Pope Francis Gives Major Interview to the
Jesuits. The
wide-ranging interview was simultaneously published in 16 Jesuit publications,
including America magazine.
by EDWARD PENTIN 09/19/2013
VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis has given a very revealing and
characteristically frank interview with Father Antonio Spadaro, the Jesuit
editor of La Civiltà Cattolica.
The interview, originally given in Italian, was simultaneously
published in 15 other Jesuit publications today, and it can be read here in America magazine.
One particularly interesting passage is when the Holy Father
explains his perceived reticence to discuss issues such as abortion,
contraception and the redefinition of marriage.
His answer is naturally more nuanced than his reply to a question
on the issue on the press conference on the
flight from Rio de Janeiro.
Pope Francis says:
“We cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage
and the use of contraceptive methods. This is not possible. I have not spoken
much about these things, and I was reprimanded for that. But when we speak
about these issues, we have to talk about them in a context. The teaching of
the Church, for that matter, is clear, and I am a son of the Church, but it is
not necessary to talk about these issues all the time.”
He continues:
“The Church’s pastoral ministry cannot be obsessed with the
transmission of a disjointed multitude of doctrines to be imposed insistently.
Proclamation in a missionary style focuses on the essentials, on the necessary
things: This is also what fascinates and attracts more, what makes the heart
burn, as it did for the disciples at Emmaus. We have to find a new balance;
otherwise, even the moral edifice of the Church is likely to fall like a house
of cards, losing the freshness and fragrance of the Gospel. The proposal of the
Gospel must be more simple, profound, radiant. It is from this proposition that
the moral consequences then flow.”
On the flight back from Rio, Pope Francis said of these moral
issues: “The Church has already spoken quite clearly on this. It was unnecessary
to return to it, just as I didn’t speak about cheating, lying or other matters
on which the Church has a clear teaching.”
The Holy Father covers many other issues in the interview,
including his past as a young Jesuit provincial in Argentina, his approach to
Curial reform and his views on the Second Vatican Council.
The Register will be featuring in-depth coverage of the interview
and its implications for the Church in the United States and around the world.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
A Big Heart Open to God
The exclusive interview with Pope Francis
Editor’s Note: This interview
with Pope Francis took place over the course of three meetings during August
2013 in Rome. The interview was conducted in person by Antonio Spadaro, S.J.,
editor in chief of La Civiltà Cattolica, the Italian Jesuit journal. Father
Spadaro conducted the interview on behalf of La Civiltà Cattolica,America and several other major
Jesuit journals around the world. The editorial teams at each of the journals
prepared questions and sent them to Father Spadaro, who then consolidated and
organized them. The interview was conducted in Italian. After the Italian text
was officially approved, America commissioned a team of
five independent experts to translate it into English. America is solely responsible for
the accuracy of this translation. This interview is copyrighted by
America Press and cannot be used, except for brief quotations, without written
permission.
Father Spadaro met the pope at the Vatican in
the pope’s apartments in the Casa Santa Marta, where he has chosen to live
since his election. Father Spadaro begins his account of the interview with a
description of the pope’s living quarters.
The
setting is simple, austere. The workspace occupied by the desk is small. I am
impressed not only by the simplicity of the furniture, but also by the objects
in the room. There are only a few. These include an icon of St. Francis, a
statue of Our Lady of Luján, patron saint of Argentina, a crucifix and a statue
of St. Joseph sleeping. The spirituality of Jorge Mario Bergoglio is not made
of “harmonized energies,” as he would call them, but of human faces: Christ,
St. Francis, St. Joseph and Mary.
The
pope speaks of his trip to Brazil. He considers it a true grace, that World
Youth Day was for him a “mystery.” He says that he is not used to talking to so
many people: “I can look at individual persons, one at a time, to come into
contact in a personal way with the person I have before me. I am not used to
the masses,” the pope remarks. He also speaks about the moment during the
conclave when he began to realize that he might be elected pope. At lunch on
Wednesday, March 13, he felt a deep and inexplicable inner peace and comfort
come over him, he said, along with a great darkness. And those feelings
accompanied him until his election later that day.
The
pope had spoken earlier about his great difficulty in giving interviews. He
said that he prefers to think rather than provide answers on the spot in
interviews. In this interview the pope interrupted what he was saying in
response to a question several times, in order to add something to an earlier
response. Talking with Pope Francis is a kind of volcanic flow of ideas that
are bound up with each other. Even taking notes gives me an uncomfortable
feeling, as if I were trying to suppress a surging spring of dialogue.
Who Is Jorge Mario Bergoglio?
I ask Pope Francis point-blank: “Who is
Jorge Mario Bergoglio?” He stares at me in silence. I ask him if I may ask him
this question. He nods and replies: “I do not know what might be the most
fitting description.... I am a sinner. This is the most
accurate definition. It is not a figure of speech, a literary genre. I am a
sinner.”
The pope continues to reflect and
concentrate, as if he did not expect this question, as if he were forced to
reflect further. “Yes, perhaps I can say that I am a bit astute, that I can
adapt to circumstances, but it is also true that I am a bit naïve. Yes, but the
best summary, the one that comes more from the inside and I feel most true is
this: I am a sinner whom the Lord has looked upon.” And he repeats: “I am one
who is looked upon by the Lord. I always felt my motto, Miserando atque Eligendo [By Having Mercy and by
Choosing Him], was very true for me.”
The motto is taken from the Homilies of Bede the Venerable, who writes in his
comments on the Gospel story of the calling of Matthew: “Jesus saw a publican,
and since he looked at him with feelings of love and chose him, he said to him,
‘Follow me.’” The pope adds: “I think the Latin gerund miserando is impossible to translate in both
Italian and Spanish. I like to translate it with another gerund that does not
exist: misericordiando[“mercy-ing”].
Pope Francis continues his reflection
and says, jumping to another topic: “I do not know Rome well. I know a few
things. These include the Basilica of St. Mary Major; I always used to go
there. I know St. Mary Major, St. Peter’s...but when I had to come to Rome, I
always stayed in [the neighborhood of] Via della Scrofa. From there I often
visited the Church of St. Louis of France, and I went there to contemplate the
painting of ‘The Calling of St. Matthew,’ by Caravaggio.
“That
finger of Jesus, pointing at Matthew. That’s me. I feel like him. Like
Matthew.” Here the pope becomes determined, as if he had finally found the
image he was looking for: “It is the gesture of Matthew that strikes me: he
holds on to his money as if to say, ‘No, not me! No, this money is mine.’ Here,
this is me, a sinner on whom the Lord has turned his gaze. And this is what I
said when they asked me if I would accept my election as pontiff.” Then the
pope whispers in Latin: “I am a sinner, but I trust in the infinite mercy and
patience of our Lord Jesus Christ, and I accept in a spirit of penance.”
Why Did You Become a Jesuit?
I
continue: “Holy Father, what made you choose to enter the Society of Jesus?
What struck you about the Jesuit order?”
“I
wanted something more. But I did not know what. I entered the diocesan
seminary. I liked the Dominicans and I had Dominican friends. But then I chose
the Society of Jesus, which I knew well because the seminary was entrusted to
the Jesuits. Three things in particular struck me about the Society: the
missionary spirit, community and discipline. And this is strange, because I am
a really, really undisciplined person. But their discipline, the way they
manage their time—these things struck me so much.
“And
then a thing that is really important for me: community. I was always looking
for a community. I did not see myself as a priest on my own. I need a
community. And you can tell this by the fact that I am here in Santa Marta. At
the time of the conclave I lived in Room 207. (The rooms were assigned by
drawing lots.) This room where we are now was a guest room. I chose to live
here, in Room 201, because when I took possession of the papal apartment,
inside myself I distinctly heard a ‘no.’ The papal apartment in the Apostolic
Palace is not luxurious. It is old, tastefully decorated and large, but not
luxurious. But in the end it is like an inverted funnel. It is big and
spacious, but the entrance is really tight. People can come only in dribs and
drabs, and I cannot live without people. I need to live my life with others.”
What Does It Mean for a Jesuit to Be
Bishop of Rome?
I
ask Pope Francis about the fact that he is the first Jesuit to be elected
bishop of Rome: “How do you understand the role of service to the universal
church that you have been called to play in the light of Ignatian spirituality?
What does it mean for a Jesuit to be elected pope? What element of Ignatian
spirituality helps you live your ministry?”
“Discernment,”
he replies. “Discernment is one of the things that worked inside St. Ignatius.
