In the aftermath of the Second Vatican Council, the Catholic Church was torn by disputes about liturgy and morality, disputes that were not confined to theological faculties, but reached into parishes and family homes. Scores of books have been written about the council and its consequences, and I do not propose to add to that literature. I simply want to make the point that in the late 1960s and through the 1970s, the Catholic Church was sorely divided.
The conflict involved irreconcilable interpretations of the council’s mandate. Liberal or “progressive” Catholics believed not only that Vatican II had wrought profound changes in the Church but that the “spirit of Vatican II” would extend the era change far into the future, overthrowing old dogmas and disciplines. Conservative Catholics argued that this liberal vision was a misinterpretation of the council and that the radical changes sweeping through the Church went beyond anything authorized in the documents of the council. A third group, traditionalist Catholics, tacitly agreed with the liberals that the council had made radical changes in Catholic teaching, but they insisted that these changes must be reversed.
Continuing for a generation, this conflict severely strained the unity of the Church. Every tenet of Catholic doctrine was assailed. The liturgy was transformed almost beyond recognition. A clear sense of Catholic identity was lost. Thousands of the faithful, lacking clear guidance, drifted away from the Church. Even among those who remained, the fault lines became increasingly evident. Catholics began to choose their parishes according to the style of the liturgy or the content of the preaching; the differences from parish to parish and from diocese to diocese could make a visitor wonder whether these churches were still united by the same faith.
That sort of turmoil was not entirely new to the Catholic world. In the history of the Church, major councils have frequently been followed by periods of confusion until the new teachings have been absorbed. But Vatican II was the first ecumenical council in the age of modern communications, when every new theological argument was instantaneously disseminated throughout the world. Ordinary Catholics, as well as interested observers outside the Church, could develop their own views about the conciliar debates. Those views, however, were strongly influenced by the secular media, which were nearly unanimous in decreeing that the liberal or “progressive” wing of the Church had the better of the debates.
In Turmoil and Truth, the British Catholic author Philip Trower explains the public perception of the post-conciliar Church with this vivid image:
Six men are pushing a heavily loaded car which has run out of fuel. Three of them, who have been riding in the car, want to push it 20 yards to get it into a lay-by. The other three, who have offered to help, mean to push the car 50 yards and shove it over a cliff followed by the car owner and his two friends. Once the pushing begins and the car starts moving it is probable the car is going to come to rest more than 20 yards from the starting point even if it does not end up at the cliff’s foot.
Now let us imagine what a group of people watching from a nearby hilltop will make of the incident. They will start by assuming that all six men have the same intentions. The car is moving steadily forward. Then they see three of the men detach themselves from the back of the car, run around to the front and try to stop it. Which are the troublemakers? Those surely who are now opposing the process that has been started.
Needless to say, this analogy is imperfect. The Catholic Faith was not “out of gas” before Vatican II, and it would be unfair to imply that everyone calling for radical change was motivated by a desire to destroy the Church. But Trower makes the important point that, like the three men in the car, the Church was on a journey before the battle began, and to understand the battle one must understand that journey.
John Paul II and the Restoration
During the long pontificate of St. John Paul II, the turmoil within the Church slowly subsided. No one could accuse the Polish pontiff of opposing the council’s teachings. He had been an active and influential participant at Vatican II, and his pastoral leadership of the archdiocese of Krakow was widely regarded as a model for the proper implementation of the council’s teachings. Nevertheless, he rejected the excesses that had been promoted by some of the overzealous champions of reform. Thanks also to his enormous popularity and his deserved reputation for personal holiness, he held the confidence of the faithful and was able to steer the universal Church back toward normalcy.
John Paul II faced resistance, to be sure, and a good deal of it came from within the Society of Jesus. In their eye-opening book Passionate Uncertainty: Inside the American Jesuits, Peter McDonough and Eugene Bianchi take a sympathetic look at the progressive Jesuits who were appalled by the Polish pope’s refusal to change Church doctrine, particularly on issues of sexuality. “He’s not one of the worst popes; he’s the worst,” one Jesuit told the authors. “I am appalled by the direction of the present papacy,” said another. “I am scandalized by Rome’s intransigent refusal to re-examine its doctrines regarding gender and sex,” said another. One Jesuit made a shocking statement of disloyalty: “The Church as we know it is dying. I hope and pray that the Society [of Jesus] will help to facilitate this death and resurrection.” Another, in more measured tones, boasted: “The society has not sold its soul to the ‘restoration’ of John Paul II.”
