I refer to the various aspects concerning the care of the dignity of the human person in the various ages of existence, mutual respect between genders and generations, the defense of the dignity of every single human being, the promotion of quality of human life that integrates the material and spiritual values, in view of an authentic ‘human ecology’, which helps to restore the original balance of creation between the human person and the whole universe.
Conspicuously missing from the Holy Father’s list of concerns were abortion, euthanasia, divorce, and contraception, concerns that had been priorities during the pontificate of John Paul II. Their absence was particularly noticeable to American Catholics, since the papal directives coincided with the disclosure that abortion clinics were selling fetal tissue for profit, a grisly illustration of the “culture of death” against which John Paul II had warned. Evidently the Pontifical Academy for Life was being redirected.
A new direction called for new personnel as well. Early in 2017, the Vatican announced that the Pontifical Academy for Life had postponed its annual assembly. It gradually came to light that the postponement was necessary because the academy had no members other than its new president. The entire membership had been purged. The original plan for the annual assembly had been to focus on Donum Vitae, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s 1987 instruction on artificial procreation. That topic was discarded, replaced by the blander “Accompanying Life: New Responsibilities in the Technological Era.”
Outside the confines of the Vatican, Francis put his stamp on the Italian bishops’ conference by naming Nunzio Galantino as secretary general, giving him a prominent voice in Italian public affairs. He promptly showed his true colors by declaring that he could not “identify with the expressionless person who stands outside the abortion clinic reciting the Rosary.” Even before the Synod for the Family took up the discussion of the Kasper proposal, Galantino announced that in his view, couples in “irregular matrimonial situations” should not be excluded from Communion, maintaining that the Church’s perennial policy was “an unjustified price to pay, in addition to de facto discrimination.”
Galantino’s public statements and the gutting of the Pontifical Academy for Life left many thousands of dedicated Catholics feeling betrayed. After years of faithful battle against the culture of death, inspired by the steady support of the Vicar of Christ, they were suddenly receiving rebukes rather than encouragement from Rome. Galantino told the world that he could not identify with pro-life activists, and the activists in turn could not identify with the new policies of the Vatican under Francis.
American Conservatism and the “Ecumenism of Hate”
In the United States, conservative Catholics have long been the papacy’s natural and most enthusiastic supporters. Although their views have diverged from those of the popes on certain prudential questions, they have been allied on most of the defining cultural and moral issues of the past fifty years. They began to suspect early in Francis’s papacy that the goodwill they had enjoyed under John Paul II and Benedict XVI was diminished, but in July 2017 it became unmistakably clear that Rome’s goodwill has turned into antipathy when La Civiltà Cattolica published a harsh denunciation of American conservatives.
The essay, written by the now-notorious Antonio Spadaro, S.J., and Marcelo Figueroa, a Presbyterian pastor whom Bergoglio befriended in Buenos Aires, betrays profound confusion about its subject, the role of conservative Catholics and evangelicals in American politics. According to Spadaro and Figueroa, these two malign forces, sharing a Manichaean view of a world divided into absolute good and absolute evil, have joined in an “ecumenism of hate,” pursuing a “[t]riumphalist, arrogant and vindictive ethnicism [that] is actually the opposite of Christianity.”
The ignorance and intemperance of this venomous essay are doubly troublesome because the authors’ closeness to Francis and the semi-official standing of La Civiltà Cattolica raise the presumption that it reflects the pope’s own thinking.
Embracing a Secular Agenda
The peremptory dismissal of Müller, the ascendancy of Maradiaga and Galantino, the bitter partisan tone adopted by Spadaro and Figueroa—all exemplified the new direction of this pontificate: moving away from an emphasis on the dignity of life and the integrity of the family, embracing instead the more popular causes of secular liberalism. The Vatican began to organize conferences on immigration reform and climate change. Twice Francis hosted meetings of “popular movements,” with invitations going out to environmental activists, ethnic separatists, militant feminists, and community organizers—but not to pro-life leaders or defenders of traditional marriage.