For him it is an instrument of struggle in order to know the Lord and follow
him more closely. I was always struck by a saying that describes the vision of
Ignatius: non coerceri a maximo, sed contineri a minimo
divinum est (“not to be limited by the greatest and yet to be
contained in the tiniest—this is the divine”). I thought a lot about this
phrase in connection with the issue of different roles in the government of the
church, about becoming the superior of somebody else: it is important not to be
restricted by a larger space, and it is important to be able to stay in
restricted spaces. This virtue of the large and small is magnanimity. Thanks to
magnanimity, we can always look at the horizon from the position where we are.
That means being able to do the little things of every day with a big heart
open to God and to others. That means being able to appreciate the small things
inside large horizons, those of the kingdom of God.
“This
motto,” the pope continues, “offers parameters to assume a correct position for
discernment, in order to hear the things of God from God’s ‘point of view.’ According
to St. Ignatius, great principles must be embodied in the circumstances of
place, time and people. In his own way, John XXIII adopted this attitude with
regard to the government of the church, when he repeated the motto, ‘See
everything; turn a blind eye to much; correct a little.’ John XXIII saw all
things, the maximum dimension, but he chose to correct a few, the minimum
dimension. You can have large projects and implement them by means of a few of
the smallest things. Or you can use weak means that are more effective than
strong ones, as Paul also said in his First Letter to the Corinthians.
“This discernment takes time. For
example, many think that changes and reforms can take place in a short
time. I believe that we always need time to lay the foundations for
real, effective change. And this is the time of discernment.
Sometimes discernment instead urges us to do precisely what you had at first
thought you would do later. And that is what has happened to me in recent
months. Discernment is always done in the presence of the Lord, looking at the
signs, listening to the things that happen, the feeling of the people,
especially the poor. My choices, including those related to the day-to-day
aspects of life, like the use of a modest car, are related to a spiritual
discernment that responds to a need that arises from looking at things, at
people and from reading the signs of the times. Discernment in the Lord guides
me in my way of governing.
“But
I am always wary of decisions made hastily. I am always wary of the first
decision, that is, the first thing that comes to my mind if I have to make a
decision. This is usually the wrong thing. I have to wait and assess, looking
deep into myself, taking the necessary time. The wisdom of discernment redeems
the necessary ambiguity of life and helps us find the most appropriate means,
which do not always coincide with what looks great and strong.”
The Society of Jesus
Discernment
is therefore a pillar of the spirituality of Pope Francis. It expresses in a
particular manner his Jesuit identity. I ask him then how the Society of Jesus
can be of service to the church today, what are its characteristics, but also
the possible challenges facing the Society of Jesus.
“The Society of Jesus is an
institution in tension,” the pope replied, “always fundamentally in tension. A
Jesuit is a person who is not centered in himself. The Society itself also
looks to a center outside itself; its center is Christ and his church. So
if the Society centers itself in Christ and the church, it has two fundamental
points of reference for its balance and for being able to live on the margins,
on the frontier. If it looks too much in upon itself, it puts itself at the
center as a very solid, very well ‘armed’ structure, but then it runs the risk
of feeling safe and self-sufficient. The Society must always have before itself
the Deus semper maior, the always-greater God, and the
pursuit of the ever greater glory of God, the church as true bride of Christ
our Lord, Christ the king who conquers us and to whom we offer our whole person
and all our hard work, even if we are clay pots, inadequate. This tension takes
us out of ourselves continuously. The tool that makes the Society of Jesus not
centered in itself, really strong, is, then, the account of conscience, which
is at the same time paternal and fraternal, because it helps the Society to
fulfill its mission better.”
The
pope is referring to the requirement in the Constitutions of the Society of
Jesus that the Jesuit must “manifest his conscience,” that is, his inner
spiritual situation, so that the superior can be more conscious and
knowledgeable about sending a person on mission.
“But it is difficult to speak of the
Society,” continues Pope Francis. “When you express too much, you run the risk
of being misunderstood. The Society of Jesus can be described only in narrative
form. Only in narrative form do you discern, not in a philosophical or
theological explanation, which allows you rather to discuss. The style of the
Society is not shaped by discussion, but by discernment, which of course
presupposes discussion as part of the process. The mystical dimension of
discernment never defines its edges and does not complete the thought. The
Jesuit must be a person whose thought is incomplete, in the sense of open-ended
thinking. There have been periods in the Society in which Jesuits have lived in
an environment of closed and rigid thought, more instructive-ascetic than
mystical: this distortion of Jesuit life gave birth to the Epitome Instituti.”
The
pope is referring to a compendium, made for practical purposes, that came to be
seen as a replacement for the Constitutions. The formation of Jesuits for some
time was shaped by this text, to the extent that some never read the
Constitutions, the foundational text. During this period, in the pope’s view,
the rules threatened to overwhelm the spirit, and the Society yielded to the
temptation to explicate and define its charism too narrowly.
Pope
Francis continues: “No, the Jesuit always thinks, again and again, looking at
the horizon toward which he must go, with Christ at the center. This is his
real strength. And that pushes the Society to be searching, creative and generous.
So now, more than ever, the Society of Jesus must be contemplative in action,
must live a profound closeness to the whole church as both the ‘people of God’
and ‘holy mother the hierarchical church.’ This requires much humility,
sacrifice and courage, especially when you are misunderstood or you are the
subject of misunderstandings and slanders, but that is the most fruitful
attitude. Let us think of the tensions of the past history, in the previous
centuries, about the Chinese rites controversy, the Malabar rites and the
Reductions in Paraguay.
“I
am a witness myself to the misunderstandings and problems that the Society has
recently experienced. Among those there were tough times, especially when it
came to the issue of extending to all Jesuits the fourth vow of obedience to
the pope. What gave me confidence at the time of Father Arrupe [superior
general of the Jesuits from 1965 to 1983] was the fact that he was a man of
prayer, a man who spent much time in prayer. I remember him when he prayed sitting
on the ground in the Japanese style. For this he had the right attitude and
made the right decisions.”
The Model: Peter Faber, ‘Reformed
Priest’
I
am wondering if there are figures among the Jesuits, from the origins of the
Society to the present date, that have affected him in a particular way, so I
ask the pope who they are and why. He begins by mentioning Ignatius Loyola
[founder of the Jesuits] and Francis Xavier, but then focuses on a figure who
is not as well known to the general public: Peter Faber (1506-46), from Savoy.
He was one of the first companions of St. Ignatius, in fact the first, with
whom he shared a room when the two were students at the University of Paris.
The third roommate was Francis Xavier. Pius IX declared Faber blessed on Sept. 5,
1872, and the cause for his canonization is still open.
The
pope cites an edition of Faber’s works, which he asked two Jesuit scholars,
Miguel A. Fiorito and Jaime H. Amadeo, to edit and publish when he was
provincial superior of the Jesuits in Argentina. An edition that he
particularly likes is the one by Michel de Certeau. I ask the pope why he is so
impressed by Faber.
“[His]
dialogue with all,” the pope says, “even the most remote and even with his
opponents; his simple piety, a certain naïveté perhaps, his being available
straightaway, his careful interior discernment, the fact that he was a man
capable of great and strong decisions but also capable of being so gentle and
loving.”
Michel
de Certeau characterized Faber simply as “the reformed priest,” for whom
interior experience, dogmatic expression and structural reform are inseparable.
The pope then continues with a reflection on the true face of the founder of
the Society.
“Ignatius
is a mystic, not an ascetic,” he says. “It irritates me when I hear that the
Spiritual Exercises are ‘Ignatian’ only because they are done in silence. In
fact, the Exercises can be perfectly Ignatian also in daily life and without
the silence. An interpretation of the Spiritual Exercises that emphasizes
asceticism, silence and penance is a distorted one that became widespread even
in the Society, especially in the Society of Jesus in Spain. I am rather close
to the mystical movement, that of Louis Lallement and Jean-Joseph Surin. And
Faber was a mystic.”
Experience in Church Government
What
kind of experience in church government, as a Jesuit superior and then as
superior of a province of the Society of Jesus, helped to fully form Father
Bergoglio? The style of governance of the Society of Jesus involves decisions
made by the superior, but also extensive consultation with his official
advisors. So I ask: “Do you think that your past government experience can
serve you in governing the universal church?” After a brief pause for
reflection, he responds:
“In
my experience as superior in the Society, to be honest, I have not always
behaved in that way—that is, I did not always do the necessary consultation.
