Papa Francesco Could Surprise Us

You just never know. There is always so much more to a book than its cover.

I'm not much of a papist. But I was blown away when I first heard the new pope was a Jesuit, and that he had chosen the name of Francis in honor of St. Francis of Assisi, founder of the Franciscans, lover of the poor, and patron saint of the environment. Pope Francis's advocacy for the poor and preference for a humble, no-frills lifestyle is already well-known. In the homily during his inaugural Mass, he spoke again of the call to love and serve the poor, address global economic privations, protect creation (aka the environment), and to "not be afraid of tenderness, of goodness." He also addressed non-Catholics, non-Christians, and non-religious people with warmth and respect, believing everyone to be a child of God. (Read the full text of his homily here.) 

So, for me, his past strong admonitions against gay marriage and gay adoptions stand out in stark and painful contrast to everything else about him that appears humble, gentle, self-effacing, and welcoming. Likening gay marriage to "a destructive attack on God's plan" and gay adoption to "discrimination" against children is about the harshest sentiment I've seen on this issue among the hierarchy. I realize that high-level Catholic church leaders are not likely to change their tune on sexuality-related issues anytime soon. And of course, greed and world poverty are HUGE problems that demand more immediate attention. But the condemnation -- particularly of gay adoption -- stings. As an adoptee and as a friend to gay parents with adopted children, his stern disapproval feels unloving and un-Christian.

This article in the New York Times, however, paints a different picture. While still archbishop of Buenos Aires, Pope Francis actually proposed that the church support civil unions for gay couples, an idea that inflamed a gathering of bishops in 2010 -- who, of course, rejected his proposal. Afterwards, in more public arenas, he staunchly opposed gay marriage, which was eventually legalized in Argentina.

"Faced with the near-certain passage of the gay-marriage bill," says biographer Sergio Rubin, as quoted in the New York Times, "[then] Cardinal Bergoglio offered the civil-union compromise as 'the lesser of two evils.' He wagered on a position of greater dialogue with society."

This suggests that Pope Francis may have more flexibility than either of the previous two popes on these issues. While I'm not really expecting him to make any huge breaks with church tradition, the fact that he is open to measured compromise and "dialogue with society" leaves me feeling more hope about what might be ahead for our scarred and tattered church. If Pope Francis is genuinely humble, the combination of Jesuit discernment and Franciscan compassion could open up new terrain for us.

Click here to read the rest of the NYT article "On Gay Unions, a Pragmatist Before He Was Pope."

Scandal and Grace

How much I criticize you, my church, and yet how much I love you!

You have made me suffer more than anyone and yet I owe more to you than anyone.

I should like to see you destroyed and yet I need your presence.

You have given me much scandal and yet you alone have made me understand holiness.

Never in this world have I seen anything more compromised, more false, yet never have I touched anything more pure, more generous, or more beautiful.

Countless times I have felt like slamming the door of my soul in your face -- and yet every night, I have prayed that I might die in your sure arms!

No, I cannot be free of you, for I am one with you, even if not completely you.

Then too -- where would I go?

To build another church?

But I could not build one without the same defects, for they are my defects. And again, if I were to build another church, it would be my church, not Christ's church.

No. I am old enough. I know better!


--Carlo Carretto, paraphrased by Ronald Rolheiser in his book The Holy Longing.
This is from the closing section of Carlo Carretto's book, I Sought and I Found. Carretto (1910 - 1988) led an Italian youth movement, Catholic Action, which aimed to promote the social message of the church. Later, he became a member of the Little Brothers of Jesus, a community of Saharan desert contemplatives. Eventually Carretto settled in Spello, Italy, (near Assisi) where he lived the rest of his days writing and leading retreats. NCR contributor Jerry Ryan notes that Carretto "had harsh words for many of the externals of the church but was fiercely in love with its inner mystery."

Francis

"Francis, go and repair my house, 
which, as you see, is falling into ruin."

Francis. Francisco. Franchesco.

Yes, my heart did fill up when I first heard that name.