When he was asked why a Vatican conference on climate change had not included speakers who questioned the popular consensus, Bishop Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo, the chancellor of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, angrily rebuked the reporter who posed the question. There were no respectable scientists, he insisted, who would dispute the prevailing belief that human actions cause climate change. Comparing the pope’s teaching on global warming to the Church’s teaching on abortion, Sánchez Sorondo said the “judgement must be considered magisterial—it is not an opinion.” Father Joseph Fessio, S.J., the founder of Ignatius Press, replied, in an interview with LifeSite News: “Neither the Pope nor Bishop Sorondo can speak on a matter of science with any binding authority, so to use the word ‘magisterium’ in both cases is equivocal at best, and ignorant in any case.” Fessio added, “To equate a papal position on abortion with a position on global warming is worse than wrong; it is an embarrassment for the Church.”
Yet Sánchez Sorondo went even further. In an exchange with Stefano Gennarini of the Center for Family and Human Rights, he claimed that the only opposition to the theory of human-induced global warming arose from the Tea Party movement, adding that any scientists who raised questions about the theory were being paid by the oil industry. He went on to deny that the United Nations, which had been heavily involved in the climate-change conference, has played a role in promoting abortion and contraception. In an interview some months later, he added that climate change is the main cause for the world’s migration crisis. On all of these points—which are matters of fact, not opinion—the bumptious Sánchez Sorondo was demonstrably wrong. But his style of debate, featuring an attack on the integrity of his opponents, bore the familiar stamp of this pontificate.
A Lawmaker Who Ignores the Law
And what is the stamp of the pontificate? Clearly Francis is bent on bringing change to the Church and is impatient with resistance to that change. He betrays his impatience with rules that stand in his way—even, curiously enough, when he has the undoubted authority to change those rules.
For some time, Catholic liturgists debated about a ceremony within the ritual for Holy Thursday in which the priest-celebrant washes the feet of several members of the congregation, imitating Jesus’ gesture of humility and love for his apostles at the Last Supper. Traditionally, only men were included in this ritual, since it evokes the memory of the apostles, who were all male, and the institution of the priesthood, which is reserved to males. But in recent years some Catholics had argued that the benefits of including women outweighed the importance of that symbolism. At the time when Francis was elected, the Church’s official liturgical directives sided with tradition; only males were to be included. Francis had the authority to change those rules. Instead, at the first Holy Thursday ceremony after his installation as Roman pontiff, he simply ignored the liturgical directives and included women in the papal foot-washing ritual. Only later did he issue a liturgical directive, changing the rule that he had flouted.
Similarly, in November 2016 the pope announced that he was extending to all Catholic priests the authority to absolve the sin of procuring an abortion. Previously, the Code of Canon Law provided that anyone directly involved in procuring an abortion was subject to the penalty of excommunication. Under the new dispensation granted by Francis, the sin could be absolve
d by any priest in a sacramental confession.1 At a press conference introducing the new policy, Archbishop Rino Fisichella explained that the pope had changed the relevant section of canon law. He had not actually amended the law, however; the language was still on the books. That was a technicality, the archbishop argued: “Canon law is a body of laws, and whenever the Pope introduces a measure that alters the dictates of the law, the article that specific measure concerns, necessarily needs to be changed.” Indeed, there was a need to bring the law into conformity with the pope’s directive. As the supreme legislator for the Church, the pope had the power to make that change, but he did not. He left the law on the books, and established a policy that contravened it.
Nor was this simply a case in which the alteration in the Code of Canon Law lagged a bit behind the papal directive. A full year earlier, as the Jubilee Year of Mercy began, Francis had given a special group of priests, the Missionaries of Mercy, the authority to absolve sins of abortion. So the pope’s policy and the language of canon law had been in conflict for months.