And this was not a good thing. My style of government as a Jesuit at the
beginning had many faults. That was a difficult time for the Society: an entire
generation of Jesuits had disappeared. Because of this I found myself
provincial when I was still very young. I was only 36 years old. That was
crazy. I had to deal with difficult situations, and I made my decisions
abruptly and by myself. Yes, but I must add one thing: when I entrust something
to someone, I totally trust that person. He or she must make a really big
mistake before I rebuke that person. But despite this, eventually people get
tired of authoritarianism.
“My authoritarian and quick manner of
making decisions led me to have serious problems and to be accused of being
ultraconservative. I lived a time of great interior crisis when I was in
Cordova. To be sure, I have never been like Blessed Imelda [a goody-goody],
but I have never been a right-winger. It was my authoritarian way of making
decisions that created problems.
“I
say these things from life experience and because I want to make clear what the
dangers are. Over time I learned many things. The Lord has allowed this growth
in knowledge of government through my faults and my sins. So as Archbishop of
Buenos Aires, I had a meeting with the six auxiliary bishops every two weeks,
and several times a year with the council of priests. They asked questions and
we opened the floor for discussion. This greatly helped me to make the best
decisions. But now I hear some people tell me: ‘Do not consult too much, and
decide by yourself.’ Instead, I believe that consultation is very important.
“The consistories [of cardinals], the
synods [of bishops] are, for example, important places to make real and active
this consultation. We must, however, give them a less rigid form. I do not want token consultations, but real consultations. The
consultation group of eight cardinals, this ‘outsider’ advisory group, is not
only my decision, but it is the result of the will of the cardinals, as it was
expressed in the general congregations before the conclave. And I want to see
that this is a real, not ceremonial consultation.”
Thinking With the Church
I
ask Pope Francis what it means exactly for him to “think with the church,” a
notion St. Ignatius writes about in the Spiritual Exercises. He replies using
an image.
“The
image of the church I like is that of the holy, faithful people of God. This is
the definition I often use, and then there is that image from the Second
Vatican Council’s ‘Dogmatic Constitution on the Church’ (No. 12). Belonging to
a people has a strong theological value. In the history of salvation, God has
saved a people. There is no full identity without belonging to a people. No one
is saved alone, as an isolated individual, but God attracts us looking at the
complex web of relationships that take place in the human community. God enters
into this dynamic, this participation in the web of human relationships.
“The people itself constitutes a
subject. And the church is the people of God on the journey through history,
with joys and sorrows. Thinking with the church, therefore, is my way of being
a part of this people. And all the faithful, considered as a whole, are
infallible in matters of belief, and the people display this infallibilitas in credendo, this infallibility in
believing, through a supernatural sense of the faith of all the people walking
together. This is what I understand today as the ‘thinking with the church’ of
which St. Ignatius speaks. When the dialogue among the people and the bishops
and the pope goes down this road and is genuine, then it is assisted by the
Holy Spirit. So this thinking with the church does not concern theologians
only.
“This is how it is with Mary: If you
want to know who she is, you ask theologians; if you want to know how to love
her, you have to ask the people. In turn, Mary loved Jesus with the heart of
the people, as we read in the Magnificat. We should not even think,
therefore, that ‘thinking with the church’ means only thinking with the
hierarchy of the church.”
After a brief pause, Pope Francis
emphasizes the following point, in order to avoid misunderstandings: “And, of
course, we must be very careful not to think that this infallibilitas of all the faithful I am talking
about in the light of Vatican II is a form of populism. No; it is the
experience of ‘holy mother the hierarchical church,’ as St. Ignatius called it,
the church as the people of God, pastors and people together. The church is the
totality of God’s people.
“I see the sanctity of God’s people,
this daily sanctity,” the pope continues. “There is a ‘holy middle class,’
which we can all be part of, the holiness Malègue wrote about.” The pope is
referring to Joseph Malègue, a French writer (1876–1940), particularly to the
unfinished trilogy Black Stones: The Middle
Classes of Salvation.
“I see the holiness,” the pope
continues, “in the patience of the people of God: a woman who is raising
children, a man who works to bring home the bread, the sick, the elderly
priests who have so many wounds but have a smile on their faces because they
served the Lord, the sisters who work hard and live a hidden sanctity. This is
for me the common sanctity. I often associate sanctity with patience: not only
patience as hypomoné [the New Testament
Greek word], taking charge of the events and circumstances of life, but also as
a constancy in going forward, day by day. This is the sanctity of the militant
church also mentioned by St. Ignatius. This was the sanctity of my parents: my
dad, my mom, my grandmother Rosa who loved me so much. In my breviary I have
the last will of my grandmother Rosa, and I read it often. For me it is like a
prayer. She is a saint who has suffered so much, also spiritually, and yet
always went forward with courage.
“This
church with which we should be thinking is the home of all, not a small chapel
that can hold only a small group of selected people. We must not reduce the
bosom of the universal church to a nest protecting our mediocrity. And the
church is Mother; the church is fruitful. It must be. You see, when I perceive
negative behavior in ministers of the church or in consecrated men or women,
the first thing that comes to mind is: ‘Here’s an unfruitful bachelor’ or
‘Here’s a spinster.’ They are neither fathers nor mothers, in the sense that
they have not been able to give spiritual life. Instead, for example, when I
read the life of the Salesian missionaries who went to Patagonia, I read a
story of the fullness of life, of fruitfulness.
“Another
example from recent days that I saw got the attention of newspapers: the phone
call I made to a young man who wrote me a letter. I called him because that
letter was so beautiful, so simple. For me this was an act of generativity. I
realized that he was a young man who is growing, that he saw in me a father, and
that the letter tells something of his life to that father. The father cannot
say, ‘I do not care.’ This type of fruitfulness is so good for me.”
Young Churches and Ancient Churches
Remaining
with the subject of the church, I ask the pope a question in light of the
recent World Youth Day. This great event has turned the spotlight on young
people, but also on those “spiritual lungs” that are the Catholic churches
founded in historically recent times. “What,” I ask, “are your hopes for the
universal church that come from these churches?”
The
pope replies: “The young Catholic churches, as they grow, develop a synthesis
of faith, culture and life, and so it is a synthesis different from the one
developed by the ancient churches. For me, the relationship between the ancient
Catholic churches and the young ones is similar to the relationship between
young and elderly people in a society. They build the future, the young ones
with their strength and the others with their wisdom. You always run some
risks, of course. The younger churches are likely to feel self-sufficient; the
ancient ones are likely to want to impose on the younger churches their
cultural models. But we build the future together.”
The Church as Field Hospital
Pope
Benedict XVI, in announcing his resignation, said that the contemporary world
is subject to rapid change and is grappling with issues of great importance for
the life of faith. Dealing with these issues requires strength of body and
soul, Pope Benedict said. I ask Pope Francis: “What does the church need most
at this historic moment? Do we need reforms? What are your wishes for the
church in the coming years? What kind of church do you dream of?”
Pope
Francis begins by showing great affection and immense respect for his
predecessor: “Pope Benedict has done an act of holiness, greatness, humility.
He is a man of God.
“I see clearly,” the pope continues,
“that the thing the church needs most today is the ability to heal
wounds and to warm the hearts of the faithful; it needs nearness, proximity. I
see the church as a field hospital after battle. It is useless to
ask a seriously injured person if he has high cholesterol and about the level
of his blood sugars! You have to heal his wounds. Then we can talk about
everything else. Heal the wounds, heal the wounds.... And you have to start
from the ground up.
“The
church sometimes has locked itself up in small things, in small-minded rules.
The most important thing is the first proclamation: Jesus Christ has saved you.
And the ministers of the church must be ministers of mercy above all. The
confessor, for example, is always in danger of being either too much of a
rigorist or too lax. Neither is merciful, because neither of them really takes
responsibility for the person. The rigorist washes his hands so that he leaves
it to the commandment. The loose minister washes his hands by simply saying,
‘This is not a sin’ or something like that. In pastoral ministry we must
accompany people, and we must heal their wounds.
“How
are we treating the people of God? I dream of a church that is a mother and
shepherdess. The church’s ministers must be merciful, take responsibility for
the people and accompany them like the good Samaritan, who washes, cleans and
raises up his neighbor. This is pure Gospel. God is greater than sin. The
structural and organizational reforms are secondary—that is, they come
afterward. The first reform must be the attitude. The ministers of the Gospel
must be people who can warm the hearts of the people, who walk through the dark
night with them, who know how to dialogue and to descend themselves into their
people’s night, into the darkness, but without getting lost. The people of God
want pastors, not clergy acting like bureaucrats or government officials. The
bishops, particularly, must be able to support the movements of God among their
people with patience, so that no one is left behind. But they must also be able
to accompany the flock that has a flair for finding new paths.
