The Political Pope

by George Neumayr

  A few bishops, twisting themselves into contortions, tried to present the document as consonant with Catholic tradition, arguing that it hadn’t explicitly condoned Communion for adulterers. But even those straining efforts became unsustainable after Pope Francis sent a letter to bishops in the Buenos Aires region in September 2016. The letter praised their guidelines, based on Amoris Laetitia, that authorized Communion for adulterers in certain cases. “The document is very good,” he wrote to them. “There are no other interpretations.”21 Around the same time, the diocese of Rome also issued guidelines permitting Communion for adulterers.

  Mixed Signals

  The sending of mixed signals has been a hallmark of this pontificate. In 2016, Pope Francis called Emma Bonino one of Italy’s “forgotten greats,” odd praise given her status as one of the most radical pro-abortion activists in the country’s history. After being arrested for performing illegal abortions, Bonino went on to become Italy’s version of Margaret Sanger. “True,” she has her critics, Pope Francis said. “But never mind,” he continued before praising her activism in Africa.22

  “Sometimes it seems as if Pope Francis is determined to purge all humor from the phrase ‘more Catholic than the pope,’” said former Republican presidential candidate Alan Keyes, commenting on this episode. “Is Pope Francis blind to the fact that his praise for Bonino will be used to throw the lustrous vestments of the Papacy around the shoulders of the whole abortion movement, in order to enhance the glamour of evil?”23

  Vatican correspondent Sandro Magister has reported that the pope is keeping his distance from the pro-life movement, illustrated by the minimal support that he has given the March for Life in Rome. “It remains to be understood why Pope Francis cherishes such a dislike, although he has condemned abortion on several occasions,” said Magister. “In the US, the March for Life [near] the White House in Washington is already a classic. But in Rome at St. Peter’s it’s not. Pope Francis does not like to see it show up.”24

  According to Magister, the pope gives short shrift to pro-lifers, barely mentioning them in publications under his control and in his audiences. March for Life attendees are used to the secular media ignoring the event. But they were surprised to see in 2014 that the pope’s own newspaper ignored it, too. “L’Osservatore Romano also practiced shunning the whole initiative, not even dedicating a single line to it,” said Magister.

  Magister suspects the reason for the pope’s distance is that he prefers to oppose abortion on anti-capitalist grounds rather than traditionally moral ones: “It is in the context, of what he calls, throwaway culture. His real enemy within is not those that kill the young, innocent lives—they deserve mercy—but the international economic powers that have caused such killings out of idolatry and greed… outside of this vision of Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the March for Life becomes an obstacle to dialogue with postmodernism. Not a benefit to the image of the Church, but a burden.”

  Pope Francis has also kept his distance from Catholic activism opposed to gay marriage. In 2016, when the press asked him to comment on gay civil-unions legislation under consideration in Italy, he dodged the question, saying disingenuously that he couldn’t answer it “because the pope is for everybody and he can’t insert himself in the specific internal politics of a country.”25

  On issues like climate change, illegal immigration, gun control, and the death penalty, he has had no problem inserting himself into the internal politics of countries. During the vote over “Brexit” in 2016, he angered its supporters by opposing it. One of his aides said that a vote to depart would not lead to a “stronger Europe.”26 After the British voted to leave, Pope Francis continued to defend his opposition to Brexit, saying, “let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water, let’s try to jump-start things, to re-create.”

  To applause from the media, the Vatican has steered clear of culture-war debates in Europe. As debates over euthanasia and gay marriage heated up in Europe, the Vatican fell silent, according to the Religion News Service:

  Luigi Accattoli, a veteran Vatican analyst with Italy’s Corriere della Sera newspaper, sees a “new way of being pope” in the former Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio: “Francis doesn’t lash out against laws that violate ‘non negotiable values,’” as the Vatican usually classifies issues like the protection of life or marriage. As French bishops organized mass rallies against a law that legalized gay marriage, Francis skirted any mention of it, even during a recent meeting with French lawmakers.27

  In 2015, gay marriage became legal in Catholic Ireland. It passed in a referendum not in spite of the Church but in part because of it. Adopting Francis’s “Who am I to judge?” stance, most Irish Catholic leaders sat on their hands.