Furthermore, a Catholic who is excommunicated is barred from the Sacraments, including the Sacrament of Penance. So although a priest could absolve the sin in a confession, a woman who had procured an abortion and knew that she had thereby incurred excommunication would not be able to make a sacramental confession. Fortunately in most cases, Catholic women who regret having abortions are unaware that they have been subject to excommunication, so they do not hesitate to approach the Sacrament and seek absolution. But then other women, who had sought and received absolution long ago, unaware of the canonical penalty, might now wonder where they stood. Were they still excommunicated? Was the absolution valid?
In short, the pope’s failure to synchronize canon law with his new policy risked widespread confusion and distress. One vexed priest, commenting on the change, remarked, “Over the next few months I expect we’ll be spending a good deal of time in the confessional explaining the Church’s teaching to aged women who have had the sin actually forgiven years ago.”
The pope’s tendency to ignore rules rather than change them played out in a much less serious way when he gave a group of activists permission to grow crops on a plot of land on the outskirts of Rome owned by the Vatican. Francis gave his blessing to a project initiated by Omero Lauri, a proponent of squatters’ rights, who asserted: “We believe that all people have the right to a piece of land for free.” Lauri met with the pontiff and secured his permission only after having occupied the land, but he reported that Francis supported his movement. Still the pope did not give Lauri and his cohort any legal title to the land. Police cited the squatters for setting up an illegal café on the property, serving food without a license on property they did not own. And owners of other properties in the neighborhood looked askance at the little cooperative, wondering whether the squatters would move in on their land as well. Once again the pope could have avoided the complications by granting legal title to the cooperative, but he seemed quite content to flout the rules and live with the confusion—to “make a mess,” as he had encouraged young people.
Packing the College of Cardinals
On one point, however, Francis has acted quite deliberately and methodically. He has been careful to appoint cardinals who support his views, increasing the likelihood that when his pontificate comes to an end, the man they elect will continue his policies. This is perhaps the most important facet of his plan to make the changes in the Church “irreversible.”
In a syndicated column from early 2017, the American scholar George Weigel punctures the myth, popular in liberal circles, that Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI had imposed ideological control over the Vatican. Those pontiffs, Weigel points out, regularly promoted men with dramatically different theological outlooks to the College of Cardinals, bestowing red hats on Cardinals Kasper, Marx, Daneels, McCarrick, and yes, Bergoglio. The same cannot be said of Francis. He has elevated his potential allies in preference to more senior prelates whose approach does not match his own. From the American archbishops who might have been considered for membership of the College of Cardinals in 2017, Francis chose two notably liberal prelates: Blase Cupich of Chicago and Joseph Tobin of Indianapolis (who was immediately moved to Newark, closer to America’s media center). He passed over some of the country’s most prominent Catholic leaders: Archbishops José Gómez of Los Angeles, the leader of the country’s largest diocese, who would have been the first Hispanic cardinal in U.S. history; Charles Chaput of Philadelphia, a thoughtful and articulate defender of the natural law; and William Lori of Baltimore (the oldest American diocese), who was the point man for the American hierarchy in the battle to preserve religious freedom against the encroachment of government regulation.
The pope—any pope—has every right to elevate his own men to the College of Cardinals. The way he exercises that right, however, reveals a great deal about how he understands his role as leader of the universal Church.
To qualify for the College of Cardinals, a prelate should show an unassailable character, a firm commitment to the established doctrines of the Church, and a willingness—signified by his scarlet garments—to shed his blood, if necessary, in defense of the Faith. Beyond that, how should the pope make his selections?
The College of Cardinals has two main functions: to act as a circle of advisers for the pope and, when the time comes, to elect his successor. For each of those purposes, a prudent pontiff draws on the diverse resources of the universal Church, appointing cardinals with different backgrounds and different viewpoints. Ideally, when they meet in conclave, the cardinals should represent all of the world’s faithful Catholics, with their many different cares and concerns.