For now let us not focus on any great acts or heartbreaking stances we might discover in the life of one man, Jorge Bergoglio. Like all of us he has been molded, for better and for worse, by a culture, an era, a schooling.

Instead, may we, as a body of Christ, take that chosen name of Francis into the depths of our brokenness. May that name, Francis, be a clarion call, a communal beckoning, a groan of the spirit that rushes us to love and restore and renew our shell-shocked church and battle-scarred world.

It is not up to one selected man. It is not up to the cardinals and bishops. It is not up to the fathers and the monks and the sisters. It is up to all and each of us, through and in and with our compassionate and ever-flowering Christ, to hear the cry of the poor, to be made into channels of peace, to wrap the wounds of the bleeding, to weep with the brokenhearted, to embrace the neglected and abandoned, to bring love where there has been hatred, to understand rather than be understood, to walk gently on our mother Earth.

And this we are called to do in spite of -- and because of -- our flaws, limitations, youth, age, culturally-inherited hatreds, political leanings, past mistakes, stupidities, hip rationalizations, myopias, complacencies, and hesitations. This we are to do within whatever ordinary or extraordinary lives we find ourselves living.

This we are to do alongside each other -- in little, hidden ways, or in big, obvious ways -- in solitude, in family, or in community -- trusting that there is a wild grace and power and nourishment in surrendering, as disciples and journeyers on a path of Heart, to humanity's inevitable mutuality and common destiny in realms we cannot now fathom.

In doing this, we will bless the memory and the name and the work and the heart of Francis.

                   From Franco Zeffirelli's film on the early life of St. Francis of Assisi -- Brother Sun, Sister Moon

Catholics Gone Wild

So the 2013 papal conclave is well under way. First day: black smoke, no pope.

And the news-making folks are on top of it like a fly on honey (or poop--take your pick). "We are just so taken with the ritual and the majesty of it all," gushed one wide-eyed correspondent in front of a sun-drenched St. Peter's Basilica. "It's one of those events that happens once in a generation. And the pomp and circumstance has been phenomenal!"

I am watching some of this coverage too, I confess -- with a queasy mixture of hope, trepidation, and embarrassment. I recognize that this monarchical, pageant-filled aspect of Catholicism is a part of what the church is, and that the spectacle appeals to many. But it is also the element of the institutional church that I feel most distanced from. When I stepped back into my native faith more than a decade ago, it had nothing at all to do with the papacy, or the pageantry, or the dogmas, or even the Catechism of the Catholic Church. I was beckoned back by a wild and magnaminous Mystery that streams deep in the heart of all that lives and dies. Church is simply one of its collectively sculpted vessels, a chipped and cracked receptacle that has drawn me back into its hold against all my good sense.

And, truth be told, these are my favorite Cardinals:

But I have to admit that this past church year -- though replete with heartbreaking scandal and new disappointments, as always -- has been like a wild breeze a-blowin'. Here's a heretic's-eye-view of some highlights:

2012 is the fiftieth anniversary of the beginning of Vatican II, a series of formal meetings among bishops that resulted in various modern reforms to the church. Benedict XVI -- who, as theological expert Joseph Ratzinger was (interestingly) a fairly progressive voice during V-II-- declares a Year of Faith for all Catholics, inviting us to "study and reflect on the documents of Vatican II and the catechism." (And, um, I haven't done this. Yet.)

On February 11, 2013, just before the beginning of Lent, Pope B announces that he will resign. The reactions vary widely. Rumors and speculations fly. Does Pope B want to secure protection in perpetuity against indictment or arrest for whatever role he played, by design or by neglect, in crimes of the Church? Is some twisted new conspiracy at play? Are a cadre of Vatican priests really engaging in all-night sex romps at Roman saunas?

Or can it be that -- wait for it ... wait for it -- B is simply old, frail, and recognizing that he needs to hand over the car keys????

At any rate, just hours after the pope announces his resignation, Nature, always the diva, lends a dramatic touch. 

