A lot of writers on all sides of the spectrum, from Catholic and non-Catholics alike, will be parsing the words and actions of Pope Francis during his American visit to determine what, exactly, the man and his office will stand for the duration of his Papacy. One of the more astute observations was buried in observational commentary from the Atlantic’s political writer Molly Ball.
But what makes Francis different is really a matter of which Catholic beliefs he has elevated to the level of communal concerns—public policy—and which he has framed as individual choices. To Francis, sharing wealth and fixing global warming are matters that governments should address, while not committing homosexual acts or having abortions are individual choices he endorses. (As he famously put it: “Who am I to judge?”) This is quite different from the American Catholic church, which has poured its political energy into laws banning gay marriage and restricting abortion. (The church, often through the Knights of Columbus, was one of the largest funders of anti-gay-marriage ballot initiatives, particularly post-2008, when the Mormons largely stopped funding them.
Pope Francis offers hope to progressives of all faiths (or none), since he recognizes that government cannot control individual moral choices but it can-and should-have a wide role in governing our economy, our environment, and the international community. In this light, endorsing climate action, diplomacy with Iran and Cuba, responding to the Syrian refugee crisis, ending the death penalty and government solutions to income inequality make sense and are consistent with the morality of the Church. These are actions well within the purview and range of the government.
These are also similar to the fights government has won in the past and can win in the future. One can only look at the failure of Prohibition in the US, or the failure of morally rigid Church backed dictatorships in Latin America to see how they can’t control the morality of individuals nor respond to the real needs of the community.
It’s why Francis will continue to be an ally, in my view, of center-left governments in North America and Europe, along with reasonable center right governments like Cameron’s or Merkel’s that are compassionately responding to climate change and the refugee crisis. It is why social conservatives, especially those within the United States, will continue to be disappointed.
As Molly Ball continued:
To greatly oversimplify, Democrats believe the U.S. needs to regulate the economy and the environment, while allowing people to make their own choices about whom they marry and whether to have an abortion. Republicans—again, oversimplifying greatly—think people should generally be able to do what they want with their money and their carbon footprint, but social behavior should be regulated by the state.
That said, it is highly unlikely Pope Francis will make major dogmatic changes to the doctrine of the Church. He will tinker at the margins, like the surprisingly swift reform to the annulment process, the ongoing financial reform, and accountability for bishops that sheltered abusers. We may see the softer language on LGBT persons rejected at the last Synod proposed again at the next one, with Francis likely favoring a middle ground between the two to keep the church together. The end result will likely incense traditionalist conservatives while doing little to mollify the more ardent progressive critics of the church on this issue, but at least the goalposts will have been moved closer to compassion without a schism.
On the role of women within the Church we will continue to see high level appointments to Vatican positions once reserved for men. We will not see women’s ordination, though relaxing the celibacy requirement for the priesthood is gradually picking up support from both wings of the church as the shrinking priesthood has shifted to a global problem, rather than simply an American one.
Ultimately, to many so called ‘Vatican 3’ Catholics, Francis may be a disappointment who does not go far enough in reforming the interior of the Church to reflect modern understanding of sexuality and gender equality. I strongly suspect he will be appointing a new generation of bishops open to such changes down the road-and we may see in 50 years time a breakthrough on those issues without the risk of schism as the Global South catches up to the North on those two issues. But it is in the exterior of how the Church approaches the world, particularly political life in the US, that has already seen a great change.
The Church is now firmly on the center-left on the major economic, environmental, and foreign policy questions of the day while becoming far more ‘small c’ conservative on the questions of individual morality. Closer to Joe Biden than Paul VI. This is a welcome change indeed, and one that can create many new collaborations unthinkable under the last Pope.
fredrichlariccia says
as a fallen Catholic grandson of Italian immigrants I wept when this son of Italian immigrants reminded us that we are all children of immigrants.
Then he called on us to live by the Golden Rule to treat others as we wish to be treated.
And he reminded us that Jesus was homeless.