During the past century, Roman pontiffs have made a deliberate effort to give the College of Cardinals a more international flavor, recognizing that the Holy Spirit might have something special to say to the universal Church through the voices of Catholic leaders from Africa or Asia. By expanding the membership of the College beyond Europe, the pope provides more room for the Spirit to speak to his Church. At the same time, by restricting membership, the pope could restrict the movement of the Spirit. Francis has followed the trend toward internationalization of the College, but he has restricted his choices in another way, showing a strong preference for prelates who share his own perspective on the Church’s pastoral priorities.
John Paul II and Benedict XVI took a much more conventional approach. They chose new cardinals primarily from among the archbishops of the world’s most important archdioceses, or from the leadership of the Roman Curia. (Their few unconventional choices were, as a rule, over the age of eighty, for whom the red hat was a recognition of their past service to the Church; because of their age, these cardinals would not be eligible to participate in a papal election.) They obviously did not exclude prelates who had different theological perspectives.
And was that not a much wiser approach? If the pope seeks sound advice from his cardinals, he must hear from men who will challenge his way of thinking. A humble pontiff will guard against the temptation to think that his perspective is the only valid Catholic perspective. He will realize, too, that even if his policies are right for the Church today, the Church of the future might need different policies.
The Roman pontiff is—or should be—the focus of unity in the Church. John XXIII once remarked that as universal pastor, he was responsible for all Catholics, including both those who had their foot on the gas and those who had their foot on the brake. Francis clearly has his foot on the gas. But insofar as he is ignoring and excluding prelates who have their feet on the brake—and who would urge him to do the same—he is risking a crack-up.
One staunch ally of Francis, the liberal Jesuit Thomas Reese, writing in the National Catholic Reporter, acknowledges that the pope’s selections for the College of Cardinals are “the most revolutionary thing Francis has done in terms of Church governance.” Having played the role of activist within the Church for years, Reese re
cognizes that an arbitrary exercise of power by Francis today could justify an equally arbitrary action by some future pontiff who might have different ideas. If John Paul II or Benedict XVI had taken a similar approach to naming new cardinals, writes Reese, “Frankly, I would have been outraged.”
1 Canon lawyers argued that the penalty of excommunication applied only to those who procured an abortion in full knowledge that they would be excommunicated for doing so. Persons ignorant of the canonical rule who were involved in an abortion could be absolved in an ordinary confession. The pope’s new directive did not apply to them.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Tradition in the Balance
In the aftermath of the Second Vatican Council, the Catholic Church was torn by disputes about liturgy and morality, disputes that were not confined to theological faculties, but reached into parishes and family homes. Scores of books have been written about the council and its consequences, and I do not propose to add to that literature. I simply want to make the point that in the late 1960s and through the 1970s, the Catholic Church was sorely divided.
The conflict involved irreconcilable interpretations of the council’s mandate. Liberal or “progressive” Catholics believed not only that Vatican II had wrought profound changes in the Church but that the “spirit of Vatican II” would extend the era change far into the future, overthrowing old dogmas and disciplines. Conservative Catholics argued that this liberal vision was a misinterpretation of the council and that the radical changes sweeping through the Church went beyond anything authorized in the documents of the council. A third group, traditionalist Catholics, tacitly agreed with the liberals that the council had made radical changes in Catholic teaching, but they insisted that these changes must be reversed.
Continuing for a generation, this conflict severely strained the unity of the Church. Every tenet of Catholic doctrine was assailed. The liturgy was transformed almost beyond recognition. A clear sense of Catholic identity was lost. Thousands of the faithful, lacking clear guidance, drifted away from the Church. Even among those who remained, the fault lines became increasingly evident. Catholics began to choose their parishes according to the style of the liturgy or the content of the preaching; the differences from parish to parish and from diocese to diocese could make a visitor wonder whether these churches were still united by the same faith.
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