Now almost 18 months into his papacy, we see that Leo...prayerful, slow, cautious, deliberate, steady, serene, irenic...is true to his word: he is continuing the program of Francis. This is a sadness, a disappointment for many of us. We are betrayed in crucial areas of our received Catholic faith. But first, a thumbnail review of five recent papacies (the most recent both dual-pontificates.)
Postwar Stability and Expansion. Pope Pius XII, 1945-58. Especially in the USA, the Church was steady, thriving, confident, expansive; united against the global adversary, atheistic Communism; moving across the globe, especially the global South, in missionary fervor, cultural influence, and aid to the suffering. Time-tested, stable institutions stood serenely as alongside them, in full view, movements of renewal quietly flourished: ecumenism, Scripture, social justice, role of the laity, centrality of religious freedom, acceptance of pluralism, dialogue with Judaism and world religions, and positive engagement with modernity.
Vatican Council Renewal. St. Pope John XXIII and St. Paul VI, 1958-68. Tremendous church change within even greater cultural revolutions.
Confusion and Chaos. St. Paul VI, 1968-78. Widespread catechetical/theological confusion; progressivism takes charge of Catholic academia; loss of vocations; decline in church participation; widespread collapse of institutions. At the same time, lay renewal movements gain in strength.
Restoration. St. John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI, 1978-2013. Grounding of the Council reforms in continuity with tradition. Catholic Catechism. An extraordinary body of papal teaching from both pontiffs. Lay renewal movements continue to surge in influence.
Return of Confusion and Polarization. Pope Francis and Pope Leo XIV, 2013-Today. Impulsive, incoherent campaign to reconcile with theological progressivism and Chinese communism. In this they have betrayed fundamentals of Catholicism.
1. Chinese Church has been abandoned into the hands of the Communist Party. The underground Church, loyal for 80 years to the Pope, has been betrayed. The Party now unilaterally designates bishops and controls them. John Paul and Benedict, knowledgeable about communism, refused to sign such an agreement. This is a disloyalty of enormous proportions. I can recall no comparable abandonment of so many Catholics into the hands of such a hostile enemy. Cardinal Zen stands as a solitary witness against this.
2. Spousal-Sexual Ethos ... centrality of chastity and conjugal fidelity... of John Paul and Benedict, traditional and yet fresh, is renounced in favor of a truce with cultural progressivism, including feminist and LGBTQ militancy.
3. Latin Mass, center of Catholic life for 1500 years and source of inspiration for young families, is dictatorially crushed.
4. Deconstruction of the Episcopacy. Synodality continues to replace bishops' authority with a group-process parliament of endless grievance, introversion, and progressive manipulation. Meanwhile, in important Vatican offices, lay people assume positions of authority and governance traditionally reserved to those in holy orders.
5. Clerical Intrusion into the lay domain of politics. As the laity are clericalized into Church governance, the Vatican assumes a global role as "caliph" responsible for world peace, justice and order. And so, the hierarchy intervenes on contentious, chaotic, prudential and properly lay policy affairs including immigration, borders, war, economy, climate and other. The distinct missions of clergy and laity are convoluted.
6. Just Use of Lethal Force of State to defend the common good and the innocent...in war, police work and capital punishment...as always understood by the Church is replaced by a vague, vacuous pacifism s in denial of the hard realities of evil.
Loyal Catholic Resistance
It is imperative that those of us who know and love our Catholic legacy resist the Francis/Leo hegemony and that we witness to Truth received... always in loyalty, humility, clarity, decisiveness and love.
The clearest resistance to date has come, at least in the USA, from the laity: First Things, EWTN, etc. In the hierarchy we have Zen, Burke, Scola, Mueller, Sarah, and more. The best example of such truthful resistance is the clear, absolute refusal of the entire African episcopacy to cooperate with blessing of homosexual unions. Another encouraging incident: Bishop Barron recently corrected Cardinal Vesco who said we do not want to convert Jewish and Muslim believers. We need more of such virile candor, courage, confrontation and correction from our prelates. We are in fact in a war within the Church, even a holy war on behalf of Revealed Truth handed down to us. We can no longer "make nice" with deference to the Pope and avoidance of conflict. "I have come to bring the sword" is the way Jesus put it.
In Outliers, (2008) Malcolm Gladwell considered the horrible safety record of Korean Airlines in the 1980-90s. Their accident picture was 17 times worse than that of American Airlines despite comparable training, competence and mechanics. The problem was the culture of extreme deference to hierarchy and authority: subordinate pilots would not confront or correct their superiors out of a dysfunctional respect. Their accident picture corrected itself with the introduction of a more direct, confrontational, less hierarchical safety culture. Something like this has to happen with our Church. We need from our bishops virile, vigorous candor and confrontation.
Big Picture
The institutional hierarchy is essential to and constitutive of the Church. But it is not everything. The Church is best understood as the Mystical Body of Christ, the Communion in holiness of saints (militant on earth, suffering in purgatory, triumphant in heaven), as our Mother, as the Bride of Christ.
Christ, in the Holy Spirit, is intimate with his Church in so many ways besides the hierarchy: primarily the prayer and charity of saints, including the humble, anonymous ones; ordinary priestly ministry and parish life; and an infinity of works of mercy, religious life, gatherings in prayer, holy families, and so forth.
I return always to my "Fr. Burke Principle." Fr. John Burke (you recall dear Reader), pastor of my parish from before my birth until when I left at age 18, was rarely seen and when seen was odd. Was it alcohol? Emotional distress? Unknown. But what was clear is that the work of the Church went on smoothly: priests, brothers, sisters, families, school, sacraments, births and deaths. Distress and dysfunction of priest/bishop/pope does not stop the workings of the Holy Spirit.
In my single positive experience with physical therapy I learned that the weak, wounded bone would recover slowly as the adjacent muscles were strengthened by exercise. And so, with the Church: dysfunction in the Vatican and in much of the episcopacy need not discourage us. Our Lord is present to us in so many ways. We open our hearts, minds, and action to the Holy Spirit in our distinctive places and missions. Our Lord will correct the hierarchy in his good time.
Let us pray that Truth, in Love, prevail across the entire Church, especially in the Vatican and the episcopacy!
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