That restoration continued under Benedict XVI, who had been John Paul’s right-hand man. Helping to settle the lingering confusion about the proper interpretation of Vatican II, he explained that Catholic doctrine and discipline should always be seen in continuity with the centuries of the Church’s tradition. The Faith does not change, though over time the Church refines her understanding of truths that have been known from the days of the apostles. Vatican II, Benedict explained, did not, and could not, constitute a break with Catholic tradition. Proposing a “hermeneutic of continuity,” by which the teachings of Vatican II were to be read in the light of the teachings of previous councils and magisterial statements, he rejected the extremism of both the radicals and the traditionalists, who agreed that Vatican II had repudiated previous Church teachings—the former welcoming the rupture and the latter loathing it.
John Paul II and Benedict XVI did not repair all the fissures in the structure of the Church that appeared after Vatican II. Far from it. For ordinary Catholics, the problems persisted at the parish level, where liturgical abuses continued and religious education was shallow. Catholics seeking a reverent liturgy had to shop for a congenial parish, often far from their homes, and parents determined to educate their children in the Faith hunted out the few rigorous parish programs or, more and more often, taught their children at home. Still, these struggling Catholics knew that in parochial conflicts, they could cite recent papal documents, confident that they had the support of the Vatican.
“Irreversible” Change
No longer. Francis has reopened the debate about the continuity of Catholic teaching. His supporters see him as the liberator of the spirit of Vatican II, bringing permanent change to the Church, while his critics protest that the Church cannot alter its fundamental doctrine. So the intramural disputes that split dioceses and parishes and families a generation ago are flaring up once again. Orthodox Catholics who thought they could finally foresee the restoration of reverence and beauty in the liturgy and of serious substance in catechesis see their hard-won gains slipping away. That conflict in itself would be cause for alarm. But there is more.
As the pope’s closest advisers have stated on several occasions, Francis intends not only to change the Church but to lock in the changes. Archbishop Victor Fernández, a fellow Argentine who helped the pontiff draft his first encyclical, remarked in 2015, “You have to realize that he is aiming at reform that is irreversible.”
For Catholics who have weathered two generations of confusion and conflict, clinging to beliefs they hold precious, the prospect of “irreversible change” along the lines suggested by Fernández is horrifying. The unsettling “Francis effect” has left thousands of Catholics constantly anxious, easily rattled by the latest rumors from Rome.
In the spring of 2017, for example, a report circulated that the pope had authorized a Vatican commission to reconsider the teaching of Humanae Vitae, the 1968 encyclical of Paul VI reaffirming the Church’s age-old condemnation of contraception that had touched off the bitterest theological disputes of recent decades. The report was not quite accurate, but the reality was unsettling enough. It was not the pope himself who was reopening the question—at least not directly. The Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family (named after the most eloquent defender of Humanae Vitae) was sponsoring a “study group,” working under the auspices of the recently remodeled Pontifical Academy for Life, to examine the history of the preparation of the encyclical. A pontifical institute would not undertake a reevaluation of a papal encyclical unless the sponsors were confident that the pope would approve. Since the members of the study group were known for their lack of enthusiasm for the Church’s teaching on contraception, veterans of the battles over Humanae Vitae were hardly paranoid in fearing that the ugly controversy could erupt again—this time with the Vatican supporting the critics of constant Catholic teaching.
Far from employing the “hermeneutic of continuity,” Francis has often displayed a dismissive, almost sneering, attitude toward Church leaders of the past. In an address to Jesuit officials in October 2016, he said that the missionary work of the early Jesuits was marred by “a hegemonic conception of Roman centralism.” A Catholic historian, Bronwen Catherine McShea, takes exception to that phrase, which seems to “dismiss, and gratuitously to tarnish the memory of, Church leaders of the distant past for the sake of advancing a current agenda for inculturated forms of Christianity among the world’s indigenous cultures.”
McShea is also dismayed by the pope’s remark to a Lutheran delegation from Finland: “The intention of Martin Luther five hundred years ago was to renew the Church, not divide her.” On the contrary, McShea writes, “from early on, Luther’s Reformation was centrally about separating, promptly—with the help of powerful territorial princes and city magistrates with local influence and armies at the ready—the hidden, faith-filled wheat from the papistic chaff, so to speak.”
New Fuel for Liturgy Wars
Francis himself used the word “irreversible” in August 2017 when he spoke on the most controversial of all the changes that Catholics experienced in the years following Vatican II: the dramatic alterations in the language and rubrics of the Mass. Speaking to a conference in Italy, the pope stressed that the changes wrought by the council could not be undone.
The pope—who, unlike his predecessor Benedict XVI, had rarely spoken about liturgical matters—argued that the post-conciliar changes were not sudden. They were part of a long history of reform, he said, that dated back to the early years of the twentieth century. Those changes, he continued, responded “to real needs and to the concrete hopes of a renewal.” Therefore, he concluded, “we can assert with certainty and magisterial authority that the liturgy reform is irreversible.”
