He may not live to reach the objective, but Pope Francis has set about restructuring the Catholic church to meet challenges and conditions of the 21st Century. It’s an agenda for his times, but one which pits the first Jesuit pope against resistance from ultraconservative bishops and laity, particularly in the United States.
The pontiff’s most telling action came Saturday when he removed Bishop Joseph Strickland of Tyler, Texas. Strickland has used new media, notably a following of 150,000 on X – the former Twitter – to campaign against Francis’ policies. He has accused the pope of “undermining the deposit of faith” and endorsed a posting which described Francis as a “diabolically disoriented clown.”
What has the pontiff done to provoke such vitriol? A Francis ally, Cardinal Robert McElroy of San Diego, put it best to a recent conference: “Synodality is not rooted in specific outcomes, no matter how important. It seeks nothing less than a recasting of the culture of the Church that will endure for generations.”
McElroy was referring to the Synod on Synodality, a wide-ranging Vatican summit on the future of the Church held last month in Rome. Its final document put off key issues (such as ordaining women as deacons) until next year, but the meeting carried ominous signals to the Catholic right.
Fifty of its delegates were women. It featured dialogue rather than endless speeches from bishops. The pope had a cordial meeting with fellow Jesuit Fr. James Martin, an advocate for LGBTQ Catholics. The Vatican issued a statement Friday saying that transgender Catholics “may receive baptism under the same conditions as other faithful,” and adopt children.”
The current condition of Catholicism in Western Europe and America is characterized by declining church attendance, fewer vocations, and a less obedient laity. Reacting to Ohio’s vote to enshrine abortion rights, Catholic University of America political scientist John White told National Catholic Reporter: “The separation between the American bishops on this and many other issues is a Grand Canyon, it’s a chasm.”
The solution posited by Francis and his allies is to maintain doctrine while opening the windows to let in fresh air and perspectives. It’s a bid to recast bishops as servant leaders rather than authoritarians, bring laity into decision making, give a greater role to women, and bring into the fold those previously cast out.
Cardinal McElroy, the only American in a new batch of cardinals named by Francis, told a conference in Chicago: “Let us pray that the coming year this beautiful vision of Jesus’ pastoral ministry may lighten the way for the Church’s ministry to those who are marginalized in the Church [by] marriage status or identity.”
The Synod on Synodality was unlike any previous such gathering. Its emphasis was on taking input from parish pews to St. Peter’s, in a church normally ruled from the top down. “To progress in its discernment the Church absolutely needs to listen to everyone, starting with the poorest,” Seattle Archbishop Paul Etienne, a synod delegate, said in a blog.
The recasting of the hierarchy, as listening servant leaders, comes from the top. St. James Cathedral pastor Fr. Michael Ryan, in Rome during the synod, spoke of those whom Francis wants to change their ways: “He has in mind the rigid, holier-than-thou, highly clerical careerists who parade their pieties and use their authority against people.”
As well, the pope is broadening the ministry of Christ’s church. He is an outspoken advocate for God’s earth who has spoken movingly of the climate crisis and its impact on the Third World’s poor. “We can confront these crises by retreating into isolationism, protectionism, and exploitation or we can see them as a real chance for change,” he said in a message to the United Nations Climate Conference in Glasgow last year. He is due to speak at another UN climate conference in the United Arab Emirates later this month.
By contrast, the Catholic right are culture warriors, laser focused on opposition to LGBTQ inclusion, gender alteration, and abortion. In the case of my alma mater Notre Dame, a group called the Sycamore Trust has formed to uphold what it calls the “robust Catholic identity of the University of Notre Dame.” It has dealt almost exclusively with pushback against the university’s accommodation of LGBTQ students and contraception, and those faculty who support it.
With Seattle and San Diego the exceptions, Catholic dioceses on the West Coast are populated with culture-warrior bishops. The pricey annual conference of the California-based Napa Institute, bringing together Francis’ critics, can be described as MAGA Republicans at prayer. Its keynoters have included ex-Vice President Mike Pence and the Trump administration Attorney General William Barr.
Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco has barred pro-choice former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi from the communion rail in his diocese. Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles, as president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, has described anti-racism protests after the George Floyd murder as Marxist-inspired, anti-Christian “pseudo-religions.”
Pope Francis sent a warm welcome to President Biden as the country’s second Catholic president took office. By contrast, Archbishop Gomez issued a statement saying Biden was “pledged to pursue certain policies that would advance moral evils and dignity.” He listed abortion, contraception, marriage, and gender.