I am reminded of the Prayer of St. Francis, my favorite
saint:
Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love.
Where there is injury, pardon,
Where there is doubt, faith,
Where there is despair, hope,
Where there is darkness, light, and where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console.
To be understood, as to understand;
To be loved, as to love;
For it is in giving the we receive
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned:
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
VIVA LA PAPA !
Fred Rich LaRiccia
Peter Porcupine says
About 70% of Americans identify as Christians in the US. Of that group, about 50% claim various Protestant denominations, about 25% as Roman Catholic, and the balance as believers unaffiliated with a denomination.
As a political matter, this has more impact around here and the rest of the east coast DC corridor than in the rest of the country
SomervilleTom says
The GOP was eager to embrace Mr. Netanyahu’s brand of religious extremism when it suited its political agenda, and there far fewer Jews than Roman Catholics in America. That shameful and embarrassing display was presumably intended to attract political support from SOMEBODY.
The GOP has been proud to claim Vatican support for its attacks on women and the gay and lesbian community for decades. That alliance, forged by earlier Popes and very loudly trumpeted by the GOP at every opportunity, presumably was viewed by the GOP has having at least some influence.
Your comment sounds like sour grapes to me. I guess the GOP embraces Catholic values only to the extent that those values support and enable its own prejudices, biases, homophobia, and sexism (to the extent that ANY policy of the GOP is anything more than cynical manipulation wrapped up in flags and clerical robes).
Like too many self-professed believers, when a religious leader like Pope Francis steps forward and reminds people of the ACTUAL values that drive the Roman Catholic faith tradition, all that fervor and devotion go out the window.
I find the distinction between public and private moral choices cited in the thread-starter is hugely important.
I think the GOP just lost a major ally in its wars on women, immigrants, and the gay and lesbian community. It appears to this observer that its “Christian” support is becoming more and more limited to the right-wing Protestant extremism touted by White Supremacists and the KKK.
It looks to me as the Massachusetts again leads the way — in this case demonstrating the political death of the GOP, based primarily on the party’s self-inflicted spiral into hate, prejudice, and ignorance.
Peter Porcupine says
As I tried to make clear, most Americans who are Christians are not Catholics, so not sure why his pronouncements would be viewed as relevant then or niw. Forme, the Dalai Lama has always been more interesting. MA is intensely Catholic, so I think the influence on most of the nation is overestimated locally.
SomervilleTom says
A huge number of Americans are lapsed Catholics (in no small part because of willfully archaic doctrines imposed by equally archaic past Roman Catholic leaders). I’m reminded of a running joke about the atheists in Ireland — “but are you a Protestant atheist or a Catholic atheist?”
As jconway observed below, a huge number of current government leaders — especially GOP leaders — self-identify as Catholic. That may be disproportionate to the representation indicated by the statistics you cite, but it is still very real.
The bread and butter of GOP politics for decades has been attacks on women, attacks on immigrants, attacks on gay and lesbians, attacks on government support for the poor, disabled, unemployed, and suffering, attacks on “liberals” in general — all of those attacks implicitly or explicitly endorsed by earlier Roman Catholic authorities.
That support by the Roman Catholic church is now OVER. Feel free to minimize the impact of that change if you like. Such minimization strikes me as entirely consistent with the host of other delusions that characterize both the Massachusetts and the national GOP.
jconway says
And it would be funny if the consequences of our continued denial wasn’t so deadly. As other BMGers have pointed out, China is pursuing a cap and trade system removing one of the largest shibboleths on the anti-Kyoto right ‘we can’t regulate while China gets to pollute’. Center-right governments in Britain, continental Europe, and Australia have embraced activism against climate change.
You still can’t buy a condom most places in the heavily Catholic Philippines, but even their eccentric weathermen was able to say on the air, casually without any trigger warnings, that typhoons are caused by climate change. The Pope refuses to be in denial, which is major news for all people of faith, and no faith, convinced that action has to happen.