Francis has been reluctant to invoke his magisterial authority on doctrinal questions, but here he invoked it in connection with liturgical reform. Once again his words were profoundly confusing. The pope said in the same address that liturgical renewal is a continuing process. What does it mean to speak with “magisterial authority” about a process?
Virtually every Catholic, from the crustiest traditionalist to the most iconoclastic radical, would agree that something should be done to the liturgy. Hardly anyone is satisfied with the current state of liturgical affairs. The only questions are whether, how, and in which direction the process should continue.
Insofar as he was saying that the Church is committed to the process that began with Vatican II, Francis was only reinforcing what John Paul II and Benedict XVI had said. But many analysts who read the pope’s speech—including, notably, those who applauded it most enthusiastically—interpreted his words as a distinct break from the statements of his immediate predecessors. Father Anthony Ruff, an influential American liturgist, remarked, “It is obvious just what, and who, is omitted.” Ruff did not spell it out, but he clearly meant that Francis never mentioned his predecessor, Benedict XVI, who had written and spoken so frequently about the liturgy. The implication was that with this major address the current pope had thrust aside the ideas of the former pope, who had always emphasized the need for continuity in the Church’s teaching and worship.
But if Pope Francis is free to discard the ideas of Pope Benedict, then a future pope should be free to discard the ideas of Pope Francis. And if Francis was indeed reversing the policies of his immediate predecessor, he was, in the process, undermining the supposed irreversibility of his own policies.
Three weeks later Francis took another bold step forward on the liturgical battlefield with a motu proprio giving national bishops’ conferences the authority—previously reserved to the Holy See—to prepare and approve vernacular translations of liturgical texts. On paper, Magnum Principium involves only a minor shift in jurisdiction. But the pope’s move is likely to have far-reaching effects in practice, possibly reigniting the battles over translations that were fought with particular vigor in the English-speaking world in the 1990s.
In 2001, the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments released the instruction Liturgiam Authenticam providing guidelines for liturgical translations. That instruction—which called upon translators to adhere as closely as possible to the language of original Latin texts—remains in effect. Magnum Principium, however, was hailed by critics of Liturgiam Authenticam as grounds for a reconsideration of the fundamental principles of translation and an effort to produce new English-language versions of the liturgy.
Actually, Francis does not suggest new approaches to translation. Quite on the contrary, in his motu proprio he states that the existing Vatican instructions “were and remain at the level of general guidelines and, as far as possible, must be followed by liturgical commissions . . . .” Still the overall effect of the new papal document was to reopen a painful debate within the Catholic community.
An Odd Affinity for Traditionalists?
Francis seems to be working directly against the goal of “irreversible change” with one important policy initiative: his drive to regularize the status of the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX), a traditionalist group that broke with Rome in 1988 when its founder, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, defied the Holy See in consecrating four bishops. All the bishops involved in that ceremony incurred the penalty of excommunication, and the SSPX priests they ordained were never accorded canonical status. Benedict XVI lifted the excommunications in 2009, but the status of SSPX clerics remained irregular; they did not have official permission to administer the Sacraments.
During most of Benedict’s pontificate the Vatican engaged in negotiations with the SSPX, hoping to bring its followers back into the fold. The talks stalled, however, when the leaders of the group balked at acknowledging the validity of the teachings of Vatican II. Francis surprised many observers by continuing the talks, going even further to achieve a reconciliation. In 2015 he granted SSPX priests the authority to hear sacramental confessions, and in 2017 he announced that the Catholic Church would accept the validity of marriages at which an SSPX priest presided.
As I write, informed sources in Rome say that it is only a matter of time before the Vatican fully recognizes the SSPX, making it a personal prelature. The prelature would exercise authority over SSPX priests, ensuring that they were not subject to disciplinary control by diocesan bishops unsympathetic to the traditionalist movement. By all accounts, the Vatican has already offered the SSPX this status. The sticking point seems to be a requirement that the SSPX acknowledge the authority of Vatican II, but Francis has reportedly made concessions far beyond those offered by Benedict, including an acknowledgement that there can be legitimate differences of opinion as to the authority and the interpretation of the council documents.
Why would a pontiff bent on radical change within the Church make this extraordinary effort to reconcile with recalcitrant traditionalists? Suspicious members of the SSPX are asking exactly that question. Is the proposed reconciliation a tactic to bring the traditionalists to heel, to regain the disciplinary leverage that the Vatican lost when the SSPX leaders were excommunicated? Or is an SSPX prelature seen as a sort of ecclesiastical safety valve, a way for “rigid” Catholics to segregate themselves, leaving dioceses and parishes to the ministrations of the new liberal hegemony?
