FRANCIS:  A PRELIMINARY PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL

Jerry Harkins

God writes straight with crooked lines.

                                                      —Traditional Portuguese adage

The election of Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Archbishop of Buenos Aires, as Pope Francis was a stroke of unaccustomed genius by the 2013 conclave of the College of Cardinals.  A pastor with a deep caring for the poor, a humble and welcoming man with a friendly smile and, not least, a Jesuit intellectual, he engendered worldwide optimism for reform of the church which is facing numerous and daunting challenges.  So far, he has proceeded cautiously but he did resolve the Curia’s bootless witch hunt against the American nuns.  He wrote a landmark encyclical about global climate change and its impact on the poor.  He revamped the Vatican’s scandal-ridden financial apparat and took decisive action against several bishops who had failed to protect children from predatory clerical perverts.  He apologized for the evils wrought by the church during the colonial period in Latin America.  He had kind words for gay people, stunning observers when he asked, “Who am I to judge?”  I suspect this question has never before occurred to a Pope.

So far, Francis’ method has been compromise.  Responding to an irresistible groundswell of support for Subito Sancto!, he canonized the autocrat John Paul II but used the same occasion to canonize the truly saintly John XXIII.  He disappointed liberals by agreeing with his predecessors that the question of ordaining women is settled forever but he has spoken favorably about placing women in important Curial positions. 

All Francis’ progressive actions to date concern matters of discipline even if his two immediate predecessors tried to raise them to the level of divine truth.  He has been notably silent on the far more important dogmatic issues confronting the church.  (But see Subsequent Event below.)  It may be that he is reluctant to provoke an existential debate within the hierarchy.  He would win such a debate among most lay Catholics but he would almost certainly lose it among members of the hierarchy most of whom were appointed by those same ultra conservative predecessors.  Or he may think that reforming the medium will make it easier to reform the message later on.  As I have said, he is a Jesuit.  Finally, it is possible that he thinks dogmatic theology is already a dead letter in the twenty-first century.  As I have also said, he is pastoral and he may not care how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.  If so, he is one with all but a handful of Catholics and mainline Protestants.

The problem is Francis is getting on in years and the church does not have a deep bench.  If he does not at least set it on a course of dogmatic reform before the next conclave, it is hard to imagine a successor as hopeful as he is.  And if the church keeps teaching asinine, unbiblical, illogical doctrines it cannot help but devolve into a late night laughingstock.  At the moment, he seems to actually believe most if not all of the mumbo-jumbo packaged in medieval mummery.  He has, it is true, abandoned the imperial dress favored by John Paul and Benedict.  He has declined to live in the papal palace, preferring a modest apartment where he can cook his own meals.  But he is under pressure to declare Mary as the Mediatrix of All Graces and even the Co-redemtorix of mankind.  Even if he couldn’t swallow such nonsense himself, it might appeal to him as a bone to be tossed to the conservatives in turn for their support on, say, a new theology of homosexuality or even perhaps a revocation of the absurdist teachings on contraception.  Did I mention he’s a Jesuit?

The most important doctrine that needs to be consigned to the ash heap of history is papal infallibility.  Unfortunately, it is also going to be the most difficult to get rid of because it is central to the church’s claim to power.  At the insistence of Pope Pius IX, the first Vatican Council issued the “Dogmatic Constitution” Pastor Aeternus (Eternal Shepherd) in 1870.  The key ruling said:

"We teach and define that it is a dogma Divinely revealed that the Roman pontiff when he speaks ex cathedra, that is when in discharge of the office of pastor and doctor of all Christians, by virtue of his supreme Apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine regarding faith or morals to be held by the universal Church, by Divine assistance promised to him in Blessed Peter, is possessed of that infallibility with which the Divine Redeemer willed that his Church should be endowed in defining doctrine regarding faith or morals, and that therefore such definitions of the Roman pontiff are of themselves and not from the consent of the Church irreformable.  So then, should anyone, which God forbid, have the temerity to reject this definition of ours:  let him be anathema."

The logic is appalling.  The historical claims are pure fiction.  Every shred of evidence and experience points in the opposite direction.  The author, Pius IX, was an Orwellian sociopath.  Nevertheless, it may indeed be true that the entire house of cards is irreformable.  What, after all, is the Roman Catholic Church if it is not the infallible keeper of the keys to heavenly bliss?  Infallibility binds Francis to the ignorance of the past.

The mental gymnastics needed to seriously maintain such an absurdity are impressive.  Heresy, for example, is surely a matter of “faith or morals.”  Thus the ruling of Pope Urban VIII’s  Inquisition in 1633 must remain infallibly true:

“We pronounce, judge, and declare, that you, the said Galileo… have rendered yourself vehemently suspected by this Holy Office of heresy, that is, of having believed and held the doctrine (which is false and contrary to the Holy and Divine Scriptures) that the sun is the center of the world, and that it does not move from east to west, and that the earth does move, and is not the center of the world.”