“Instead
of being just a church that welcomes and receives by keeping the doors open,
let us try also to be a church that finds new roads, that is able to step
outside itself and go to those who do not attend Mass, to those who have quit
or are indifferent. The ones who quit sometimes do it for reasons that, if
properly understood and assessed, can lead to a return. But that takes audacity
and courage.”
I
mention to Pope Francis that there are Christians who live in situations that
are irregular for the church or in complex situations that represent open
wounds. I mention the divorced and remarried, same-sex couples and other difficult
situations. What kind of pastoral work can we do in these cases? What kinds of
tools can we use?
“We
need to proclaim the Gospel on every street corner,” the pope says, “preaching
the good news of the kingdom and healing, even with our preaching, every kind
of disease and wound. In Buenos Aires I used to receive letters from homosexual
persons who are ‘socially wounded’ because they tell me that they feel like the
church has always condemned them. But the church does not want to do this.
During the return flight from Rio de Janeiro I said that if a homosexual person
is of good will and is in search of God, I am no one to judge. By saying this,
I said what the catechism says. Religion has the right to express its opinion
in the service of the people, but God in creation has set us free: it is not
possible to interfere spiritually in the life of a person.
”A person once asked me, in a provocative
manner, if I approved of homosexuality. I replied with another question: ‘Tell
me: when God looks at a gay person, does he endorse the existence of this
person with love, or reject and condemn this person?’ We must always consider
the person. Here
we enter into the mystery of the human being. In life, God accompanies persons,
and we must accompany them, starting from their situation. It is necessary to
accompany them with mercy. When that happens, the Holy Spirit inspires the
priest to say the right thing.
“This
is also the great benefit of confession as a sacrament: evaluating case by case
and discerning what is the best thing to do for a person who seeks God and
grace. The confessional is not a torture chamber, but the place in which the
Lord’s mercy motivates us to do better. I also consider the situation of a
woman with a failed marriage in her past and who also had an abortion. Then
this woman remarries, and she is now happy and has five children. That abortion
in her past weighs heavily on her conscience and she sincerely regrets it. She
would like to move forward in her Christian life. What is the confessor to do?
“We
cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage and the use of
contraceptive methods. This is not possible. I have not spoken much about these
things, and I was reprimanded for that. But when we speak about these issues,
we have to talk about them in a context. The teaching of the church, for that
matter, is clear and I am a son of the church, but it is not necessary to talk
about these issues all the time.
“The dogmatic and moral
teachings of the church are not all equivalent. The church’s pastoral ministry
cannot be obsessed with the transmission of a disjointed multitude of doctrines
to be imposed insistently. Proclamation in a missionary style
focuses on the essentials, on the necessary things: this is also what
fascinates and attracts more, what makes the heart burn, as it did for the
disciples at Emmaus. We have to find a new balance; otherwise even the moral
edifice of the church is likely to fall like a house of cards, losing the
freshness and fragrance of the Gospel. The proposal of the Gospel must be more
simple, profound, radiant. It is from this proposition that the moral
consequences then flow.
“I
say this also thinking about the preaching and content of our preaching. A
beautiful homily, a genuine sermon must begin with the first proclamation, with
the proclamation of salvation. There is nothing more solid, deep and sure than
this proclamation. Then you have to do catechesis. Then you can draw even a
moral consequence. But the proclamation of the saving love of God comes before
moral and religious imperatives. Today sometimes it seems that the opposite
order is prevailing. The homily is the touchstone to measure the pastor’s
proximity and ability to meet his people, because those who preach must
recognize the heart of their community and must be able to see where the desire
for God is lively and ardent. The message of the Gospel, therefore, is not to
be reduced to some aspects that, although relevant, on their own do not show
the heart of the message of Jesus Christ.”
A Religious Order Pope
Pope
Francis is the first pontiff from a religious order since the Camaldolese monk
Gregory XVI, who was elected in 1831. I ask: “What is the specific place of
religious men and women in the church of today?”
“Religious
men and women are prophets,” says the pope. “They are those who have chosen a
following of Jesus that imitates his life in obedience to the Father, poverty,
community life and chastity. In this sense, the vows cannot end up being
caricatures; otherwise, for example, community life becomes hell, and chastity
becomes a way of life for unfruitful bachelors. The vow of chastity must be a
vow of fruitfulness. In the church, the religious are called to be prophets in
particular by demonstrating how Jesus lived on this earth, and to proclaim how
the kingdom of God will be in its perfection. A religious must never give up
prophecy. This does not mean opposing the hierarchical part of the church,
although the prophetic function and the hierarchical structure do not coincide.
I am talking about a proposal that is always positive, but it should not cause
timidity. Let us think about what so many great saints, monks and religious men
and women have done, from St. Anthony the Abbot onward. Being prophets may sometimes
imply making waves. I do not know how to put it.... Prophecy makes noise,
uproar, some say ‘a mess.’ But in reality, the charism of religious people is
like yeast: prophecy announces the spirit of the Gospel.”
The Roman Curia
I
ask the pope what he thinks of the dicasteries of the Roman Curia, the various
departments that assist the pope in his mission.
“The dicasteries of the Roman Curia are
at the service of the pope and the bishops,” he says. “They must help both the
particular churches and the bishops’ conferences. They are instruments of help.
In some cases, however, when they are not functioning well, they run the risk
of becoming institutions of censorship. It is amazing to see the
denunciations for lack of orthodoxy that come to Rome. I think the cases should
be investigated by the local bishops’ conferences, which can get valuable
assistance from Rome. These cases, in fact, are much better dealt with locally. The
Roman congregations are mediators; they are not middlemen or managers.”
On
June 29, during the ceremony of the blessing and imposition of the pallium on
34 metropolitan archbishops, Pope Francis spoke about “the path of
collegiality” as the road that can lead the church to “grow in harmony with the
service of primacy.” So I ask: “How can we reconcile in harmony Petrine primacy
and collegiality? Which roads are feasible also from an ecumenical
perspective?”
The
pope responds, “We must walk together: the people, the bishops and the pope.
Synodality should be lived at various levels. Maybe it is time to change the
methods of the Synod of Bishops, because it seems to me that the current method
is not dynamic. This will also have ecumenical value, especially with our
Orthodox brethren. From them we can learn more about the meaning of episcopal
collegiality and the tradition of synodality. The joint effort of reflection,
looking at how the church was governed in the early centuries, before the
breakup between East and West, will bear fruit in due time. In ecumenical
relations it is important not only to know each other better, but also to
recognize what the Spirit has sown in the other as a gift for us. I want to
continue the discussion that was begun in 2007 by the joint [Catholic–Orthodox]
commission on how to exercise the Petrine primacy, which led to the signing of
the Ravenna Document. We must continue on this path.”
I
ask how Pope Francis envisions the future unity of the church in light of this
response. He answers: “We must walk united with our differences: there is no
other way to become one. This is the way of Jesus.”
Women in the Life of the Church
And
what about the role of women in the church? The pope has made reference to
this issue on several occasions. He took up the matter during the return trip
from Rio de Janeiro, claiming that the church still lacks a profound theology
of women. I ask: “What should be the role of women in the church? How do we
make their role more visible today?”
He answers: “I am wary of a solution
that can be reduced to a kind of ‘female machismo,’ because a
woman has a different make-up than a man. But what I hear about the role of
women is often inspired by an ideology of machismo. Women are
asking deep questions that must be addressed. The church cannot be herself
without the woman and her role. The woman is essential for the church. Mary, a
woman, is more important than the bishops. I say this because we must not
confuse the function with the dignity. We must therefore investigate
further the role of women in the church. We have to work harder to
develop a profound theology of the woman. Only by making this step will it be
possible to better reflect on their function within the church. The feminine
genius is needed wherever we make important decisions. The challenge today is
this: to think about the specific place of women also in those places where the
authority of the church is exercised for various areas of the church.”
The Second Vatican Council
“What
did the Second Vatican Council accomplish?” I ask.
“Vatican II was a re-reading of the
Gospel in light of contemporary culture,” says the pope. “Vatican II produced a
renewal movement that simply comes from the same Gospel. Its fruits are
enormous. Just recall the liturgy. The work of liturgical reform has been a
service to the people as a re-reading of the Gospel from a concrete historical
situation. Yes, there are hermeneutics of continuity and discontinuity, but one
thing is clear: the dynamic of reading the Gospel, actualizing its message for
today—which was typical of Vatican II—is absolutely irreversible. Then there
are particular issues, like the liturgy according to the Vetus Ordo. I think the decision of Pope Benedict [his
decision of July 7, 2007, to allow a wider use of the Tridentine Mass] was
prudent and motivated by the desire to help people who have this sensitivity.
