Discontent, Pope Francis, "Making a Mess," and "Synodality"

 "Contentment is the most unpracticed of the virtues."   Josef Pieper (as I recall reading long ago)

I take Pieper here to mean an inner serenity, receptivity, gratitude, sense of abundance. This does not mean a static, inert passivity. Rather, it exists in tension with a holy restlessness: to renounce sin, to come close to God, to alleviate suffering, to overcome injustice, to resist evil, to exult in the Good, the True, the Beautiful and the Glory of God. Such ferocity and zeal flow from a prior and primary Joy.

Consider: a good marriage rests in contentment. The spouses are happy with each other. This does not eliminate tension, disagreements, fights, criticisms, disappointment, struggle and hardship. But such negativity and conflict can be absorbed patiently, if imperfectly, and channeled positively  because of a deeper, stronger satisfaction. An appreciation. A reverence. A gratitude. A delight.

"Discontent" may be the key to the Francis pontificate. 

Fr. James Martin SJ astutely observed that the "synodality" movement is the culmination of Francis remark: "Who am I to judge?" That is accurate. The task of the Bishop of Rome is, of course, precisely to judge what is good and bad, true and false: in belief and action. It has never been his job to judge the heart of any person. No human being can do that. The heart and soul is sacred and impregnable: unavailable to us for evaluation. We cannot even judge the inner value of our own actions: they are complex, mysterious, contradictory and enigmatic. In that sense, "who am I to judge?" is a truism, a tautology, a redundancy.

But there was more to the remark than that. However inchoately, Francis and Martin represent a move away from the objective moral order, from clarity and consistency in norms,  from the intellect and the Logos of Creation as the guide to the will; a movement into emotionalism, an emasculated conscience, a concern for feelings; a movement into pity without toughness; compassion without demands, mercy without truth, wrath or justice. The amorphous, vague, uncertain nature of "synodality" is expressive of its indeterminate, sentimental nature.

But even more revelatory of the purpose and intentions of this papacy is his exhortation to our youth: "Go and make a mess!" That was an extraordinary and significant expression. How could any reasonable adult advise adolescents, in all their instability, to ""make a mess?" But the remark unveils an underlying resentment, a discontent, a repressed anger.

Imagine your teen son is going to Grandma's house and you say to him: "Make a mess!" The comment is ridiculous, unless you are angry at Grandma.

Francis is unhappy with the Church as received; the Church as it actually is; the Church as handed over to him. He is resentful. He is discontent. So he wants to disrupt; to make a mess; to tear down what he sees as dogmatic, rigid, judgmental, reactionary. What does he want in its place? Nothing very clear of defined. But it would involve lots of compassion, listening, acceptance; and elimination of boundaries, laws, certainty and clarity. 

He resents the clergy as superior, arrogant, detached, legalistic. 

He resents the Latin Mass as a rejection of the "Spirit of Vatican II."

He resents the USA and Europe for their inordinate wealth and power. He sustains the Argentinian hatred for "the North." He configures any reluctance to accept refugees from the South as Dives despising Lazarus. He is slow to stand with Ukraine as he prefers to see the invasion as a response to an expansive NATO.

It is said that he has a propensity to use vulgar language. This indicates an underlying disgust, a repugnance, a dissonance.

And so the vaunted "Synod on synodality" is the most amorphous and vague of events. It will be, at best, a waste of much time, energy and resources. It will in large part be a huge pity-party: complaints from the "victim coalitions."  At the same time it will be a conspiracy, a crusade by those most discontent with the Church to change belief and practice on marriage, sexuality, gender, the sacraments, and the nature of the Church. 

We will do well to divert our attention away from this "circus of discontent." 

We do well to content ourselves with the Church as given to us, to delight ourselves with the abiding, sacramental presence of Christ; to exult in the lives of the saints, in heaven and on earth; to be grasped by the Spirit of the Living God; to pour ourselves out recklessly in acts of Mercy; to abide serenely in companionship and contemplation.