Actually Urban was a well-educated and sophisticated nobleman and his Inquisitor, Cardinal Robert Bellarmine, was one of the great intellects of the age.  (Bellarmine, of course, was a Jesuit and is now a Saint.  Urban had been Jesuit educated.)  But the Bible is wrong and they were wrong and almost certainly both knew it.  This is no disgrace and no surprise.  Better minds than theirs have often been wrong.  Aristotle was wrong about the laws of motion.  But you can hear the chorus of curial bureaucrats insisting that, while Urban ratified the Inquisition’s finding, it was not done ex cathedra and therefore can be “reformed.”  But it has not been reformed!  John Paul had an opportunity in 1996 when he spoke about the Vatican’s finding after thirteen years of formal inquiry that Galileo had probably been right.  He did not however consider it sufficiently probable to rescind the decree of heresy.  So it remains the official doctrine that the sun revolves around the earth and poor Galileo remains in hell.

It’s not important.  The only one hurt was Galileo and he’s been dead nearly 400 years.  But other, equally foolish doctrines, hurt millions of people.  The diatribe about  contraception, for example, influences American politicians and exposes vast numbers of people, mostly poor non-Christian Africans, to sexually transmitted diseases including AIDS.  But it too is not important because most people, including most Catholics, do not really believe the nonsense the hierarchy insists on so vehemently.  Teaching such nonsense squanders the church’s credibility.

Do you really think the eucharist is the literal body and blood of God Almighty, that Mary was a virgin when she gave birth to Jesus not to mention James and his other brothers, that a divorced woman is automatically an adulteress in the eyes of a loving God?  If you do, it is only because you worry that the church’s teachings may indeed be infallible and you fear the eternal fire and brimstone of hell.  But the truth is you do not really believe these things.  You may like them.  The Bible tells great stories which teach lessons that are central to our ability to live in harmony with each other.  They are not truths but metaphors.  They are loving and loved companions that make you feel warm and comfortable.

Like most children I had my favorite stories that I insisted be read to me again and again.  One was “The Tinderbox” by Hans Christian Andersen.  Now, even as a four-year old, I knew that there was no such thing as a dog with eyes as big as a teacup or another with eyes as big as a dinner plate or a third with eyes as big as a windmill.  But I remembered the poor soldier and the princess and their travails and eventually I realized that Andersen was writing about the universal theme of coming of age and facing a world of both infinite possibility and the challenges of learning adult self-control.   “The Tinderbox” is a parable just like the laborers in the vineyard and the prodigal son.

Parables do not come with scholarly footnotes, money back guarantees or expiration dates.  Their truth is not literal and they do not always begin with a simile.  Every Christian loves the story of Jesus’ birth as related in the second chapter of Luke’s gospel.  The instant you hear the opening words, “In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world,” you are suffused with a sense of joy and peace and even déjà vu.  You know it so well you don’t have to think about it.  But you do.  You wonder what it means that the son of God chose to be born in a manger.  Luke says there was no room in the inn.  But this was Joseph’s hometown in a part of the world where hospitality has always been a cardinal virtue.

The story of the first Christmas has absolutely nothing to do with the doctrine of original sin or Mary’s immaculate conception or the human nature of the triune God.  As the late Father Andrew Greeley often said, the church has traveled a long way from Bethlehem and Calvary.  It survived for two thousand years mostly because its adherents were illiterate peasants easily dominated by bishops and popes who were mostly self-serving, power hungry dictators.  Only the stories kept the enterprise alive and meaningful.  The stories fed the people of God as they sought to encounter the divine.

The question then is this:  can Francis restore the centrality of the stories absent the terrorism of fire and brimstone?  He is about to convene the second session of a synod of bishops to consider issues of importance to the family including contraception, divorce and remarriage, same-sex marriage, premarital sex and in vitro fertilization.  For centuries, the teaching on every one of these topics has been irrelevant to the lives of people and corrupt in every way, designed only to maintain the power of the hierarchs.  There is no room for compromise and no room for Vaticanspeak.  His decency, his humanity and his smile have given him an opening but time is short and the river is rising.  The good news is he’s a Jesuit.

Subsequent Event

Shortly after this essay was posted, Francis dipped his toe into the cold waters of dogma and announced that women who had had an abortion could be absolved from their grave sin by ordinary priests during the forthcoming Holy Year.  Previously only a bishop could grant such forgiveness and, presumably, once the Holy Year ends, Holy Mother the Church will revert to that policy.  So hurry on down to take advantage of this limited time offer!  It is disappointing that Francis did not think to concern himself with the issue of why abortion is a sin.  It has to do with the church's belief that life begins at the moment a sperm comes in contact with an egg.  Scientifically this is equivalent to its official belief that the sun revolves around the earth.  Politically, it is part and parcel of the power strategy that sees no irony in granting a coterie of elderly celibates absolute control over women's bodies.  Realistically, however, Francis has done as much as he dare.  Anything more would have run right up against the infallible rantings and ravings of his predecessors.  So our preliminary appraisal has to be that he seems to be doing all he thinks he can do.  If he's right, the church is irredeemable and will not outlive the century.