What is worrying, though, is the risk of the ideologization of the Vetus Ordo, its exploitation.”
To Seek and Find God in All Things
At
the World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro, Pope Francis repeatedly declared: “God
is real. He manifests himself today. God is everywhere.” These are phrases that
echo the Ignatian expression “to seek and find God in all things.” So I ask the
pope: “How do you seek and find God in all things?”
“What
I said in Rio referred to the time in which we seek God,” he answers. “In fact,
there is a temptation to seek God in the past or in a possible future. God is
certainly in the past because we can see the footprints. And God is also in the
future as a promise. But the ‘concrete’ God, so to speak, is today. For this
reason, complaining never helps us find God. The complaints of today about how
‘barbaric’ the world is—these complaints sometimes end up giving birth within
the church to desires to establish order in the sense of pure conservation, as
a defense. No: God is to be encountered in the world of today.
“God
manifests himself in historical revelation, in history. Time initiates
processes, and space crystallizes them. God is in history, in the processes.
“We
must not focus on occupying the spaces where power is exercised, but rather on
starting long-run historical processes. We must initiate processes rather than
occupy spaces. God manifests himself in time and is present in the processes of
history. This gives priority to actions that give birth to new historical
dynamics. And it requires patience, waiting.
“Finding God in all things is not an
‘empirical eureka.’ When we desire to
encounter God, we would like to verify him immediately by an empirical method.
But you cannot meet God this way. God is found in the gentle breeze perceived
by Elijah. The senses that find God are the ones St. Ignatius called spiritual
senses. Ignatius asks us to open our spiritual sensitivity to encounter God
beyond a purely empirical approach. A contemplative attitude is necessary: it
is the feeling that you are moving along the good path of understanding and
affection toward things and situations. Profound peace, spiritual consolation,
love of God and love of all things in God—this is the sign that you are on this
right path.”
Certitude and Mistakes
I ask, “So if the encounter with God is
not an ‘empirical eureka,’ and if it is a journey
that sees with the eyes of history, then we can also make mistakes?”
The
pope replies: “Yes, in this quest to seek and find God in all things there is
still an area of uncertainty. There must be. If a person says that he met God
with total certainty and is not touched by a margin of uncertainty, then this
is not good. For me, this is an important key. If one has the answers to all
the questions—that is the proof that God is not with him. It means that he is a
false prophet using religion for himself. The great leaders of the people of
God, like Moses, have always left room for doubt. You must leave room for the
Lord, not for our certainties; we must be humble. Uncertainty is in every true
discernment that is open to finding confirmation in spiritual consolation.
“The
risk in seeking and finding God in all things, then, is the willingness to
explain too much, to say with human certainty and arrogance: ‘God is here.’ We
will find only a god that fits our measure. The correct attitude is that of St.
Augustine: seek God to find him, and find God to keep searching for God
forever. Often we seek as if we were blind, as one often reads in the Bible.
And this is the experience of the great fathers of the faith, who are our
models. We have to re-read the Letter to the Hebrews, Chapter 11. Abraham
leaves his home without knowing where he was going, by faith. All of our
ancestors in the faith died seeing the good that was promised, but from a
distance.... Our life is not given to us like an opera libretto, in which all
is written down; but it means going, walking, doing, searching, seeing.... We
must enter into the adventure of the quest for meeting God; we must let God
search and encounter us.
“Because
God is first; God is always first and makes the first move. God is a bit like
the almond flower of your Sicily, Antonio, which always blooms first. We read
it in the Prophets. God is encountered walking, along the path. At this
juncture, someone might say that this is relativism. Is it relativism? Yes, if
it is misunderstood as a kind of indistinct pantheism. It is not relativism if
it is understood in the biblical sense, that God is always a surprise, so you
never know where and how you will find him. You are not setting the time and
place of the encounter with him. You must, therefore, discern the encounter.
Discernment is essential.
“If the Christian is a
restorationist, a legalist, if he wants everything clear and safe, then he will
find nothing. Tradition and memory of the past must help us to have
the courage to open up new areas to God. Those who today always look for
disciplinarian solutions, those who long for an exaggerated doctrinal
‘security,’ those who stubbornly try to recover a past that no longer exists—they
have a static and inward-directed view of things. In this way, faith becomes an
ideology among other ideologies. I have a dogmatic certainty: God is in every
person’s life. God is in everyone’s life. Even if the life of a person has been
a disaster, even if it is destroyed by vices, drugs or anything else—God is in
this person’s life. You can, you must try to seek God in every human life.
Although the life of a person is a land full of thorns and weeds, there is
always a space in which the good seed can grow. You have to trust God.”
Must We Be Optimistic?
The
pope’s words remind me of some of his past reflections, in which as a cardinal
he wrote that God is already living in the city, in the midst of all and united
to each. It is another way, in my opinion, to say what St. Ignatius wrote in
the Spiritual Exercises, that God “labors and works” in our world. So I ask:
“Do we have to be optimistic? What are the signs of hope in today’s world? How
can I be optimistic in a world in crisis?”
“I do not like to use the word optimism because that is about a psychological
attitude,” the pope says. “I like to use the word hope instead, according to what we read in the
Letter to the Hebrews, Chapter 11, that I mentioned before. The fathers of the
faith kept walking, facing difficulties. And hope does not disappoint, as we
read in the Letter to the Romans. Think instead of the first riddle of
Puccini’s opera ‘Turandot,’” the pope suggests.
At
that moment I recalled more or less by heart the verses of the riddle of the
princess in that opera, to which the solution is hope: “In the gloomy night
flies an iridescent ghost./ It rises and opens its wings/ on the infinite black
humanity./ The whole world invokes it/ and the whole world implores it./ But
the ghost disappears with the dawn/ to be reborn in the heart./ And every night
it is born/ and every day it dies!”
“See,”
says Pope Francis, “Christian hope is not a ghost and it does not deceive. It
is a theological virtue and therefore, ultimately, a gift from God that cannot
be reduced to optimism, which is only human. God does not mislead hope; God
cannot deny himself. God is all promise.”
Art and Creativity
I
am struck by the reference the pope just made to Puccini’s “Turandot” while
speaking of the mystery of hope. I would like to understand better his artistic
and literary references. I remind him that in 2006 he said that great artists
know how to present the tragic and painful realities of life with beauty. So I
ask who are the artists and writers he prefers, and if they have something in
common.
“I
have really loved a diverse array of authors. I love very much Dostoevsky and
Hölderlin. I remember Hölderlin for that poem written for the birthday of his
grandmother that is very beautiful and was spiritually very enriching for me.
The poem ends with the verse, ‘May the man hold fast to what the child has
promised.’ I was also impressed because I loved my grandmother Rosa, and in
that poem Hölderlin compares his grandmother to the Virgin Mary, who gave birth
to Jesus, the friend of the earth who did not consider anybody a foreigner.
“I have read The Betrothed, by Alessandro Manzoni, three times,
and I have it now on my table because I want to read it again. Manzoni gave me
so much. When I was a child, my grandmother taught me by heart the beginning
of The Betrothed: ‘That branch of Lake Como that turns off
to the south between two unbroken chains of mountains....’ I also liked Gerard
Manley Hopkins very much.
“Among
the great painters, I admire Caravaggio; his paintings speak to me. But also
Chagall, with his ‘White Crucifixion.’ Among musicians I love Mozart, of
course. The ‘Et incarnatus est’ from his Mass in C minor is matchless; it lifts
you to God! I love Mozart performed by Clara Haskil. Mozart fulfills me. But I
cannot think about his music; I have to listen to it. I like listening to
Beethoven, but in a Promethean way, and the most Promethean interpreter for me
is Furtwängler. And then Bach’s Passions. The piece by Bach that I love so much
is the ‘Erbarme Dich,’ the tears of Peter in the ‘St. Matthew Passion.’
Sublime. Then, at a different level, not intimate in the same way, I love
Wagner. I like to listen to him, but not all the time. The performance of Wagner’s
‘Ring’ by Furtwängler at La Scala in Milan in 1950 is for me the best. But also
the ‘Parsifal’ by Knappertsbusch in 1962.