  “The Church’s Decision Not to Lead the No Campaign Marks a New Reality,” read one headline in the British press. According to press reports, a number of Irish priests voted for the initiative. One priest even penned an open op-ed in support of it, saying that “I am one of those clergy-persons who intends to vote yes, not to cock a snoot at the leadership of my church, or to jump on a popular bandwagon, but because I think it is the right thing to do… As a follower of Jesus, the à la carte Jew who recognized when certain laws had run their courses, I am convinced that now is the right time to have marriage equality.”28

  Dublin’s archbishop, Diarmuid Martin, directed his rhetorical fire not at supporters of gay marriage but at the Church. Her teaching on marriage has been “harsh” and “dogmatic,” he said. He made a weak and apologetic plea for a “pluralist society” in which “people of same-sex orientation have their rights and their loving and caring relationships recognized and cherished in a culture of difference, while respecting the uniqueness of the male-female relationship.” A Huffington Post headline summed up the waffling character of the Church’s stance during the debate: “Irish Bishop on Gay Marriage: ‘I Would Hate for People to Vote No for Bigoted Reasons.’”29

  In 2016, as Mexico debated gay marriage, Pope Francis’s nuncio, Franco Coppola, said to the press that he “had no pope’s order in the matter” and that “I could answer with the doctrine of the Church but that is not the answer I must give as a shepherd.” This undercut earlier reports that Pope Francis supported Mexico’s bishops in their opposition to gay marriage.

  Rolling Stone’s Pope

  In 2015, Rolling Stone ran a cover story on the pope, titled “Pope Francis: The Times They Are A-Changin’,” which praised him for “scolding” conservative Catholics and drawing attention to “income inequality.” The article gloried in his utility to their hip causes. The libertine magazine also found much to approve in his past, such as the time he mocked Church leaders by saying they “want to stick the whole world inside a condom.”30

  Rock stars and celebrities, excited by the progressive and permissive direction of the papacy, now visit the Vatican in droves. In 2016, Pope Francis opened up the Sistine Chapel for the first time to a rock performer, David Evans, aka “The Edge,” from the band U2.

  “When they asked me if I wanted to become the first contemporary artist to play in the Sistine Chapel, I didn’t know what to say because usually there’s this other guy who sings,” he said in reference to Bono. “Being Irish you learn very early that if you want to be asked to come back it’s very important to thank the local parish priest for the loan of the hall,” he said. He thanked Pope Francis “for allowing us to use the most beautiful parish hall in the world.” “He’s doing an amazing job and long may he continue,” he added.31

  An Italian Catholic organization was dismayed when Pope Francis invited the anti-Catholic singer Patti Smith to play a Vatican Christmas concert, calling the appearance “blasphemous,” given that one of her most famous lines is “Jesus died for somebody’s sins, but not mine.” Smith responded to the controversy with defiance. “I will do what the f-ck I want,” she said. “I like Pope Francis and I’m happy to sing for him. Anyone who would confine me to a line from 20 years ago is a fool!”32

&n
bsp; In 2016, Pope Francis handed out awards to actors George Clooney, Richard Gere, and Salma Hayek for their promotion of the arts through a papal charity called Scholas Occurrentes. While he didn’t mind receiving the help of these socially liberal celebrities, he drew the line at a donation from the government of the “center-right” president of Argentina, Mauricio Macri, who gave the organization $1.2 million. Pope Francis made a show of returning that donation. “Critics of the Macri administration said that the pope’s rejection of the donation reflected his distaste for the president’s introduction of austerity measures,” reported the Guardian.33

  In an effort to be hip, the Pontifical Council for Culture, under the leadership of Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, and the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano have taken to eulogizing pop stars. As Fr. George Rutler wrote, “when David Bowie died, L’Osservatore Romano, aching to be the Church of What’s Happening Now, eulogized the genius of Bowie, excusing his ‘ambiguous image’ as one of his ‘excesses’ but then remarking his ‘personal sobriety, even in his dry, almost thread-like body.’”

