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Our duty as Catholics is to pray for the Pope; but, to do so truly, we must not blind ourselves to his faults.
Those who have been closely watching the Catholic Church during the last ten years of the present pontificate will not likely be surprised by Pope Francis’ recent carefully half-baked responses to the five dubia submitted and subsequently re-submitted to the Dicastery of the Doctrine of the Faith by Cardinals Burke, Brandmuller, Iñiguez, Sarah, and Zen, later endorsed by Cardinal Gerhard Müller and Archbishop Athanasius Schnieder. This is the same pontiff who, as recently mentioned in First Things, exhorted young people at his first World Youth Day to “make a mess.” Since then, there have been years of news-cycles reporting his ambiguous utterances, making it harder to claim that the media has been distorting the Holy Father’s words. Even those who were amongst the first to raise that objection have begun to take seriously the idea that the man whose advice was to “make a mess” might be directing his own actions according to the same principle.
However, the tendency to exculpate Pope Francis (perhaps combined with a wariness both of conspiracy theories and sedevacantism among some groups of Catholics) still exists. Strangely, four years after “Against David Frenchism,” Sohrab Ahmariand Kayla Bartsch, a writer for National Review,find themselves in an alliance against those who are concerned about Pope Francis and his Synod on Synodality. Bartsch would like us to rest assured, based on an examination of Pope Francis’ recent responses to the dubia, that “no, the Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church does not support gay marriage.” Ahmari, calling the synod “an apostolic nothingburger,” prefers to lash out against the so-called “anti-Francis media.” The truth of the matter is a bit less clear-cut, if we recall the political nature of the papacy and consider not only the pope’s words but also his recent actions and inaction.
I was a college student studying abroad when, on a rainy evening in March of 2013, I found myself in St. Peter’s Square, seeing white smoke rising from the chimney adjacent to the Sistine Chapel, and hearing the heartwarming words, “Habemus papam!” For years afterwards, I had a personal loyalty to the pope whom I had seen immediately following his election, an affection which led me to mount a publicity campaign to invite the Holy Father to my university graduation. Clearly, I am not intrinsically “anti-Francis” or some kind of “hardcore traditionalist,” nor do I bear any ill will against Bartsch and Ahmari, both of whom I agree with on other issues. But they have mounted a papolatrous defense of a man who, while deserving the prayers of the faithful for his salvation, also deserves criticism for his mishandling of the keys of St. Peter.
Continued below.
europeanconservative.com
Those who have been closely watching the Catholic Church during the last ten years of the present pontificate will not likely be surprised by Pope Francis’ recent carefully half-baked responses to the five dubia submitted and subsequently re-submitted to the Dicastery of the Doctrine of the Faith by Cardinals Burke, Brandmuller, Iñiguez, Sarah, and Zen, later endorsed by Cardinal Gerhard Müller and Archbishop Athanasius Schnieder. This is the same pontiff who, as recently mentioned in First Things, exhorted young people at his first World Youth Day to “make a mess.” Since then, there have been years of news-cycles reporting his ambiguous utterances, making it harder to claim that the media has been distorting the Holy Father’s words. Even those who were amongst the first to raise that objection have begun to take seriously the idea that the man whose advice was to “make a mess” might be directing his own actions according to the same principle.
However, the tendency to exculpate Pope Francis (perhaps combined with a wariness both of conspiracy theories and sedevacantism among some groups of Catholics) still exists. Strangely, four years after “Against David Frenchism,” Sohrab Ahmariand Kayla Bartsch, a writer for National Review,find themselves in an alliance against those who are concerned about Pope Francis and his Synod on Synodality. Bartsch would like us to rest assured, based on an examination of Pope Francis’ recent responses to the dubia, that “no, the Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church does not support gay marriage.” Ahmari, calling the synod “an apostolic nothingburger,” prefers to lash out against the so-called “anti-Francis media.” The truth of the matter is a bit less clear-cut, if we recall the political nature of the papacy and consider not only the pope’s words but also his recent actions and inaction.
I was a college student studying abroad when, on a rainy evening in March of 2013, I found myself in St. Peter’s Square, seeing white smoke rising from the chimney adjacent to the Sistine Chapel, and hearing the heartwarming words, “Habemus papam!” For years afterwards, I had a personal loyalty to the pope whom I had seen immediately following his election, an affection which led me to mount a publicity campaign to invite the Holy Father to my university graduation. Clearly, I am not intrinsically “anti-Francis” or some kind of “hardcore traditionalist,” nor do I bear any ill will against Bartsch and Ahmari, both of whom I agree with on other issues. But they have mounted a papolatrous defense of a man who, while deserving the prayers of the faithful for his salvation, also deserves criticism for his mishandling of the keys of St. Peter.
Continued below.
Against Papolatry, Liberal and Illiberal
Our duty as Catholics is to pray for the Pope; but, to do so truly, we must not blind ourselves to his faults.
europeanconservative.com