“We
should also talk about the cinema. ‘La Strada,’ by Fellini, is the movie that
perhaps I loved the most. I identify with this movie, in which there is an
implicit reference to St. Francis. I also believe that I watched all of the
Italian movies with Anna Magnani and Aldo Fabrizi when I was between 10 and 12
years old. Another film that I loved is ‘Rome, Open City.’ I owe my film
culture especially to my parents who used to take us to the movies quite often.
“Anyway,
in general I love tragic artists, especially classical ones. There is a nice
definition that Cervantes puts on the lips of the bachelor Carrasco to praise
the story of Don Quixote: ‘Children have it in their hands, young people read
it, adults understand it, the elderly praise it.’ For me this can be a good
definition of the classics.”
I
ask the pope about teaching literature to his secondary school students.
“It was a bit risky,” he answers. “I
had to make sure that my students read El Cid. But the boys
did not like it. They wanted to read Garcia Lorca. Then I decided that they
would study El Cid at home and that in
class I would teach the authors the boys liked the most. Of course, young
people wanted to read more ‘racy’ literary works, like the contemporary La Casada Infiel or classics like La Celestina, by Fernando de Rojas. But by reading
these things they acquired a taste in literature, poetry, and we went on to
other authors. And that was for me a great experience. I completed the program,
but in an unstructured way—that is, not ordered according to what we expected
in the beginning, but in an order that came naturally by reading these authors.
And this mode befitted me: I did not like to have a rigid schedule, but rather
I liked to know where we had to go with the readings, with a rough sense of
where we were headed. Then I also started to get them to write. In the end I
decided to send Borges two stories written by my boys. I knew his secretary,
who had been my piano teacher. And Borges liked those stories very much. And
then he set out to write the introduction to a collection of these writings.”
“Then,
Holy Father, creativity is important for the life of a person?” I ask. He
laughs and replies: “For a Jesuit it is extremely important! A Jesuit must be
creative.”
Frontiers and Laboratories
During
a visit by the fathers and staff of La Civiltà Cattolica, the pope had spoken
about the importance of the triad “dialogue, discernment, frontier.” And he
insisted particularly on the last point, citing Paul VI and what he had said in
a famous speech about the Jesuits: “Wherever in the church—even in the most
difficult and extreme fields, in the crossroads of ideologies, in the social
trenches—there has been and is now conversation between the deepest desires of
human beings and the perennial message of the Gospel, Jesuits have been and are
there.” I ask Pope Francis what should be the priorities of journals published
by the Society of Jesus.
“The three key words that I commended
to La Civiltà Cattolica can be extended to all the journals of the Society,
perhaps with different emphases according to their natures and their
objectives. When I insist on the frontier, I am referring in a particular way
to the need for those who work in the world of culture to be inserted into the
context in which they operate and on which they reflect. There is always the
lurking danger of living in a laboratory. Ours is not a ‘lab faith,’ but
a ‘journey faith,’ a historical faith. God has revealed himself as
history, not as a compendium of abstract truths. I am afraid of laboratories
because in the laboratory you take the problems and then you bring them home to
tame them, to paint them, out of their context. You cannot bring home the
frontier, but you have to live on the border and be audacious.”
I
ask for examples from his personal experience.
“When it comes to social issues, it is
one thing to have a meeting to study the problem of drugs in a slum neighborhood
and quite another thing to go there, live there and understand the problem from
the inside and study it. There is a brilliant letter by Father Arrupe to the
Centers for Social Research and Action on poverty, in which he says clearly
that one cannot speak of poverty if one does not experience poverty, with a
direct connection to the places in which there is poverty. The word insertion is dangerous because some religious have
taken it as a fad, and disasters have occurred because of a lack of discernment.
But it is truly important.”
“The
frontiers are many. Let us think of the religious sisters living in hospitals.
They live on the frontier. I am alive because of one of them. When I went
through my lung disease at the hospital, the doctor gave me penicillin and
streptomycin in certain doses. The sister who was on duty tripled my doses
because she was daringly astute; she knew what to do because she was with ill
people all day. The doctor, who really was a good one, lived in his laboratory;
the sister lived on the frontier and was in dialogue with it every day.
Domesticating the frontier means just talking from a remote location, locking
yourself up in a laboratory. Laboratories are useful, but reflection for us
must always start from experience.”
Human Self-Understanding
I ask Pope Francis about the enormous
changes occurring in society and the way human beings are reinterpreting
themselves. At this point he gets up and goes to get the breviary from his
desk. It is in Latin, now worn from use. He opens to the Office of Readings for
Friday of the 27th Week in Ordinary Time and reads me a passage from the Commonitorium Primum of St. Vincent of Lerins:
“Even the dogma of the Christian religion must follow these laws, consolidating
over the years, developing over time, deepening with age.”
The pope comments: “St. Vincent of
Lerins makes a comparison between the biological development of man and the
transmission from one era to another of the deposit of faith, which grows and
is strengthened with time. Here, human self-understanding changes with time and
so also human consciousness deepens. Let us think of when slavery was accepted
or the death penalty was allowed without any problem. So we grow in the
understanding of the truth. Exegetes and theologians help the church to mature
in her own judgment. Even the other sciences and their development help the
church in its growth in understanding. There are ecclesiastical rules and precepts
that were once effective, but now they have lost value or meaning. The view of the church’s
teaching as a monolith to defend without nuance or different understandings is
wrong.
“After
all, in every age of history, humans try to understand and express themselves
better. So human beings in time change the way they perceive themselves. It’s
one thing for a man who expresses himself by carving the ‘Winged Victory of
Samothrace,’ yet another for Caravaggio, Chagall and yet another still for
DalÃ. Even the forms for expressing truth can be multiform, and this is indeed
necessary for the transmission of the Gospel in its timeless meaning.
“Humans
are in search of themselves, and, of course, in this search they can also make
mistakes. The church has experienced times of brilliance, like that of Thomas
Aquinas. But the church has lived also times of decline in its ability to
think. For example, we must not confuse the genius of Thomas Aquinas with the
age of decadent Thomist commentaries. Unfortunately, I studied philosophy from
textbooks that came from decadent or largely bankrupt Thomism. In thinking of
the human being, therefore, the church should strive for genius and not for
decadence.
“When
does a formulation of thought cease to be valid? When it loses sight of the
human or even when it is afraid of the human or deluded about itself. The
deceived thought can be depicted as Ulysses encountering the song of the Siren,
or as Tannhäuser in an orgy surrounded by satyrs and bacchantes, or as
Parsifal, in the second act of Wagner’s opera, in the palace of Klingsor. The
thinking of the church must recover genius and better understand how human
beings understand themselves today, in order to develop and deepen the church’s
teaching.”
Prayer
I
ask Pope Francis about his preferred way to pray.
“I
pray the breviary every morning. I like to pray with the psalms. Then, later, I
celebrate Mass. I pray the Rosary. What I really prefer is adoration in the
evening, even when I get distracted and think of other things, or even fall
asleep praying. In the evening then, between seven and eight o’clock, I stay in
front of the Blessed Sacrament for an hour in adoration. But I pray mentally
even when I am waiting at the dentist or at other times of the day.
“Prayer
for me is always a prayer full of memory, of recollection, even the memory of
my own history or what the Lord has done in his church or in a particular
parish. For me it is the memory of which St. Ignatius speaks in the First Week
of the Exercises in the encounter with the merciful Christ crucified. And I ask
myself: ‘What have I done for Christ? What am I doing for Christ? What should I
do for Christ?’ It is the memory of which Ignatius speaks in the ‘Contemplation
for Experiencing Divine Love,’ when he asks us to recall the gifts we have
received. But above all, I also know that the Lord remembers me. I can forget
about him, but I know that he never, ever forgets me. Memory has a fundamental
role for the heart of a Jesuit: memory of grace, the memory mentioned in
Deuteronomy, the memory of God’s works that are the basis of the covenant
between God and the people. It is this memory that makes me his son and that
makes me a father, too.”
Editor in Chief Matt Malone, S.J., talks about America's interview with the
pope.
Due
to high traffic, we have temporarily turned off logins and comments for this
article. You can comment on our interview with Pope Francis on Twitter or Facebook. We hope to have comments back
up soon.
Antonio Spadaro, S.J., is the editor in
chief of La Civiltà Cattolica, a journal published in Rome by the Society of
Jesus since 1850. The translators were: Massimo Faggioli, Sarah Christopher
Faggioli, Dominic Robinson, S.J., Patrick J. Howell, S.J., and Griffin
Oleynick.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Poking
the Pope
The Holy Father’s interview published today is the first time
we’ve had a chance for an in depth look at the man. One of the frustrating
things about his papacy so far is that it has been big on dramatic gestures and
small on content. There’s not anything wrong with that. He clearly prefers the
off the cuff remark and the spontaneous homily to the careful, well thought out
theological treatise. It is also true that he has the style of a prophet, and
prophets are good at preaching through dramatic gestures and actions as well as
words.