  Rutler also recalled the “extravagant tribute that the editor of L’Osservatore Romano paid to the crooner Michael Jackson when he died of acute Propofol and Benzodiazepine intoxication.” The headline over that story asked breathlessly, “But will he actually be dead?” and said “Jackson’s transgenderizing surgeries were ‘a process of self definition that was beyond race,’” reported Rutler. As for the charges of pedophilia against Jackson, L’Osservatore Romano opined: “Everybody knows his problems with the law after the pedophilia accusations. But no accusation, however serious or shameful, is enough to tarnish his myth among his millions of fans throughout the entire world.”34

  Desperate to appear in sync with pop culture, Ravasi made use of Italian actress Nancy Brilli in a video promoting his council’s #LifeofWomen campaign. In the video, the saucy actress asks, “What do you think about yourself, your strengths, your difficulties, your body, and your spiritual life?” “The video was the brainchild of 15 professional women—all but one of them Italian—chosen by Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi to advise him on the agenda for ‘Women’s Cultures: Equality and Difference,’” reported the New York Daily News.35 After the video generated widespread complaints, Ravasi pulled it.

  The “Cool Pope” and Feminism

  The “cool” pope often pays homage to modern feminism and criticizes his predecessors for their alleged sexism. He has said “that the feminine presence in the Church has not fully emerged because the temptation of machismo has not left space to make visible the role women are entitled to within the community.” He has also said that “women in the Church are more important than bishops and priests.”36

  In 2016, the Vatican launched a magazine called Women-Church-World, which had begun as a supplement in L’Osservatore Romano, to provide feminists with a platform to criticize the Church. In its first edition, the magazine editorialized that the Church had “largely ignored” the contribution of women to the Church’s life. In its previous supplemental form, it had run an article in favor of women preaching at Masses, which canon law forbids.37

  In a bow to feminist pressures, Vatican officials have said that it is “theoretically possible” for women to be cardinals and to hold such positions as the Holy See’s secretary of state. In 2016, Pope Francis announced that he would consider ordaining women deacons. He authorized the formation of a commission to study the issue. That decision was made in a typically haphazard form, after women religious had asked him at a Vatican meeting: “Why not construct an official commission that might study the question?” He replied, “Constituting an official commission that might study the question? I believe yes. It would do good for the church to clarify this point. I am in agreement. I will speak to do something like this.”38

  This caused consternation among many Catholics, as Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI had resisted such talk. The consternation grew when Pope Francis officially established the commission in August 2016 and placed on it a supporter of female priests.39

  Nor did Francis’s predecessors ever warm to the subject of a married priesthood, another subject on which Pope Francis has sent mixed signals. He has spoken of the value of a celibate priesthood, but said that that “could change” and that the subject of married priests “is on his agenda.”

  According to several bishops, he is open to reconsidering that discipline. Bishop Hans-Jochen Jaschke of Hamburg said Francis “made no sign of refusal” after the German bishops raised the issue with him. Brazilian bishop Erwin Kräutler, one of his close advisers, said that Pope Francis urged him to make “bold, daring proposals” after he broached the subject with him and that Francis was leaning toward letting national conferences decide the issue.40 His childhood friend Oscar Crespo told the press that during a visit to the Vatican Francis described a celibate priesthood as “archaic.” In 2016, papal biographer Austen Ivereigh wrote a piece saying that the next synod is “likely” to address the issue of ordaining married men.41 But it has since been announced that the 2018 synod’s theme will be “Youth, Faith, and Vocational Discernment.” According to Vatican correspondent Edward Pentin, Pope Francis was “keen” to discuss married priests, but “that proposal was understood to have been voted down by the majority of members on the XIV Ordinary Council of the Synod of Bishops, the body charged with drawing up the theme of the next synod.”42

  “The Meeting Is the Message”

  The leftist press also admires the audiences that he grants to avant-garde activists. For a pope who likes to say that the “meeting is the message,” these encounters clearly hold subversive value to him. For example, in 2015, he granted the transgender activist Diego Lejarraga an audience after Lejarraga complained in a letter that the Church had “marginalized” him. According to Lejarraga, Pope Francis phoned him twice after receiving his letter and then invited him to the Vatican. Lejarraga told the Spanish press that Francis reassured him that God loves all his children “as they are” and the “Church loves you and accepts you as you are.”