Christopher says
…but Catholicism is the single largest Christian denomination both here and worldwide.
jconway says
The 50% is split about a thousand ways between the various denominations, the mainline is in precipitous decline, evangelical growth is flatlining, and the largest population growth in the US is largely from immigrant populations affiliated with Catholicism. The largest percentage of the ‘nones’ are lapsed Catholics-if they were a denomination they would be the fourth largest. Some are coming back for this Pope, many more at least are listening to him and invoking his teachings in a way they didn’t with Benedict and St. John Paul.
If anything your sentiment that it’s best days are behind it is a Boston centric observation, where local headlines are dominated by school and church closures. It’s well on its way to becoming the largest denomination in the American South-which was once a hotbed of hostility, not to mention its growth in the Global South.
The fact that the spiritual leader of a billion people just aligned his entire church, it’s right and left wings (even Chaput and Dolan are climate change activists now!) around this moral issues is a BFD as our Catholic Vice President would say. 35% of Congress, a SCOTUS Supreme Court majority, and the departing and likely next Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate. 6 of the GOP candidates, 1 Dem contender with another likely on the way, and the spouses of Trump and Sanders respectively. Hillary has aligned herself with the Pope and gone out of her way to quote him-don’t see her doing that with the Methodist bishops of her own denomination.
Can you name a major Protestant leader with half the cache of this Pope? With all due respect to the man who is a great person, the Dali Lama has little over a million real adherents, and his flock will likely die with him thanks to a Communist lock on his successor. I am not trying to be a triumphalist, the Church still has a massive trust deficit addressing the sex scandals and on human sexuality in general, but to say the Pope is an irrelevant leader and his words haven’t changed the American debate is willfully ignorant.
Christopher says
…and if they are anything like the UCC leadership that includes most of their own people in the pews. Mainline Protestantism needs to work toward reunification if we are to have any hope of influence on the liberal side of Christianity. Here in MA it’s big news when Boston gets a new archbishop. I believe Cardinal O’Malley’s installation was even televised. However, when Rev. Dr. Jim Antal became the Minister-President of the Massachusetts Conference of the United Church of Christ, not only the largest Protestant denomination in the state, but a denomination that can lay claim to founding the Plymouth and Mass Bay colonies – crickets from the media:(
SomervilleTom says
Another way to go is to make news of a new archbishop the same non-event that it is for pretty all the other traditions. One of the first signs of the Boston Globe’s demise for me was when it explicitly began hyping events in the Roman Catholic church as mainstream news.
I agree with you that non-Catholic religious events should be given coverage comparable to Catholic events (promotions, retirements, etc). My preference is to strike the balance by lowering the profile of Catholic events.
jconway says
He seems disinclined towards the pomp and circumstance that gives life to the nickname ‘princes of the church’-that’s the very clericalist mentality that led to the abuses by Cardinal ‘above the’ Law and many others. I hope they continue coverage but do so more critically, breaking the scandal in the church was one of the last times the Globe committed an act of journalism.
Christopher says
…of imbalance of influence. I am OK with events important in the lives of many and statements of respected leaders making news. As a liberal Christian it is just frustrating that we can’t seem to get a word in edgewise thus leading many to paint all of Christianity with a conservative brush.
jconway says
I only know Chicago’s UMC Bishop since she was at my future in laws for lunch two months ago, because she’s technically their boss. Otherwise, never would’ve heard of her. Blase Cupich’s installation was also televised in Chicago, and was considered a big deal.
It’s unfortunate the mainline doesn’t have the kind of cache it used to have, when folks like Reinhold Niebuhr or Episcopal bishops like James Pike were able to have significant influence in public policy and were featured in the popular press. Especially since it would show the increasingly secular public that Christianity is not a conservative monolith.
The UCC and UMC were spiritual homes of mine for the decade I was estranged from the Catholic Church, and both of those denominations were instrumental in educating my future in laws and sponsoring their immigration to the United States and bringing my fiancee to America. I’ll always have a soft spot for them and the Episcopal church, and hope they can endure into the next century.