His interview reveals a simple man of the poor–a compassionate and
humble man who has people as the heart of his concern. He wishes for a church
that is outgoing, creative and risk taking. He wants a gospel that is lived in
a compassionate, forgiving and Christ-like manner. He pushes against a
Catholicism that is legalistic, puritanical and condemnatory. He wants a church
that reaches out to the poor, the rejected and the forgotten. He wants to show
a church that loves the sinner.
All this is well and good, but I have some worries. Every pope is
both empowered and limited by his own history and culture. Pope Francis is from
a generation and a culture which is Catholic. For the most part everyone is
Catholic. They understand the basics of Christian morality and the fundamentals
of the Christian story and the basic elements of the Catholic faith. Too often,
however, that Catholic culture was impeded by a Church that had become overly
clericalized, legalistic, condemnatory and hide bound.
Francis’ message to that kind of Catholic culture and that kind of
Catholic Church is sharp and necessary. It’s fresh, creative and powerful. He’s
basically saying, “Get out of your churchiness and get into the streets. Be
with the people and share your faith together and bring Christ to those who
have forgotten how to find him in the church.” As such his message is relevant
and vital for the Church in South America and Central America where Catholics
are being wooed away by Evangelicals who do present a vital, relevant and
compassionately involved message.”
Francis’ message of forgiveness, acceptance and embrace of all
works well enough in a Catholic culture where people know they are sinners and
have a basic understanding of confession, reconciliation, forgiveness and
healing. The problem in translating Francis’ message to post-Christian Europe,
Liberal Protestant America and other developed countries is that most of the
population either have no concept of sin in their lives or they deny the idea
completely. Therefore Francis’ message of forgiveness, acceptance and embrace
simply comes across as condoning whatever lifestyle people happen to have
chosen. Catholics might make the distinction between loving the sinner and
hating the sin…non Catholics both don’t and won’t make that distinction.
Consequently, the Pope’s message simply comes across as him being a real nice
guy who doesn’t judge anybody–like everybody else in our relativistic society.
Within his own largely Catholic context the Pope’s message works,
but in our own culture his message is in danger of being interpreted as wishy
washy, mealy mouthed liberal gobbledegook. He is saying to the homosexual
person–”God loves and accepts you and so do I. But you need to sincerely seek
him and turn from your sin.” The secular Westerner simply hears him say, “Hey
man, I’m OK. You’re OK.” He says, “Neither to I condemn you go and sin no more”
and they hear him say, “Neither do I condemn you. Do what you want.”
My point can be made by an illustration from real life. When I was
in El Salvador on a mission trip we celebrated Corpus Christi in the local
village church. Everybody in the town turned out for the procession. We went
from station to station saying prayers and the whole population either actively
participated or they at least looked on and understood what was happening. In
that context the idea that the priest would receive a sinner with compassion
and forgiveness fits. Its a language they all understood. They knew the
church’s teaching on sin. They therefore understood forgiveness. The priest’s
acceptance was all part of the forgiveness he offered. For the priest to reject
and condemn them would also be understood to be a bad thing.
If I had a Eucharistic procession in Greenville, South Carolina
(where less than 4% of the population are Catholic and a good number of the
majority are actually anti-Catholic) nobody would understand what was going on.
In our society the idea that a priest offers forgiveness and reconciliation is
incomprehensible. For that matter that a priest would condemn anyone is also
incomprehensible. They don’t have any idea what a priest is and what he’s for
to start with. For that matter an alarming number of Catholics don’t seem to
know either!
Francis’ language therefore of compassion, forgiveness and
reaching out is dependent on a society that has a Catholic worldview and
vocabulary. Where I live that culture and vocabulary does not exist. If I just
went out wearing my cassock– to the troubled part of town where my parish is
located and tried to reach out to people they would simply think I was a kind
social worker in a dress.
This is not to criticize the essentials of Francis’ message–simply
saying that in other contexts much more is needed than the priest simply being
a nice guy that forgives and accepts everyone. In his culture that action
communicates the love and mercy of God because the people have that as part of
their worldview. Where I live the very basics of the Catholic message need to
be communicated clearly–and that includes some basic communication about sin.
Francis’ call to get out and share the gospel through compassion
and acceptance is vital and necessary, but in some parts of the church a more
explicit explanation and defense of the faith will also be necessary. People
cannot be forgiven unless they ask for forgiveness and they cannot know their
need of forgiveness unless they realize they are sinners and they cannot
realize they are sinners without someone first bringing the message to them.
In other words, there can be no healing if the disease is not
first diagnosed.
UPDATE: K-Lo comments on the Pope’s interview for Fox News here.
Let’s
not just talk about sex -- what Pope Francis really said to the Jesuit
Interviewer
Published September 19,
2013
FoxNews.com
Not everything in the
world is about sex and politics. That message may take the New York Times a few
more homilies and interviews with Pope Francis to understand.
The Catholic Church – or
at least those preachers and teachers who are outspoken on matters concerning
human sexuality, especially when catechetical discussions are turned into
clashes in the public square for political or cultural reasons – is often
accused of being obsessed with sex. But the obsession might just be the
media’s.
Consider, for instance
the wide-ranging interview
given by Pope
Francis that has just been published in several Jesuit publications, including
America magazine here in the United States. It is over
10,000 words. A few paragraphs involve homosexuality and abortion. And yet
homosexuality and abortion were what the New York Times chose to lead their
news report on the interview with.
The interview is Pope
Francis’s first extensive public conversation since becoming pope about his own
vocational call to serve God – for example, we are told that Jorge Mario Bergoglio considered joining the
Dominicans, and why he needs the discipline of the religious life. He further
explains why he as pope has chosen to live at the Vatican’s guest house: His
desire for community. (He explains that the papal apartment is not luxurious,
but it is isolated.)
The interview gives some
context to his daily pleas to the faithful and, as we saw in his letter to the
G-20 and four-hour prayer vigil for peace earlier this month, to every man and
woman in the world. It is reintroducing what some refer to as the project of
the New Evangelization, and with the most inviting, non-jargony language.
The pope is challenging
us all to see what Christ wants for us and our brothers and sisters, each one
of them.
Francis talks about the
Church as a “field hospital after battle.” He talks about the need for the
church “to heal wounds and to warm the hearts of the faithful.” He says: “It is
useless to ask a seriously injured person if he has high cholesterol and about
the level of his blood sugars! You have to heal his wounds. Then we can talk
about everything else. Heal the wounds, heal the wounds.... And you have to
start from the ground up.”
Many people are
interpretating this interview -- along with the interview the pope gave on his
plane ride back to Rome from Rio after praying with some three million youth in
Brazil -- as the pope hitting “reset.”
The metaphor works.
The Church is always
called to renewal; we hit reboot, so to speak, when we pray at night and go to
sleep, and wake up to prayer, exercise, coffee, whatever our routine is. We
move forward, encountering the circumstances of the hour. The Christian does
this with God, aware of his presence. That is what the pope is telling us.
It is often said that
the Church is a hospital for sinners. And that’s how Pope Francis describes
himself: “I am a sinner.” He’s a sinner loved by God, anointed in this most
public way for public service not of his own choosing. Again, this is the life
of the Christian, who is called to discern what exactly it is God wants him to
do. It may not always be what we’d prefer or what makes complete sense to us.
It may, in fact, be a mystery to us, but in our faith, we trust.
When reading his words
about homosexuality and abortion – which are drenched in love and mercy as well
as justice – it is only fair to read them in the full context of what the pope
has to say, representing the Gospel of Christ, the Catechism of the Church, and
his own pastoral interaction with men and women living in the world as it is
today.
There has been much
attention paid to phone calls he has made to men and women who have written to
him, hurt and struggling.
He explains one call in
this interview, to a young man who “is growing,” who saw in the pope a father.
“I cannot say, ‘I do not care.’” So he picks up the phone, open to the needs of
a son, as we must be to every one of our sisters and brothers. And while
speaking in gratitude for the discipline of religious life and in agreement
with what the Church teaches, he also cautions that the church – who he makes
clear includes all its people in faithful union with God – must never get
locked up “in small things, in small-minded rules.”