There is a simple explanation, really, which has three parts. First, Francis has always said that the Church should reach out to those on the “peripheries,” and the SSPX is undeniably on the periphery of Catholicism today. Second, traditionalism has demonstrated an enduring appeal. Once thought to be the last gasp of a resistance that would die out as its members aged, the movement has attracted thousands of young Catholics. In France today, traditionalist chapels draw more worshippers than ordinary parishes. Third, and most important, the sticking point in negotiations with the SSPX has always been the group’s hesitance about Vatican II, and Francis has never been overly worried about the details of doctrine, discipline, and “the law.”
The Lessons of China and Venezuela
The willingness to overlook difficulties in doctrine has also been an important factor in negotiations between the Vatican and the People’s Republic of China. On that front too, rumors suggest that an imminent accord will end a longstanding impasse over the appointment of new Catholic bishops in China. But if the rumors are true, the price of that agreement could be a crucial concession to Beijing, a concession that Benedict XVI had firmly ruled out.
For decades, the Holy See has wrangled with the communist regime over control of the Church in China. The government insists that the Church must be under the guidance of the Communist Party through the government-controlled Catholic Patriotic Association. Benedict maintained that a role for the Patriotic Association cannot be reconciled with the freedom of the Church. There matters stood, apparently at a stalemate, during Benedict’s reign. The Patriotic Association appointed several bishops, whose consecrations the Holy See regarded as illicit. The Chinese government, for its part, refused to recognize the “underground” Catholic bishops, whose appointments had not been authorized by the regime. Many if not most Chinese bishops have managed to win approval from both the government and the Holy See, but the process for doing so is murky, the situation unstable. “Underground” Catholics are subject to police harassment, and bishops are under heavy pressure to bow to the Patriotic Association.
Under Francis, there have been signs that the stalemate could be broken, and the Vatican is reportedly ready to offer a new compromise: the Holy See would appoint new bishops, but it would select them from a list of candidates prepared by Chinese authorities. Thus the Holy See would protect its claim to ultimate authority over appointments, while Beijing could exclude clerics who were deemed unfriendly to the government.
Cardinal Joseph Zen, the retired bishop of Hong Kong, who for years has been the leading Catholic critic of the mainland government, fears the Vatican is “going to make a very bad agreement with China.” The rumored agreement, he says, would “give too much decision-making power to the government.” Loyal Catholics could easily be excluded from consideration for appointment as bishops, and it is “really naïve,” he warns, to think that the Communist Party would hesitate to use that leverage.
Cardinal Zen has disclosed that he has frequently written to the pontiff expressing his concerns, but “he doesn’t answer my letters.” To compound the problem, “the people around him are not good at all.”
Shortly after the Chinese cardinal’s lament, the head of the Catholic Patriotic Association, Liu Bainian, essentially confirmed Zen’s fears that the accord would “sell out the underground Church,” telling the South China Morning Post that the government would not recognize the “underground” bishops. He was responding to reports that after a deal was struck, the Holy See would recognize the bishops who had been selected by the Patriotic Association and consecrated illicitly, while the regime would recognize the “underground” bishops. Scoffing at that notion, Liu said, “There’s no such proposal being heard on the mainland yet.” The Vatican must recognize the regime’s bishops, he said, but those prelates who had not sought the approval of the government are “unfit for the people to work with.”
A prudent negotiator knows when to make a dramatic offer and when to take a stand on principle. Francis, however, typically betrays his anxiety to reach an agreement regardless of the cost, a weakness that undermined an effort in 2016 to mediate an escalating dispute between the Venezuelan government and opposition leaders.
The socialist regime of Nicolás Maduro was responsible for a crushing economic crisis in Venezuela, and unrest was building. Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican Secretary of State, said that the Holy See would mediate talks between the government and opposition if certain conditions were met: the government must free political prisoners, allow humanitarian agencies to deliver food and medicine to those in need, and schedule new elections. The government did not fulfill any of those conditions, the opposition withdrew from talks, and the negotiations soon collapsed.
The Venezuelan bishops had sparred for years with Maduro and his predecessor, Hugo Chávez, criticizing both rulers for their strong-arm tactics. In reply both Chávez and Maduro had charged that the bishops were in league with the opposition and accused the hierarchy of sedition. Now Maduro stepped up his anticlerical rhetoric, and bands of the president’s supporters threatened bishops and vandalized cathedrals. In the summer of 2017 the Venezuelan bishops warned that their country was becoming a “totalitarian, militarist, violent, oppressive police-state system.” They released a prayer to the Virgin Mary to “free our country from the clutches of communism and socialism.”
