AS I have noted in these posts, one
of the brightest stars on the Catholic front is NYT Times columnist Ross Douthat.
Ross writes of late that full Catholics, those who adhere to the teachings of
the Church, all of them, can maintain their faith vs. modernity “only to the
extent that you separate yourself from the American and Western mainstream,” or
submit to the culture at large. He sees no middle position, which in my mind
describes most Catholics today, cultural “cafeteria” Catholics who attend Mass
when it behooves them, have “issues with Catholic teaching,” and do not live so
as to distinguish themselves all that much from what Ross styles the “mainstream.”
Ross argues that it is in this
present situation that the Holy Father is relevant, as the exhilaration around
his papacy is a reply to Francis’ desire to engage the “lapsed-Catholic,
post-Catholic and non-Catholic world.”
In the Church the Holy Father’s
desire centers around the “new evangelization,” a “new springtime” for
Christianity — nothing new here. I have tried to show in my blog posts that
Francis has focused his message more bellicosely to a world that, for reasons I
discuss in my book having to do with a spiritual war, has not heard the sublime
teachings of his predecessors. Thus, it is a transparent papacy, and one in
which the most serious moral issues of our day—abortion, gay marriage among
them—are put on the back burner (not taken off the stove) in favor of the new
evangelization, the success of which should move the moral issues back to the
front burner.
Ross further notes that noted “Vaticanwatch”
man John Allen Jr. has labeled the Pope a “pope for the Catholic middle,”
(again we are obsessed with using political terms to discuss the Faith) which lies
between the church’s orthodox and the heterodox who wish the
Episcopalianization of the Catholic faith.
I am praying for the Pope in his determination
to be heard by the majority of Catholics today who are the ones the popular
media has given emphasis in their coverage of the Pope (“ finally, a pope who doesn’t harsh our buzz”). As Ross notes, Francis has gotten media responsiveness,
but “wonders whether the culture will simply claim him for its own without
being inspired to actually consider Christianity anew.” Where I take issue with
Ross is in the following:
In the uncertain reaction to Francis
from many conservative Catholics, you can see the fear that the second
possibility is more likely. Their anxiety is not that the new pope is about to
radically change church teaching, since part of being a conservative Catholic
is believing that such a change can’t happen. Rather, they fear that the center
he’s trying to seize will crumble beneath him, because the chasm between the
culture and orthodox faith is simply too immense.
It is not so much “conservative Catholics”
and the “center” as it is those who have been evangelized, catechized and
endeavor to be authentic disciples in the world, accompanied by the flesh and
the Devil, and those Catholics who are sitting on the fence, who do not yet
know the Lord Jesus, and so will be the target of the New Evangelization. As I discuss in my book, many of these Catholics came of age in the 1970s, with its focus
on social justice, liturgical deviance and situation ethics, when bishops
failed to take seriously their jobs as shepherds. The results were a Church
which, until the pontificate of John Paul II failed to be heard by modernity and
largely surrendered to what Ross aptly terms “’Me Decade’ manifestations —
producing tacky liturgy, ugly churches, Jonathan Livingston Seagull [I would
add Kahil Gahbran] theology and ultimately empty pews”.
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