The mission is the
Gospel of Jesus Christ who became man and suffered humiliation and death for
every man and woman. That must always be clear even as Catholics tell the truth
about what the Church proposes on specific intimate, contentious issues.
The pope is challenging
us all to see what Christ wants for us and our brothers and sisters, each one
of them: It’s exactly what he says in the interview is the reason he wound up a
Jesuit: He wanted “something more.”
“God is to be
encountered in the world of today.” We don’t find God by making him in our own
image. Pope Francis calls on Augustine here: “Seek God to find him, and find
God to keep searching for God forever.”
So, yes, by all means,
let’s have a “reset,” so that God may orientate the life of the Christian and
the life of the Church each day. Catholics must live lives of a hope that does
not deceive. It’s not a political hope, or, as the pope puts it, mere optimism.
It’s a theological virtue. It’s “a gift from God.” It “does not disappoint.”
That’s Gospel truth. And
that’s the message. It’s about more than the headlines will ever tell you. It
simply has to be encountered. And so the pope pleads that hearts might be open
to the alternative lifestyle that has a world leader asking himself daily:
“What have I done for Christ? What am I doing for Christ? What should I do for
Christ?” These are not only questions for a pope. This is the radical
call of Christianity. And that’s the message this son of the Father is
preaching as the Holy Father.
Whatever your politics,
be careful what you read into this. He’s talking to you. He’s talking to me.
He’s reminding himself. The news isn’t that he isn’t “a right-winger,” as he
tells us. It’s that he’s a pastor. He’s a priest, not a politician.
Pope
Francis Focuses on the Bigger Picture With New Interview
COMMENTARY
by JIMMY AKIN 09/20/2013
– CNA/Stephen Driscoll
A new and
extensive interview with Pope Francis is making headlines
around the world.
The New York Times initially headlined its story, “Pope
Bluntly Faults Church’s Focus on Gays and Abortion.”
USA Today declared: “Pope seeks less focus on
abortion, gays, contraception.”
And CBS News proclaimed:
“Pope Francis: Catholic Church must focus beyond ‘small-minded rules.’”
Wow! Did the Pope really
characterize the Church’s teachings on abortion, homosexuality and
contraception as “small-minded rules” that the Church should get beyond?
That’s what you’d think
by scanning the headlines, but the short answer is that the Pope said no such
thing. Once again, this was a case of the secular press hyperventilating and
taking the Pope’s remarks out of context.
Some in the mainstream
media may have even sensed this, for The New York Times quietly
changed its dramatic headline to a more moderate one: “Pope, Criticizing Narrow
Focus, Calls for Church as ‘Home for All.’”
At the center of the
media maelstrom was a 12,000-word interview with Francis arranged by several
Jesuit publications around the world. The publications contributed questions,
and these were put to Pope Francis in August by Jesuit Father Antonio Spardo,
the editor in chief of the Jesuit publication La Civiltà Cattolica.
After the Italian text
was approved — apparently by Pope Francis himself — it was then translated and
published in different languages, including an English version published by the
Jesuit magazine America.
Since we are working
across languages, there could always be problems in the translation, though
none have yet emerged.
In the interview, Pope
Francis discussed a number of subjects. Several of the questions put to him
dealt with his membership in the Jesuit order and how it has affected him and
his approach as the first Jesuit pope.
While these questions
would be of particular interest to a Jesuit audience, they were not the ones
that made headlines.
He has quite a number of
very interesting things to say in the interview, but, here, let’s look at the
passage that grabbed the most press attention — the one that involved abortion,
homosexuality and contraception.
This discussion is found
in a section where Pope Francis was asked what he thinks the Church most needs
at this moment in history.
He responded by saying
that what the Church most needs now is the ability to heal wounds, comparing it
to a field hospital after a battle. In such a situation, he said, seriously
injured patients should not be asked about their cholesterol or blood sugar.
Their urgent wounds need to be healed, and then the lesser matters can be
discussed.
He then elaborated on an
approach that has been apparent in his ministry as pope, stating that the most
important thing that the Church needs to communicate is salvation through Jesus
Christ. This proclamation of Jesus Christ is the Church’s central message, and
people must not lose sight of it.
It is the message of
Jesus, the Holy Father said, that “fascinates and attracts more, what makes the
heart burn, as it did for the disciples at Emmaus.”
After people have
responded to this message, after they have begun to draw closer to Christ, the
issues of how we must reform our lives must be discussed. “It is from this
proposition [of salvation in Christ] that the moral consequences then flow,”
the Pope said.
These moral consequences
include the Church’s teaching on abortion, homosexuality and contraception.
Pope Francis accepts the Church’s teachings and said that they need to be
discussed in context of the larger message of salvation through Christ.
He acknowledged that he
has been criticized for not speaking about them much, but his view is that,
“when we speak about these issues, we have to talk about them in context. The
teaching of the Church, for that matter, is clear — and I am a son of the
Church — but it is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time.”
Pope Francis thus
expresses a concern that the Church’s larger message is at risk of being
overshadowed by important but still lesser issues.
In his way, he is
fighting the stereotypes and narratives that the secular media wants to impose
on the Church.
In our day, any time a
pope says something on these subjects it is easy for the media to paint the
Church as a stodgy, outdated institution that is merely anti-abortion,
anti-homosexual or anti-contraception.
But, while the Church
upholds the Christian vision on each of these topics, they are not its core
message. Jesus Christ is — and Pope Francis seems determined to fight the
stereotypes and media narratives by starving them of oxygen and returning the
central focus to the proclamation of Jesus Christ and to the love and mercy of
God.
Once this central
message has been seen and appreciated by individuals, so that they are drawn to
God and to Christ, the other issues can be discussed in due time.
In the interview, he
comments in particular on the role of confessors, stating that they must
neither be laxists who claim that sins aren’t sins nor rigorists who emphasize
the commandments without taking note of the grace and mercy that God gives us
to help us keep them and to forgive us when we have failed.
Instead, he indicates,
they must be ministers of God’s mercy who lead the faithful along the path of
reforming their lives and growing closer to God.
Pope Francis’ strategy
of focusing on the Church’s central message of salvation in Christ, while not
devoting the expected amount of attention to “culture war” issues — like
abortion, homosexuality and contraception — is a risky one.
It is not an approach
that was employed by his immediate predecessors, John Paul II and Benedict XVI,
but times and circumstances change, and it is his judgment that a
back-to-basics approach is needed, rather than a continued focus on the moral
flashpoints of contemporary culture.
At the same time, this
approach can — and in many parts of the media, has — create the impression that
he doesn’t care about these lesser issues.
Time will tell whether
this “fight the stereotypes, go with the central message” approach will lead to
the results he desires, but it is clear that he is focusing on a grand strategy
rather than fighting particular, tactical battles.
He’s counting on the
idea that the moral issues will be sorted out, in the long term, by a
compelling proclamation of the Church’s central message: Jesus Christ.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Go Home New York Times,
You’re Drunk BY STEVEN D. GREYDANUS
Friday,
September 20, 2013 3:08 PM
"The Times said what?!"
So apparently The New York Times is
so beside itself over Pope Francis' epic interview yesterday,
it can't decide what it wants to say
about it.
In fact, in less than 24 hours, it seems there've been at least
three different headlines for the
same story: an inflammatory headline, a more moderate one, and then a crazy,
go-for-broke moonbat insane headline.
The original headline (still preserved in the article URL) was bad
enough:
Pope Bluntly Faults
Church's Focus on Gays and Abortion
After that, for some reason, in an apparent fit of moderation, a
more accurate headline was substituted:
Pope, Criticizing Narrow
Focus, Calls for Church as 'Home for All'
Well, of course that wouldn't
do. At this writing, the current headline—apparently the one that ran in the
print edition—is more ludicrously over the top than the original:
Pope Says Church Is
'Obsessed' With Gays, Abortion and Birth Control
That’s not all. The lede has changed too. In at least some previous version the story
claimed that the pope said the Church has “grown ‘obsessed’ with a limited agenda and that it should seek a
‘new balance’ to make it more welcoming.”
Now, though, the lede is much more explicit about that “limited
agenda”: The pope now says that the Church has “grown ‘obsessed’ with abortion, gay marriage and contraception, and that
he had chosen not to talk about those issues despite recriminations from
critics.”
Well. Clearly someone’s obsessed
with abortion, gay marriage and contraception. But I don’t think it’s the
Church.
For the record, here is what Pope Francis actually had to say
about obsession in his interview:
The church’s pastoral ministry cannot be obsessed with the
transmission of a disjointed multitude of doctrines to be imposed insistently.