And how did the pope respond to this assault on democracy and intimidation of Catholic prelates? In April 2017, Francis told reporters that he was hoping dialogue would resolve the problems in Venezuela, but “part of the opposition does not want this.” He did not mention the government’s responsibility for the breakdown in talks. In a letter to the Venezuelan bishops the pope sounded the same forlorn hope: “I am convinced that the serious problems of Venezuela can be solved if there is the will to build bridges, if you want to talk seriously and adhere to agreements reached.” Perversely, Maduro used the pope’s public statements against the bishops, charging that the prelates were out of touch with Rome.
Despite his frequent calls for decentralizing Church leadership, in both China and Venezuela Francis has distanced himself from the public stands of local prelates. In the case of Venezuela, the pontiff’s own political preferences might explain his failure to support the bishops. Chávez and Maduro styled themselves as leaders of a “popular movement,” insisting that they were fighting for the people against powerful elites—a posture that appeals to Francis. As the crisis came to a head in May 2017, an Italian political scientist, Loris Zanatta, suggested that the pope is dangerously subject to the lure of ideology:
Reality, Bergoglio repeats, is greater than ideas. And yet, seeing his silence on the social drama in Venezuela, or in the country that with Chávez had set itself up as a model of anti-liberalism by invoking the stereotypes dear to the Pope, the thought arises that he too, like many, prefers his ideas to reality.
The Challenge of Islamic Extremism
Something similar could be said about the pope’s refusal to acknowledge the unique threat of Islamic terrorism. Francis speaks out frequently on behalf of persecuted Christians, especially in the Middle East, but he seems to ignore the obvious connection between Islamic regimes and religious oppression. On the contrary, at every available opportunity he insists that Islam, like every other religion, opposes violence. On several occasions he has argued that terrorism is the product of a global economic system based on profit rather than a religious doctrine based on conquest.
In an interview with the French newspaper La Croix in May 2016, Francis went further, denying that the people of Europe are worried about Islamic terrorism. “I do not think there is now a fear of Islam, as such, but of Daesh [the Islamic State] and its war of conquest,” he said. He did admit that the Islamic State is “driven in part by Islam,” but then he hastened to make the case that the exploitation of religion for the purpose of violence is not peculiar to Islam: “The idea of conquest is inherent in the soul of Islam, it is true. But it could be interpreted with the same idea of conquest [found at] the end of the Gospel of Matthew, where Jesus sends his disciples in all nations.”
Was the bishop of Rome actually saying that Christ’s Great Commission is comparable to the ideology of jihad? Incredible as it seems, that interpretation would be consistent with other statements he has made. While some Islamic fundamentalists are a threat to society, he has allowed, Christianity has its fundamentalists as well. Is he suggesting that the “rigid” Catholics whose views he so often denounces, the “fundamentalists,” are potentially as dangerous as jihadist warriors? It seems preposterous that a Roman pontiff would make such an argument, yet his words speak for themselves.
In his famous Regensburg address in September 2006, Benedict XVI provided a framework for the critical evaluation of Islam, insisting that Muslim leaders must address the tendency to resolve disputes by force rather than reason. At the time, Cardinal Bergoglio explicitly distanced himself from the pope’s line of reasoning, denying that Benedict spoke for him. The Regensburg address, of course, provoked an angry reaction from the Muslim world, while Bergoglio’s determination not to give offense won him friends there. But a decade later, the logic of the Regensburg address remains persuasive.
Benedict insisted on upholding both the law of reason and the reason behind the law. In contrast, Francis expresses contempt for the “doctors of the law.” This is not merely a difference of style.
Reverence for the Law
In his written statements and public appearances, Francis has often spoken with warmth and obvious love about the beauties of the Catholic Faith. But he has rarely, if ever, spoken about the love for God’s Law that rings throughout the Old Testament. Psalm 119 offers only one of many examples:
Oh, how I love thy law!
Thy commandment makes me wiser than my enemies,
for it is ever with me.
I have more understanding than all my teachers,
for thy testimonies are my meditation (Ps. 119:97–99).
To meditate on the Law, probing deeply into its wisdom, was seen by the Psalmist as a great blessing. The revelation of the Law unlocked the secrets of the universe. The more one understood the Law, the more one could live in harmony with creation. In the modern era we rejoice when scientific research deepens our comprehension of nature’s laws. So it is with the Law, God’s Law, which includes but is not limited to the law of nature. And so it was that the people of Israel, of whom Christians are spiritual heirs, boasted that when God revealed his Law to them, he showed them special favor. “He has not dealt thus with any other nation; they do not know his ordinances. Praise the Lord!” (Ps. 147:20)
Needless to say, the laws of the Church—canon law—do not occupy the same exalted position as the immutable Law of God. They are an attempt by fallen human beings to codify the practical applications of the Law to ordinary life. They can change, whereas the Law cannot—just as speed limits and tax rates can change, but the law of gravity or the principle of non-contradiction cannot. But even these man-made laws deserve respect, as they represent the accumulated wisdom of the universal Church, put to the service of God’s work on Earth.
