A WILD RIDE AHEAD?

The designation of Pope Francis as TIME magazine’s Man of the Year was, for some, the ultimate accolade. For all, it’s a breath-taking example of how one individual can single-handedly change perceptions, even of vast institutions like the Roman Catholic Church.

A year ago, it seemed almost as if the Church, like a vast brocade, was gradually unravelling at the seams as the problems piled high on the desk of the hapless Benedict XVI. With his health deteriorating, the Church divided and the Vatican in uproar, he chose a course of action that would give new life to the Church he loved: he retired. History may well regard it as his greatest hour.

What’s beginning to look progressively like a revolution came from an unlikely source – the assembled cardinals at the ensuing conclave in Rome. A change of direction, they agreed, was necessary, and that became the unspoken, semi-official position. The person chosen to deliver it was an unlikely 76-year-old Argentinian who delighted in telling everybody he was a sinner.

Little did we think nine months ago when Jorge Mario Bergoglio emerged, blinking into the Roman night on the balcony of St. Peter’s, that we were at the beginning of an unlikely revolution in attitude in the Catholic church. After a long winter of discontent, spanning two papacies and almost four decades, suddenly the prospect of a new dawn was upon us.

After all the efforts to block the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, after all the efforts to stifle debate on key pastoral issues, after all the efforts to return the Church to the nineteenth century, after all the trampling over all our dreams, we couldn’t quite believe it was happening. Suddenly, unpredictably, unexpectedly there emerged from the pampas of South America this tall man all in white who would rescue the Church from the dark cul-de-sac of history and point it towards the light of promise and possibility.

Suddenly, again, the core of the Gospel – the love and mercy and joy of God revealed to us in Jesus Christ – became more important the political campaigns, waged not wisely but too well, against abortion, contraception and homosexuality. Suddenly, after decades in a dense forest, it was as if we found ourselves in a great clearance bathed in the light of a warm sun. A new day was dawning. A new beginning was beckoning us with a smile into a new and better future.

A Happy New Year to all of you!

PASTOR EMERITUS

POPE FRANCIS’S MANIFESTO

Have you managed to dip into that new message from Pope Francis, “The Joy of the Gospel?” It’s long but I find it a satisfying read. I’ve waited half a century, since Vatican Two, for such a message from Rome. It’s surprising, thought-provoking and invigorating. It is maddening to people with little understanding of the Church’s teaching on social justice, some having confused its teaching with Marxism.

Looking at it within the context of the pope’s other published speeches, letters, homilies, general audience messages and interviews, Francis appears to ask three questions: Why not look at things from a new perspective? Why not be open to doing things in a new way? Why not have a new vision of the church?

These are missionary type questions, and Francis is urging us all to go back and become a missionary church again. Such questions come from a deep sense of security and joy. You will have noticed that the title of this long letter, his “State of the Church” manifesto, is “The JOY of the Gospel,” not the burden or the fear of the Gospel. Joy is written all over this pope. He is not a man who is afraid to use the Gospel as a tool to fashion a better and more effective church.

We are to be a joyful community of believers unafraid of the modern world, unafraid to change, unafraid of challenges. This will be frightening to some of his flock for it poses a major challenge to the status-quo. “Pastoral ministry in a missionary key seeks to abandon the complacent attitude that says: ‘We have always done it this way,’” he writes in a section entitled, ”Ecclesial Renewal.”

The overarching message of this manifesto is that Catholics should not be unafraid of new ways of proclaiming the Gospel and new ways of thinking about the church. Francis sees such new ways are essential if we are to spread the Gospel at all. He identifies areas of stagnation and petrification in the church, areas where he wants to see change.

Over and over again, Francis takes aim at such long-standing roadblocks to growth as “complacency,” “excessive clericalism,” and even Catholics who act like “sourpusses” – (that, folks, is the official English translation!). He describes this latter group as Catholics who live like “Lent without Easter.” He contrasts this dourness and pessimism with the joy of living a life centered on Christ and focused on the Resurrection.

Pope Francis uses a famous quote from good Pope John 23^rd, who noted at the opening of the Second Vatican Council that many doubted things could change for the better. Too many people at the time – 1962 – were predicting doom and disaster for the church and for the world. But Pope John disagreed. “We feel we must disagree with these prophets of doom who are always foreboding disaster.”

“The Joy of the Gospel” is Francis’s own ringing response to latter-day prophets of doom.

PASTOR EMERITUS 

FRANCIS OR LIMBAUGH

Rush Limbaugh’s recent attack on Pope Francis is laughable. The reaction to it is not so humorous, because not only is Mr. Limbaugh ignorant of Catholic social teaching, but so too are many Catholics. Our social justice teaching has been described as “the church’s best kept secret.” I suspect the ordinary man or woman in the pew on Sunday has heard very few homilies on the social teachings of the church.

I offer the following list of topics which characterize Catholic social teaching today, a teaching that has developed over more than a century.

A connection between the religious and social dimensions of life exists.

The dignity of the human person. Humans are at the top of the social order.

All people enjoy inalienable rights, which are political-legal & socio-economical.

A preferential option for the “poor” – i.e. the economically disadvantaged.

Love and justice are connected; you can’t love your neighbor & ignore his rights.

Promotion of the common good – of everything that makes it possible for all people to become fully human.

Subsidiarity. Decisions should be made at the local level, closest to the action.

Participation of all in political decision-making.

Economic justice. Resources, economic and natural, are for the benefit of all.

Solidarity – we belong to one human family, called to care for one another.

Peace is the fruit of justice – there’s no peace without justice between people.

Work. All have a right to work, to receive a just wage, and to form unions.

Liberation from oppressive social, political, and economic situations & structures.

Stewardship. We are managers of God’s creation for the good of all.

PASTOR EMERITUS