‘We need more respect and less partisanship’

Last August, Pope Francis gave an extended interview over three sessions to fellow Jesuit Father Antonio Spadaro, editor of Rome’s prestigious Jesuit journal, La Civilta Cattolica. Other Jesuit editors worldwide had requested a similar interview, so they were allowed to participate by sending to Father Spadaro questions of interest. The editors agreed to publish the result in their national publications in several languages, bringing the conversation to many listeners. The pope’s now familiar humility and depth shone through, and many secular media gave the interview global exposure.
One of the most challenging issues I found was the pope’s admission that he has ideological critics. He said, “We cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage and the use of contraceptive methods. That is not possible. I have not spoken much about these things, and I was reprimanded for that.”
Those critics have faulted him for not speaking enough about the famous pelvic issues that preoccupy a certain segment of the church. I thought it cavalier of them to instruct him in his teaching ministry. I could be wrong, but it seemed to me that any Catholic for the last 50 years cannot possibly be unaware of church teaching about these moral matters. Yet this segment feels that even more instruction is called for, and failure to deliver merits reprimand.
Of course, when the tables were turned with the 1968 encyclical of Pope Paul VI, Humanae vitae, which spurned artificial birth control and allowed only natural means, that segment chided those of another persuasion for arguing that there did not seem to be a large enough difference between the two kinds of contraception. This opposite side asked that if there was not much difference between the two methods, why should one be banned?
Parish priests can identify with being lectured at the door of church after Mass that their homilies were too political or else not political enough, or too little or too much concerned with chastity. Gone are the days when “Father said” was the court of highest appeal. That is good because the Holy Spirit speaks wherever and whenever, and even teachers must first learn. No one has a monopoly on the Spirit. By our baptism we all are charged to preach the Gospel, using, as St. Francis said, words when necessary. Nothing less than the ecumenical council, Vatican II, affirmed this, and canon law calls such a council of pope and bishops the highest expression of teaching authority. Yet some ultra-traditionalists reject Vatican II.
The arm wrestling between the church’s two segments distressingly resembles the interparty contention we find in Washington. When it is amicable, as it was between President Reagan and House Speaker Tip O’Neill, the exchange improves the business of government through mutual correction. When it devolves into bickering, we get government shutdown. So in our church, we need more respect and less partisanship.
Pope Francis continued, “If a 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 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.”
Those “disciplinarian solutions” are the temptation of both conservatives and liberals to have high authority endorse their preferences, like a parent of a family issuing an edict in my favor that would end further discussion. The legalists appeal to law, sometimes hoping for a quick authoritarian resolution. But oddly enough, it was with the legalist Pharisees that Jesus had the most trouble. They criticized him for failing to obey the law of Moses the way they did. Yet he replied that an outward fulfilling of law without an interior disposition of the heart was a meaningless sham. Read the 23rd chapter of Matthew if you want to see how the Lord feels about sanctimonious observance of law. Jesus infuriated the scribes and Pharisees for defending law breakers like the woman caught in adultery, or the collaborationist tax collector of his parable who called himself a sinner.
Catholics and Americans find themselves divided. Ideologies reign. There has to be more mutual acceptance, with give and take in genuine discussion. And as I have mentioned before, because these things are so, the Second Amendment must be repealed.