Much of the Code of Canon Law reflects the fruit of painful experience. That is how laws commonly come into being, actually, both in the Church and in the secular world. Legislators identify a problem or an abuse, propose a solution, and write it into law. If the solution is effective the problem is eased. If not, future legislators will probably take another stab at it. Thus law can be the codification of common sense: practical problems are recognized and remedies applied—often after a painful process of trial and error.
Quite a bit of the Church’s pastoral wisdom falls into this category: not necessarily lofty theology, but the fruit of experience. Wise pastors find a good way to address a knotty problem, suggest the same solution to others, and eventually the Church in her wisdom declares that everyone should follow that same path.
Activists are impatient with rules. They have plans and they want results—now! If their plan of action is stymied by existing law, their first instinct is to cast the law aside, especially if they cannot see why the law is necessary. But their failure to understand the purpose of the law does not mean that the law has no purpose. Quite possibly the legislator understood something that the activist has not yet grasped. It’s even possible that the law was written after the failure of a plan like the one the activist now has in mind.
Obviously there are times when a law should be amended, abolished, or even defied. But before setting the law aside, one should understand why it was written and the likely consequences of discarding it. Church law, developed and refined over the centuries, represents a storehouse of wisdom about human nature and human frailty. The canons are there for a reason. Should some canons be changed? No doubt. But they should not be ignored.
With his repeated criticisms of “the doctors of the law,” Francis suggests an opposition between those who enforce the law and those who dispense mercy, between canon law and pastoral practice. Not so. It is a fundamental principle of Church law that the welfare of souls is the supreme law. Every canon, therefore, should be interpreted from the perspective of a conscientious pastor. The code is designed to help pastors: to guide them, not to limit them.
The “Democracy of the Dead”
With his willingness to set aside the constraints of the law in favor of a spontaneous new approach, Francis has undoubtedly gained favor with the secular world. Four years into his pontificate he continues to enjoy wide popularity in spite of the controversies that he has provoked. But has the “Francis effect” brought any lasting benefits to the Catholic Church? The available statistics suggest otherwise.
After years of decline, the number of Catholic priests in the world began to increase in 2000, rising slightly each year until 2015, when it declined. The number of young priests is a lagging indicator of sorts, since the young men who are ordained this year were attracted to the priestly ministry several years ago. So it is even more revealing to see the statistics on seminary enrollment. There the number rose after 2000, peaked in 2011 and 2012, and then began to decline. It would be simplistic to blame the drop on Francis. But the figures contradict the myth that the “Francis effect” has sparked a revival.
Would it be surprising if, after an initial burst of enthusiasm, young Catholics did not respond to the appeal of a pontiff who broke with the time-honored teachings of the Church? The Catholic Faith is not merely a collection of propositions for belief; it is also a set of traditions built up over the generations, a heritage that the faithful come to cherish.
By scorning traditions and scoffing at canon law, Francis is not only provoking divisions within the Catholic Church of the early twenty-first century but also breaking the continuity between today’s Catholics and their forefathers in the Faith. G. K. Chesterton wrote about the “democracy of the dead,” arguing that our ancestors should have their say in contemporary affairs, that we should respect the wisdom and the wishes of those who prepared the way for us with their sacrifices and their prayers. If the Catholic Faith today is not the Faith of our great-great-grandparents—if it is not the Faith of the apostles and martyrs—what is it?
With his words and actions, Francis has devalued the work of his predecessors and thus diminished the teaching office of the papacy. If a Catholic today is free to ignore the teachings of John Paul II, as Francis implies, then a Catholic tomorrow will be free to ignore the teachings of Francis. The only escape from this dilemma is the one suggested by Benedict XVI: the hermeneutic of continuity. Papal teachings must be interpreted, and a pope’s pastoral initiatives should be judged, in continuity with two thousand years of Catholic tradition. By that standard, the papacy of Francis has been a disaster for the Church.
“We have no means of knowing how far a small mistake in the faith may carry us astray,” wrote John Henry Newman. The great nineteenth-century English theologian, beatified by Benedict XVI in 2010, argued forcefully against a way of thinking that is familiar to anyone who has heard Francis ridicule the “doctors of the law”:
It is a fashion of the day, then, to suppose that all insisting upon precise Articles of Faith is injurious to the cause of spiritual religion, and inconsistent with an enlightened view of it; that it is all one to maintain, that the Gospel requires the reception of definite and positive Articles, and to acknowledge it to be technical and formal; that such a notion is superstitious, and interferes with the “liberty wherewith Christ has made us free;” that it argues a deficient insight into the principles and ends, a narrow comprehension of the spirit of His Revelation.