  From time to time, Pope Francis has appeared to reaffirm the Church’s opposition to gender theories, but his meeting with Lejarraga sent a different message. Lejarraga brought his fiancée with him to the meeting with the pope, which culminated in an embrace. The press burbled over the meeting for days, declaring that “the unexpected overture marks an important gesture of acceptance of lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender Catholics.”43 The Vatican offered no clarification on the meaning of the meeting. Indeed, Pope Francis boasted about the meeting in 2016, recalling warmly that he had invited the “he that was her but is he” to the Vatican. His comments indicated that he approved of his transgenderism and his gay marriage: “I received them and they were happy… Life is life and you must take things as they come.”44

  Yet when it leaked out during his visit to America that Pope Francis had met Kim Davis, the Kentucky clerk imprisoned briefly for declining to issue gay-marriage licenses, the liberal elite expressed disappointment in the cool pope. But he moved quickly to win back their affection. He authorized his press secretary to spin the meeting as a meaningless gesture, akin to a random rope line greeting.45

  “The Pope did not enter into the details of the situation of Mrs. Davis and his meeting with her should not be considered a form of support of her position in all of its particular and complex aspects,” said his press secretary. “Such brief greetings occur on all papal visits and are due to the Pope’s characteristic kindness and availability. The only real audience granted by the Pope at the Nunciature was with one of his former students and his family.”

  That former student turned out to be a homosexual caterer with his boyfriend in tow, prompting such excited reports from the liberal media as “Vatican distances Pope Francis from Kentucky clerk Kim Davis. Meanwhile, the Vatican confirmed that Francis met with a gay friend and his partner a day earlier.”

  Once liberals heard these reports, he returned to their
good graces. As one liberal pundit put it to his colleagues, only half-facetiously, “You Can Like the Pope Again! Vatican Distances Pope from Kim Davis.”46 A grateful cast on NBC’s Saturday Night Live depicted Pope Francis in a skit untangling himself from Kim Davis’s embrace.

  His former student Yayo Grassi rushed to the press to inform them that he and his boyfriend, Iwan, had received a papal blessing and that Francis, in a previous exchange, had assured him that “I want you to know that in my work there is absolutely no place for homophobia.”47

  While offering a “clarification” on the Kim Davis meeting, the Vatican didn’t bother to clarify that papal remark to Grassi. It was content to let the Church’s critics think that it no longer takes its own moral teachings seriously anymore.

  Such meetings have always appealed to Bergoglio. During his tenure as archbishop of Buenos Aires, he made a point of keeping in touch with disgraced clerics, such as Jerónimo José Podestá, a Catholic bishop whose radicalism led to his removal from office. “Bergoglio visited the ostracised bishop on his deathbed and gave him the last rites. He then ensured that the man’s widow, Clelia Luro, and her children were provided for—even though she was a feminist as radical as was imaginable on the Catholic spectrum, who used to celebrate mass with her husband,” writes author Paul Vallely.48

  The Church Muddled

  St. Ignatius established the Jesuit order to advance the “Church militant.” But Pope Francis, in a bid to be popular with the liberal elite, prefers a Church muddled. He is chipping away at Church teachings as he plays to the anti-conservative prejudices of the powerful. Francis doesn’t fear losing the good opinion of “fundamentalists,” whom he regularly caricatures as out of step with the modern zeitgeist. But he is afraid of losing the good opinion of the liberal elite.