Impelled by conversations with a local friend and by Craig Burell's review, I decided to read Ross Douthat's To Change the Church, his assessment of the controversies surrounding Pope Francis. I hadn't wanted to; I explained why in this post a few weeks ago, so I won't repeat myself. I've now finished the book. I'm not going to attempt a full-scale review of it. I don't think I need to go to that trouble, since Craig's review is so through and fair. But here is a personal reaction.
I mentioned in that earlier post that I had an uneasy feeling about Pope Francis from the beginning, and by "the beginning" I mean the moment he stepped out on the balcony after his election. I knew nothing about him, and I can't explain the feeling. But I think it turned out to be justified. You may be thinking "Yeah, you had this prejudice, and you've fed it and allowed it to blind you." But insofar as one can ever know one's own motives, I really don't think that's the case. In fact I worked at trying to ignore and suppress that feeling, and to look for evidence that would prove it wrong.
In John LeCarre's Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, part of the plot hinges on the fact that the "mole" in the British intelligence establishment knows that the man trying to identify him is fair-minded and will attempt to discount evidence that he can attribute to his own bias. So the mole more or less deliberately does something that he knows will cause the mole-hunter to be prejudiced against him, in the expectation that the hunter will be suspicious of his own suspicions. (The book is arguably the best espionage novel ever written, certainly among the best. In the unlikely event that you have a taste for that sort of thing and haven't read it, do so.)
Believe it or not, I have, at least sometimes, the same sort of scruple as the mole-hunter. I do make an effort to be fair, and I'm usually very much aware of it if my negative view of another's actions or ideas is accompanied by any degree of personal antipathy, and try to take it into account. And as that vague uneasy feeling about Francis persisted, and became a concern that went beyond annoyance at some of his less judicious statements, I tried to attribute it to sheer prejudice. I have, for instance, an instinctive suspicion of anyone who seems to be making ostentatious gestures of virtue and good will. Rightly or wrongly, I reacted that way about some of the things Francis has done and said. And I kept in mind that my reaction could well be totally unfair and totally unjustified. Nor do I say now that my impression was accurate, only that it was my impression.
I also have had more than one experience, as I'm sure we all have, with people who talked much and passionately about love for humanity but were personally harsh or worse with the people in their immediate orbit, or anyone who opposes them. And there were plenty of anecdotes suggesting that Francis has that tendency. One of my motives, a couple of years ago, in posting a quotation from Francis every day during Lent, was to work against these prejudices of mine. There is no lack of inspiring words to be found in his talks and writings.
Another factor that made me want to resist my inclination was the reaction of many or most politically conservative American Catholics to Francis's statements on politics, economics, and ecology. To be blunt, a lot of these people made complete fools of themselves, revealing that they had linked the Faith far too deeply and closely with their politics, to the point where they were ready to declare apostate or heretical anyone who questioned right-wing orthodoxy on, for instance, the virtues of the free market. Not only did I not want to be one of them, I didn't want to be seen as one of them. I had my reservations about Laudato Si (see this post), but I didn't yell "Socialist!" at it. I didn't want to ride a right-wing anti-Francis bandwagon.
Then came the 2014-15 Synod on the Family, and the controversies surrounding it and the document Amoris Laetitia. It became impossible for me to doubt that the war between for-lack-of-a-better-word-liberal and for-lack-of-a-better-word-conservative factions within the Church was still being waged; that the progressives who want changes which I and many others, including the last two popes before Francis, believe to be incompatible with the Faith were as numerous as they ever had been, and that the pope was in sympathy with them; that the apparent coming-together of the Church around John Paul II and Benedict was an illusion; and that the war not only had not ended but had no end in sight, certainly not within my lifetime, possibly not within the lifetime of anyone reading this today.
So when all that was combined with the constant use of the pope's words as a stick with which to beat orthodox Catholics (to which I did not react at all well) by 2016 I had ended up at the place suggested by the title of this post: "Ignoring the Pope As a Spiritual Tactic."
But of course I couldn't completely tune out all the commentary, pro and con. Many of those who scoff at the criticisms of what Francis is doing were not of the progressive party, but simply saw Francis as continuing the work of John Paul II and Benedict. That view can be supported by most of what the pope says publicly, but what he does often seems to tell a different story. And I often had the feeling that I was being gaslighted by the open progressives, sometimes even by the pope himself (as with the Scalifari interviews). Those noises you hear at night from a supposedly empty room are not footsteps. The lights aren't going dim. I really think you may be losing your mind. As Douthat notes, the progressives were simultaneously denouncing those who were concerned that important teachings were being changed, and rejoicing that they were, proclaiming "new paradigms" and whatnot.
So here is Douthat to say, with ample documentation and sound reasoning to support him, that:
- those who are concerned are not imagining things;
- there is a powerful faction which wants to change the Church's traditional teachings on divorce and possibly other sex-related (of course) matters;
- the implications of such a change are enormous and go far beyond the specific questions being debated;
- the pope is on the side of the changers;
- conflict is likely to be the state of the Church for many years to come.
Whatever else may be said about this book, it is not frenzied and paranoid. On the contrary, though Douthat's views are clear, he goes out of his way to be restrained, judicious, and fair to opposing views. I don't see any reason to think that his analysis is not accurate. In any case this summary of the simple factual state of affairs seems inarguable, apart from its predictive aspect:
[Pope Francis] will probably not be remembered for achieving the goal that he set in the conclave speech that made him pope–the goal of a less "self-referential" church, a church less consumed with its own internal controversies, a church no longer stuck "within itself" but ready to go outward to evangelize and save the world. Instead the theological crisis that he set in motion has made Catholicism more self-referential, more inward-facing, more defined by its abstruse internal controversies and theological civil wars.
Whatever the pope's real views and intentions are, it is a fact that the mess he says he likes to create is here.
I'm grieved that the Church is most likely going to be torn by factionalism for some time to come, and that the confident outward turn I had hoped for is not going to happen. But there is a certain relief, and a certain serenity, in accepting that this is in fact the state of affairs. If you're wondering whether the vessel is too close to the rocks, clear and unobstructed vision is preferable to fog, whether it shows you that you're in danger or that there's nothing to worry about–though that's not a very applicable analogy, because I have absolutely no control over this situation and there's no action I can take.
The curious papal absolutism which now comes from progressives sometimes takes the form of the question "Don't you trust the Holy Spirit to guide the Church?" (And sometimes it's the direct accusation that you don't.) Yes, I do.
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The pastor of St. Ignatius parish in Mobile has generously allowed our Ordinariate group, the Society of St. Gregory the Great, to use their small and beautiful chapel for our Mass. Today was our first Sunday there, and it's also Corpus Christi Sunday, which turned out to be very appropriate, as you can see from this picture. (Sorry it's not quite in focus.)
In case you can't read it, that's "Verbum caro factum est"–the Word was made flesh. Those might be the most important, exciting, fascinating, liberating words ever spoken in human language. The Ordinariate's liturgy retains a feature that was dropped after Vatican II: the "Last Gospel," the reading, at the end of Mass, of the opening of the first chapter of John. It's like the Creed for me–I never tire of hearing it. The vistas of thought and hope and dream it opens up are infinite.
Light On Dark Water 
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