Newman contrasts that fashionable view with St. Paul’s exhortation to the Christians at Ephesus to hold fast to the Deposit of Faith. The responsibility of proclaiming God’s Word fully and accurately weighed heavily on the apostle, who knew its saving power and the deadly danger of turning from the truth. “And so I solemnly declare to you this day,” he told the Ephesians, “that I am innocent of the blood of all of you, for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:26–27).
Can the Pope Be Wrong?
Pious Catholics rarely criticize the man they recognize as the Vicar of Christ. In the fourteenth century, St. Catherine of Siena referred to the bishop of Rome as the “sweet Christ on Earth.” Yet this feisty doctor of the Church did not shrink from reproving Pope Gregory XI to his face for continuing the exile of the papal court in Avignon.
But can the pope be wrong? Or more importantly, can the wrong man occupy the chair of Peter? Again, some pious Catholics assume that with the Holy Spirit guiding the Church, it is impossible for a conclave to choose the wrong man. If only that were the case! When Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was asked in 1990 if the Holy Spirit chooses the Roman pontiff, the future pope responded,
I would not say so, in the sense that the Holy Spirit picks out the Pope. . . . I would say that the Spirit does not exactly take control of the affair, but rather like a good educator, as it were, leaves us much space, much freedom, without entirely abandoning us. Thus the Spirit’s role should be understood in a much more elastic sense, not that he dictates the candidate for whom one must vote. Probably the only assurance he offers is that the thing cannot be totally ruined. There are too many contrary instances of popes the Holy Spirit obviously would not have picked!
The Catholic Church teaches that the occupant of Peter’s throne has the authority to pronounce infallible teachings. But that power can be invoked only under certain circumstances. The First Vatican Council, which in 1870 defined the doctrine of papal infallibility in the dogmatic constitution Pastor Aeternus, made it clear that this extraordinary papal power is not a special license to amend Catholic teaching: “For the Holy Spirit was promised to the successors of Peter not so that they might, by his revelation, make known some new doctrine, but that, by his assistances, they might religiously guard and faithfully expound the revelation or deposit of faith transmitted by the apostles” (4:4.6).
The Dominican theologian Aidan Nichols warns that the implication in Amoris Laetitia that “actions condemned by the law of Christ can sometimes be morally right or even, indeed, requested by God” has caused “extremely grave” confusion and could lead to the unprecedented situation in which the Church “tolerated concubinage.” His concern is so deep that he has proposed adding to the Code of Canon Law “a procedure for calling to order a Pope who teaches error.”
There is no provision in the current Code of Canon Law for correcting papal error, but the First Vatican Council, Father Nichols observes, did not take the position “that a Pope is incapable of leading people astray.” A canonical procedure for the correction of a pope might deter novelties in papal teaching and reassure non-Catholic Christians who are suspicious of sweeping papal authority. “Indeed,” he says, “it may be that the present crisis of the Roman magisterium is providentially intended to call attention to the limits of primacy in this regard.”
In his homily at the Mass inaugurating his papacy in May 2005, Benedict XVI reflected on the limits of papal authority:
The Pope is not an absolute monarch whose thoughts and desires are law. On the contrary: the Pope’s ministry is a guarantee of obedience to Christ and to his Word. He must not proclaim his own ideas, but rather constantly bind himself and the Church to obedience to God’s Word, in the face of every attempt to adapt it or water it down, and every form of opportunism.
The Moral Duty of Bishops
All Christians—not just the pope—have the duty to cling to the Word of God, preserving the integrity of the Faith, but bishops, the primary teachers of the Faith, have a special obligation. If the pope is spreading unrest and confusion, local bishops must allay the fears of the faithful and restore clarity.
Even if Pope Francis is not personally responsible for the confusion that now prevails—even if his teaching is perfectly sound, but some people have misinterpreted it—other bishops are morally obliged to step in. The undeniable differences within the college of bishops must be resolved for the sake of the integrity of the Faith.
Unfortunately, few bishops have acknowledged the divisions opened up by this pontificate. Although scores of them, recognizing the confusion caused by conflicting interpretations, have quietly expressed misgivings about Amoris Laetitia, only four cardinals were willing to sign a public call for clarification. Cardinal Kevin Farrell, the prefect of the Vatican’s new Dicastery for Laity, Family, and Life, told a reporter in 2017 that of all the bishops who have met with him during their visits to Rome, “no one had anything negative” to say about the papal document.