Three days after his resignation, an earthquake rattles the pope-emeritus's temporary new abode in Castel Gandolfo:

Some people want to find significance in this -- especially after that lightning strike at the Vatican -- and the "three days later" thing tends to tug at the Christian heart. But folks: it was a mild earthquake, and Italy is earthquake country. (The lightning and quake would make great fodder for a Cecil B. DeMille movie, though.)

Anyway, one Italian priest was apparently pretty pissed about the pope's abdication: He burned a photo of B in the middle of a Sunday Mass. The "Old-popes-don't-quit, they-simply-keep-aging-and-getting-more-frail-until God-calls-em-home" school of pastoral care.

But the reaction in my neck of the woods was more along these lines:

In a word: ebullient. A friend of mine who is active in Call to Action sent out an e-mail and sounded downright breathless: "I've been singing all day -- 'this is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it!' I am so full of new hope and never-ceasing trust in our Creator Spirit .... I feel totally convinced that this step will be the beginning of healing in our ailing Church....For all of us reformers, our ardent prayers for reform and renewal have been heard .... Therefore we must continue with our positive work of rebuilding our Church...!"

(I won't go into details here in this post: Suffice it to say that a fair number of American Catholics -- lay and clergy-- were not too thrilled when B, aka God's Rottweiler in the days of John Paul II, became pope...)

A few shenanigans occurred as the cardinals began streaming into Rome from around the world. One dude donned a black cassock, tied a fuchsia scarf around his waist, and almost passed as a Red Hat. Except, well, he wore a black fedora.

He could have taken some tips from the "Cardinal Fashion Show: The Do's and Don'ts of Vatican Wear This Fashion Season."  (Bless him, though -- he told reporters he was there to deliver a message about the hierarchy's protection of abusive priests.)

In the meantime, historian and author Garry Wills appeared on The Colbert Report -- two devout Catholics tongue-in-cheekedly chewing the fat -- to discuss Wills' new book Why Priests? A Failed Tradition. His basic argument, as quoted from his New York Times editorial, is: "Jesus ... said to Peter, 'You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church.' But Peter was addressed as a faithful disciple, not as a priest or a pope. There were no priests in Peter's time, and no popes. Paul never called himself or any of his co-workers priests. He did not offer sacrifice. Those ideas came in later, through weird arguments contained in the anonymous Epistle to the Hebrews. The claim of priests and popes to be the sole conduits of grace is a remnant of the era of papal monarchy. We are watching that era fade."

I love when Christian and Jewish and Muslim scholars say that the Bible contains weird arguments. Puts a spring in my step.

Adding to the spirit of levity are some cute "campaign jingles" created by fans of some of the papabile. A Facebook connection pointed out this video singing the praises of Cardinal Tagle, a young, moderate, and net-savvy candidate from the Philippines (and one who has also called for a "humbler, quieter church."):

In other news, my parish hosted a visiting priest who gave a well-attended talk on Vatican II -- specifically its "spirit of openness about the role of the laity." During the question-and-answer period, a curmudgeonly, more traditionally-minded gentleman said: "I'm very disturbed by all the divisions in the church. I watch EWTN (a largely conservative Catholic TV and radio station) and it upsets me very much to see how many people are talking about gay marriage and women priests." (Ballsy guy, I have to admit, in a gathering that was 70 percent female). I felt the room bristling.

Although he skirted things somewhat, I was grateful for the visiting priest's quiet response: "I don't know what's ahead for us as a church. Yes, we have factions and disagreements, and the challenges we face are daunting. But I do know that gay people are our brothers and sisters, and they are deserving of God's love and our love." The room erupted in applause. "Thank you -- but I'm not saying that for applause. I'm saying that because that is actually what our church teaches." And then he reiterated his main point of the evening: "As Lumen Gentium [a principal document of Vatican II] says, all people are called to be holy, and all honorable walks of life are the means of growing in holiness."

And -- wait for it ... wait for it -- the visiting Father suggested, with a respectful smile, that folks who are feeling anxious might want to watch a little less EWTN.

Truly, a day that the Lord has made.