understands properly the Catholic doctrine of the papacy believes that challenging the prudential judgments of a pope makes anybody a renegade from the Catholic faith. But I am concerned that this reaction exemplifies some worrying factors in this debate, beyond the anger and divisive rhetoric present on both sides.
The first is the anti-intellectualism which seems present in some quarters. Bishop Papamanolis reproached the four cardinals with making “sophisticated arguments”, as if this were something unforgivable. Pope Francis has contended that “realities are greater than ideas”. But hardening this into a contempt for rationality and logical discourse risks handing over the Church to the reign of the emotive and the sentimental in a way which cannot in the end sustain its efforts to evangelise. [And anti-intellect(rather than anti-intellectualism) is precisely the heart of this pontificate's communications - Appeal to sentiment and emotion, no one has time for reason and logical discourse, least of all the powers-that-be.]
Secondly, there is the risk of replacing the proper understanding of papal authority with an excessive attachment to a particular pope verging on a cult of personality. [IT IS A CULT OF PERSONALITY. When this pope's courtisans say that to criticize him is to oppose the Holy Spirit - "Off with their heads!", or at least their birettas - it all smacks of the Communist establishment's reflex if anyone dared criticize Stalin or Mao or Fidel Castro.]
I am worried when some of those who were warning against this danger under St John Paul II now seem quite happy to tolerate it under a pope they believe to favour their agenda.
Popes are human beings whose job is to teach Christian doctrine, and in cases of necessity to intervene to restore unity on the basis of truth. They can make errors of judgment in pursuing this task, as they have in the past and doubtless will in the future. They teach and govern in union with their collaborators – the bishops – who have a role in advising them and, if necessary, urging caution.
Pope Francis has chosen to open a debate [which he lost when it was carried on formally for two years running in its appropriate setting, even when it should bever have been debated, to begin with - so he is keeping it open by refusing to accept not just the consensus of those synods but the 'last word' handed down on the issue by a predecessor he himself canonized.] - and I believe that one day, in a global Church requiring globally consistent teaching and discipline, he or one of his successors will be called upon to close it.
The authority of the world’s bishops will need to be involved in such a decision – perhaps in a future synod or even an ecumenical council. [What a colossal waste of time, effort and needlessly polarized passions to correct an obstinate hubristic pope convinced that he alone can be right on any topic he deigns to speak about! But he doesn't even have the balls to answer an unequivocal YES or NO to the DUBIA which could not have beeh framed more simply and fundamentally.]
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 30/11/2016 23:12]