Perhaps these bishops fear that the pope will retaliate against anyone who challenges him, or that public opposition will weaken the prestige of the papacy. But the papacy is weakened when one pontiff contradicts another. The damage done by Francis cannot be repaired unless it is recognized. Denying problems and papering over the differences only amplifies the confusion.
It is not enough to say that Amoris Laetitia should be read in the context of constant Church teaching if the intention behind the document is to change Church teaching. Several American bishops have gone out of their way to praise the solid portions of Amoris Laetitia while skipping lightly past the problems of the notorious eighth chapter. That diplomatic approach, too, is confusing, because the document has been so widely interpreted as a break from the magisterial tradition.
Yes, there are some fine passages in Amoris Laetitia. But on the whole it fails as a teaching document because, as the saying goes, what is good is not new, and what is new is not good. St. John Paul II enriched the Magisterium on marriage and family life incalculably with a body of teaching innovative in its approach yet fully in accord with the constant traditions of the Church. Francis’s apostolic exhortation has undermined that teaching so seriously that now, only a dozen years after John Paul’s death, we face the task of rebuilding it from the ground up—a vexing waste of effort at a time when this teaching is so desperately needed.
The Role of the Laity
How can loyal Catholics help to restore Catholic unity while we wait for stronger leadership by our bishops?
First, foremost, and always, by prayer. The pope needs the wholehearted support of the faithful when he promotes the constant teaching of the Church. When he does not, the faithful should pray that he will change his approach. Pray that the pope will lead the Church toward greater unity. If he must change his approach in order to do that, so be it. Stranger things have happened.
Pray, too, for the next pope. Whoever he is and whenever he will ascend Peter’s throne, he will face a prodigious task of restoring unity of faith and clarity of teaching while pursuing the necessary but unfinished work of Vatican reform. If he approaches that task boldly, he will encounter opposition, disobedience, and the threat of schism. Unlike Francis, he will not enjoy the sympathy of the non-Catholic world and the secular media. A good pontiff, striving to clear up the muddle that Francis is likely to leave behind, will have to rely solely on the help of the faithful.
For now, calls for the pope’s resignation are futile. He is not likely to step down. Even if he did, the presence of two former pontiffs—one with a record of imprudent public remarks—would guarantee further confusion. The challenge is to preserve the teaching authority of the papacy, not to dilute it.
Nor is it useful to look to Benedict XVI to allay the reigning confusion. The retired pontiff, determined to live out his remaining years in silence, has taken a vow of fidelity to his successor; he will not and should not violate that vow. He knows that any comment he makes about Vatican affairs, no matter how innocuous, will be scrutinized for the subtlest disagreement with the current pope. The counsel of the greatest living Catholic theologian would surely be invaluable, yet Benedict is the very last Catholic who can offer his opinions today.
The Catholic Church holds that a Roman pontiff is infallible when, in union with the world’s bishops, he solemnly defines Catholic teaching on faith and morals. Francis has eschewed formal definitions, preferring impromptu comments. His most enthusiastic supporters, who in the past have been notably skeptical about papal authority, now demand that the faithful ascribe magisterial weight even to the pope’s offhand comments. But if an offhand comment appears to contradict the formal teaching of a previous pontiff, they cannot both be right. So the confusion grows. The magisterial confusion of this papacy has, strangely enough, expanded the claims of papal infallibility—often invoked where it does not apply—while weakening its foundations.
No precept of the Faith compels Catholics to believe that the Roman pontiff is always wise in his judgments, prudent in his statements, and clear in his thinking. Nor, of course, do questionable statements by one pope call into question the whole history of Catholic teaching. The Church has survived uncertain leadership in the past and, with the certain promise of God’s grace, can weather the latest storm.
A proper understanding of the limits of papal authority would help to resolve the current crisis. The bishop of Rome is not a solitary potentate but the leader of the College of Bishops. The Second Vatican Council’s dogmatic constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, explains, “Just as the office which the Lord confided to Peter alone, as first of the apostles, destined to be transmitted to his successors, is a permanent one, so also endures the office, which the apostles received, of shepherding the Church, a charge destined to be exercised without interruption by the sacred order of bishops.” If the pope himself has gone astray, the duty falls upon the other shepherds to bring the Church back to safe pastures.
Pope Francis has not taught heresy, but the confusion he has stirred up has destabilized the universal Church. The faithful have been led to question themselves, their beliefs, their Faith. They look to Rome for guidance and instead find more questions, more confusion.
For thirty-five years, loyal Catholics were accustomed to looking to Rome for guidance, to ease the confusion that arose from uncertain leadership at the local level. Now the situation has been reversed, particularly in the United States. Some American bishops have become bolder in their defenses of orthodoxy, more willing to risk the disapproval of the secular world. Today they need the encouragement of faithful Catholics, as their duty requires them to risk disapproval from Rome.