Politics
Pope Francis has an
American problem
A U.S. trip will
reveal the rift between him and his conservative bishops
December 28, 2014
Franco Origlia/Getty Images
After ending 2014 with a successful visit to
Turkey and his 78th birthday on Dec. 17, Pope Francis
can look forward to a rapturous start to 2015. The Philippines, one of the
world’s largest and most devout Catholic nations, is in such a fervour of
anticipation for his Jan. 15 arrival that even the Marxist insurgents of the
New People’s Army havedeclared a ceasefire. Francis may recall that welcome fondly
when he embarks on the year’s other significant journey. The Pope’s first visit
to the United States, to attend September’s World Meeting of Families gathering
in Philadelphia—a massive Catholic event that, with Francis’s presence, may
draw a million participants—will also take the pontiff to the heart of what
theologian and Church historian Massimo Faggioli calls Francis’s “American problem.”
It’s less a single problem, Faggioli goes
on to explain, than a linked complex of issues that might all come into play
next fall. The American Church is perhaps the most important and wealthiest
national church within Catholicism, he says, and certainly “the most important
in the northern hemisphere, [where the U.S. is] the largest and least secular
developed country.” It’s also, as much because it reflects the divisions within
a polarized America as it does those within Catholicism, a militantly
ideological church, both the world centre of Catholic feminism and the home of
a hierarchy unafraid to take to the pulpit with politically conservative
messages.
The American bishops, like Francis
himself, defy conventional American left-right political categorization. They
can seem like the Republican party at prayer in their opposition to the
contraception provisions of President Barack Obama’s health care law or on the
topic of same-sex marriage, but like militant Democrats on the question of
sweeping amnesty for illegal immigrants—who are mostly Hispanic Catholics. They
may not be as economically radical as Francis, but the Pope is not, as
demonstrated by his recent robust championing of traditional marriage, very far
removed from their social morality.
Yet the Pope and U.S. bishops part ways on
tone, the Church’s overall focus and, perhaps, on more substantive issues, as
well. Francis is determined to move the focus from the sexual morality
issues that dominate relations between Catholicism and
the secular world view to where he believes it should be: on the plight of the
poor and marginalized.
But although Francis has made strides in
sidelining American critics holding Vatican posts (traditionalist Cardinal
Raymond Burke is no longer the papacy’s
chief Church law expert) and placing supporters in key positions
(the new archbishop of the important diocese of Chicago, Joseph Cupich, is one
of the hierarchy’s most liberal members), the process of episcopal renewal is
much slower than that of shifting office-holders. The majority of American
bishops are still men appointed by Francis’s conservative predecessors, John
Paul II and Benedict XVI. Their appointments, says Faggioli, an Italian-born
scholar who now teaches at St. Thomas University in Minnesota, were in large
part based on their “solidity” in the American culture wars, their commitment
to “the Church as a strong fortress for traditional marriage and family.”
American cardinals were among Francis’s
supporters when he was elected Pope in March 2013, Faggioli says. “But then he
started surprising them—within minutes, actually. It was like 1958 again,” he
adds, in reference to the election of John XXIII, who also became pope at age
76 and was widely expected to be a caretaker pontiff. Instead, John called the Second Vatican
Council, which instituted a series of profound changes still
working their way through the Catholic Church.
It’s not surprising, then, that American
prelates were among the loudest opposing voices during the most dramatic point
of Francis’s pontificate so far. At last October’s preliminary bishops’ synod
on pastoral approaches to marriage and family, a mid-meeting draft report
sparked worldwide attention when it seemed to herald a new Church openness to
homosexuality. Amid unheard-of open debate, conservatives voted down, though
barely, the new language.
By now, it’s clear that the
un-Vatican-like transparency that Francis allowed around the intra-Church
debate troubles traditionalists as much, or more, than their close call.
Recently retired Chicago archbishop Francis George, 77 and in the midst of
experimental cancer treatment, gave an extraordinarily frank interview—taking
advantage of the openness of Francis’s pontificate to denounce that very
quality—to veteran American Vatican watcher John Allen. “Does he not realize
the consequences of some of his statements or even some of his actions,” which
have created expectations “he can’t possibly meet?” George asked of the Pope.
“That’s one of the things I’d like to have the chance to ask him, if I ever get
over there. Do you realize what has happened, just by that very phrase, ‘Who am
I to judge?’ ”
Chances are, Francis does, which is the
real fear of the conservatives. That’s the argument Garry Wills will make in
March in The Future of the Catholic Church with Pope Francis, one of a slew of books American
publishers are rushing into print. Wills—a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian,
devout Catholic and fierce critic of the institutional Church—told Publishers
Weekly in a pre-publication interview that Francis is clearly bent on
real change. He will “ease off from the condemnations of contraception, divorce
and homosexuality,” Wills predicts, not by fiat but “by encouraging bishops to
move in new directions. Church authorities [will] rather let practices lapse
than end them with formal decrees.”
On any ordinary papal visit to the U.S.,
if such a thing could exist given Francis’s enormous popularity with lay
Catholics, all these sensitive issues might stay muted. But that won’t be
possible in Philadelphia. Francis is coming to attend a gathering on the theme
of Catholic marriage and family, just weeks before the final session of the
synod on the same topic begins in Rome. Every papal word and gesture will be
scrutinized as never before.
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