I picture the purgatory of Pope Francis as being short but intense. Short because everyone has been praying for him. (Even I offered my first Jubilee Plenary for him. Honestly, it was probably less than a full plenary as I retain attachment to sin. But it was not nothing!) Intense because he was himself SO intense. Passionately he loved his Lord, the Church, the poor/suffering/marginalized, and especially those who feel distant from and rejected by the Church. But his 12 year reign left a Church polarized, confused, discouraged. This was not deliberate. His intention: to reform a Church he viewed with contempt as rigid, judgmental, arrogant and condemnatory with the warm, welcoming love of Christ. He succeeded in part. But he was sabotaged by unrecognized resentments, impulsiveness, narcissism, dictatorial compulsions, administrative incompetence, bad choices in personnel, and theological incoherence. Even with many plenary and partial indulgences he has serious purgation and reparation to do. The end product, post purgatory, the masterpiece (Jorge Bergoglio) God intended all along may look a lot like Robert Prevost.
Pope Leo may be Francis 2, new and improved. The same love of the Lord and Church, the same urgent charitable impulse to comfort the poor and suffering and excluded. But he may also be the Not-Francis: steady and reliable, theologically coherent and grounded, low-key and non-histrionic, free of resentment, administratively competent and genuinely welcoming of ALL groups within the Church. The optimal scenario: what Cardinal Dolan wished for, the best of Francis, Benedict and John Paul!
Much like his nemesis, Trump, Francis was flamingly polarizing: you either love him or hate him, strongly. Little in between. Both carry heavy resentment: Trump blatantly, transparently; Francis camouflaged by his preference for the rejected. Prevost seems to be a man of interior peace.
He worked for Francis and his agenda. His first words as pope praised his predecessor and the (TRIGGER ALERT: THE "S" WORD!) "SYNODAL" Church. But it sounded different coming from Leo. Francis spoke about "listening" but he would not listen to those he did not like: Cardinal Zen about the martyred Church in China, or any Latin Mass Participants, or the "dubia" Cardinals, or the wise/holy theologians of the John Paul Institute in the Synod on the Family, or any USA pro-life Evangelical/Catholic "conservatives," or any serious scholar in canon law or dogmatic theology.
Robert Prevost is to the left of me; but I think he is just right for the Church. He can bring peace and communion, draw us together in Christ...because of his balance, his moderation, and the exquisite calm he radiates in style and manner as well as substance. Our divided Church and world needs just such charism. For the last 50 years our society and Church have suffered this painful division: within families and friendships. My friend Tim and others have seen that the choice of name, recalling Leo XIII, brings to mind our legacy of Catholic social teaching (more "liberal" leaning) and the revival of St. Thomas (more "conservative" leaning.) Leo, like Benedict, John Paul and Vatican II, embodies the solidity and the creativity of Catholicism.
My son Paul this week shared an insight from some podcast. A marriage can survive almost everything (addiction, adultery, abuse) with one exception: contempt. When a couple succumbs to contempt there is little or no hope for the marriage. And so with society. And increasingly, in America and the Catholic Church, we are drawn to mutuality in contempt. Trump and Francis embody this. Prevost does not.
A proposed agenda for Leo XIV:
- Remain prayerfully in the peace of Christ, like a branch in the vine, that you may involuntarily radiate it to all.
- Calmly, quietly, confidently, clearly reaffirm the unchanging Catholic ethos: the infinite dignity of every human life, especially the powerless (unborn, elderly, etc.); the fecund intentionality of the spousal act; the masculine nature of the priesthood. Restore the old John Paul II Institute for the Family in Rome. Do away with blessings of gay unions and that entire agenda. Dismiss talk of women priests. You needn't make the Culture War your first priority; but you have to put things back in place.
- Renounce the agreement that hands the Chinese Church over to the communists.
- Reinstate the Latin Mass; encourage its participants; restore the prerogatives of the local bishop in its regard.
- Reconfigure "synodality" as a spirituality of listening and openness at every level of life: ecclesial, familial, social; NOT as a novel bureaucracy, an obsession with conferences, the replacement of the apostolic college by a democratic protocol, a neo-messianic process of progress a la Carl Rogers, Karl Marx, and Charles Darwin. Convene every 2 or 3 years a real synod, of bishops, to know and strengthen each other ("Like iron sharpens iron, a bishop strengthens a bishop".)
- Restore the traditional teaching on capital punishment in the Catechism.
- Reform the Curia and especially the finances. Use your mathematical intellect, American pragmatic managerial competence, steadiness and strength of will to clean house. You may have to diminish, de-institutionalize, go small. You have to pay the pensions of your employees. You may have to sell some cultural prizes like artwork to pay the bills. As once the Vatican lost its political states, so now it may have to lose a network of schools, hospitals, organizations and agencies that served in an earlier era. The works of mercy will be taken over by the laity as the clergy focus (like the Apostles in Acts in delegating to the deacons) on prayer, the Word and the interior life of the Church.
- Encourage our young priests, in their love for Tradition, and invite them to outreach to the suffering.
Come Holy Spirit, upon Pope Leo and our entire Church. Fill us with the Love of Christ!
No comments:
Post a Comment