Final thoughts on the Rolling Stone feature on Pope Francis…
The
article attempts to show Francis’ break from the supposedly “conservative” Church
of old, in the process remaking Pope Francis as the hero of the liberal left.
It uses the scandals of Vatican finance and sexual abuse, coupled with old
stories about Opus Dei and the Latin
Mass, to fashion Pope Benedict XVI as a “conservative” conniver. In short, Francis
is portrayed as the populist leader of a movement to “liberalize” the Catholic
Church.
Certainly
the article contains a great deal of untruth. Inconvenient facts, like Francis’
theological orthodoxy, are ignored. Rolling Stone draws arbitrary conclusions
from selected illustrations drawn from the Pope’s life. Why would this pop
cultural icon do this?
Easy.
Sexual and social relativists wish to refashion Christianity such that they may
claim Christ, and his vicar, as their supporters, for their social agenda is
more appetizing to people if it complements, rather than competes with, the
enduring Christianity history and tradition. In the language of C.S. Lewis,
Screwtape has no interest in eradicating Christianity if he can sublimate it to
his own purposes. This is a new twist on the traditional view of the Devil’s
greatest trick—it isn’t convincing the world he doesn’t exist, but convincing
the world that Jesus Christ is the champion of his causes.
Well-formed
Catholics in the blogosphere are amply setting down the orthodoxy of Pope
Francis. His work on economics, which has sparked media controversy,
nevertheless is in keeping with Catholic social teaching since at least Leo
XIII. His call for more widespread participation by laity, particularly women,
was a matter close to Benedict XVI’s heart. His expressions of charity toward
those afflicted with same-sex attraction are deep-seated in the Church’s teaching.
For ill-formed Catholics, the media has set the Pope apart from his
predecessors by focusing less on substance than misleading sound-bites.
The
Rolling Stone piece seems to be successfully refashoning Francis’ public image
in the popular culture, which is why it is paramount for the Church (which
includes us!) to use the means of social communication to prevent secular media
from further hijacking the truth, and to give witness to the truth. Catholic
media is important, but a way must also be found to penetrate secular media if
in the end the Church is to be successful in this. This highlights Vatican II’s
call to holiness for us all—the exhortation to live charitably, joyfully, and
boldly in discipleship of Jesus Christ, and commit to the new evangelization.
The
promise of the Gospel is that authentic commitment to the truth—and a refusal
to separate a commitment to social justice from a commitment to orthodoxy and
piety—leads to conversion. What I try to do in these pages, among other things
is to use the pop culture’s new-found fascination with the Holy Father for
reiterating Vatican II’s call to holiness, which necessitates personal
conversion to suffering souls. As the reader may have experienced, one who
lives the Gospel, is, (or soon will be) vulnerable to far more than
pop-culture persecution. But persecution is a part of the Christian mystery.
Fear not. Our Lord has already overcome the pop culture.
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