Cardinal Raymond Burke, an American prelate removed from his Vatican posts by Francis, denounced the synod in Rome as a device “to change radically the Church’s self-understanding in accord with a contemporary ideology which denies much of what the Church has always taught and preached.” Burke has insisted his criticism has “nothing to do with the person of the Holy Father.”
Pope Francis has decried “backwardness” that he sees across the board. He has made strides in reshaping the hierarchy. The 86-year-old pontiff has named more than half of the cardinals who will pick his successor, including four in the United States. He elevated Spokane Bishop Blasé Cupich to become Archbishop of Chicago and made Cupich a Cardinal. Cupich delivered a public rebuke of Gomez over his snarky message at the Biden inaugural.
The Holy Father has also played a clerical version of hardball. The populous Archdioceses of Philadelphia and Los Angeles have almost always been headed by a cardinal. Yet, Francis did not bestow a red hat on arch-conservative (now retired) Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput. Nor has Archbishop Gomez been elevated.
Both Chaput and Gomez were put in their posts by Pope Benedict XVI. Francis picked a far different prelate when he elevated McElroy to the College of Cardinals. The San Diego bishop is outspoken on the environment and immigration issues and has welcomed dialogue with LGBTQ Catholics, warning that critics have created of a “cancer of vilification seeping into the institutional life of the Church.”
The l.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops elected a highly conservative slate of officers last year, largely consisting of bishops put in place by Francis’ traditionalist predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI. They tend to be the company men of Catholicism, not listening agents. The scandal of sex abuse in the clergy has led to multiple diocesan bankruptcy filings and plummeting church attendance in largely Catholic areas such as New England.
Seattle Archbishop Etienne has the reputation of being pro-Francis and a listener. He acted proactively in response to the COVID-19 crisis. He heard out teachers from John F. Kennedy High School in a contentious meeting after two LGBTQ teachers resigned under pressure.
Yet, conscious of authority, Etienne delivered a sharp rebuke to a lay Catholic group, called Heal Our Church, when it proposed a truth-and-reconciliation commission to probe the history of clerical misconduct in the archdiocese. In turn, Heal Our Church was strongly critical when the archdiocese purchased for $2.4 million a new home for the bishop.
Against statistics of Church decline, and polls finding support for causes condemned by American bishops, a couple of trends can be seen here and elsewhere. Recently marking a decade in his papacy, Pope Francis remains popular with the faithful. Large crowds greet the pontiff on his pilgrimages, such as a recent Canada trip undertaken to express contrition for abuse in Church-run schools of aboriginal children.
In an increasingly secular, transactional and troubled world, teachings of Jesus touch people even if Christ’s church does not. Witness large student protest demonstrations in front of the diocesan chancery when gay and lesbian faculty have been outed and forced out at Catholic high schools. The students bolster their case with passages from the St. Matthew Gospel. They also ask a pointed question: What would Jesus say?
Behold the Golden Calf! Jorge Bergoglio is the reason that I am at the moment a lapsed Catholic.
Behold the Golden Calf!
Jorge Bergoglio is the singular reason that I am at the moment not a lapsed Catholic.
Until the Catholic church atones for the priest abuse horrors, they have absolutely no grounds to preach about abortion, homosexuality and the like. And they deserve the shrinking of the membership they’re going through until that happens.
And yes, I’m a lapsed Catholic because of that failure. I do, however, wholeheartedly support the efforts of Pope Francis to acknowledge past wrongs of the church and to turn it to a more interpersonal direction. Which is where religion works best.
Celibacy is a word. How did it ever become a virtue? Are these guys “celibate “? “Chaste”? Can’t say from personal experience, but more than a few friends described encounters with men wearing Roman collars that involved experiences that were both physically penetrating and terrifying in a lifelong sense.
Some (conveniently deceased) showed up on lists of credible violators. I recognized many names. Celebrants. Sermonizers. Collectors of alms. Power and fear were the motivators. Some I had met personally. Others in the confessional.
They allowed for spiritual Get-out-of-jail-free cards. Maybe they exchanged these cards mutually. But the sexual abominations persisted. I know one victim that eventually committed suicide. The doctrine is that natural human desire is sinful and evil. This massive misconception is not fixable. It’s time for these Roman Collars to throw in the spiritual towel.
A church as mighty as the Roman Catholic has taken centuries to learn what it means to have humility and empathy toward we sinners. Not quite there yet, but it is, as we might say, a work in progress. Not there yet, but give Francis credit for reaching out. Maybe another Jesuit in his stead when he passes? Connelly’s grasp of the religious establishment in the Roman church is always illuminating.