
#popebars
Who met whom, when?
On Thursday, September 24, in the afternoon after his historic address to Congress, just a few minutes before flying to New York City, Pope Francis received, spoke with, and embraced Kim Davis — the Kentucky County Clerk who was jailed in early September for refusing to sign the marriage licenses of homosexual couples who wished to have their civil marriages certified by the state of Kentucky.Also present was Kim’s husband, Joe Davis.
Kim and her husband had come to Washington for another purpose — Kim was to receive a “Cost of Discipleship” award on Friday, September 25, from The Family Research Council at the Omni Shoreham Hotel.
“Thank you for your courage“
Pope Francis entered the room.
Kim greeted him, and the two embraced.
There is no recording of this conversation, or photographs, as far as I know. But “there is not any thing secret that shall not be made manifest, nor hidden, that shall not be known and come to light.” (Luke 8:17)
Kim Davis gave me this account of the meeting shortly after it took place.
“The Pope spoke in English,” she told me. “There was no interpreter. ‘Thank you for your courage,’ Pope Francis said to me. I said, ‘Thank you, Holy Father.’ I had asked a monsignor earlier what was the proper way to greet the Pope, and whether it would be appropriate for me to embrace him, and I had been told it would be okay to hug him. So I hugged him, and he hugged me back. It was an extraordinary moment. ‘Stay strong,’ he said to me. Then he gave me a rosary as a gift, and he gave one also to my husband, Joe. I broke into tears. I was deeply moved.
Chicago Archbishop Blase Cupich is on his way to Rome tonight. Before he left, he spoke out for the first time on that controversial meeting between Pope Francis and Kim Davis, the county clerk from Kentucky who refused to issue same-sex marriage licenses.Cupich in essence told CBS 2 Chief Correspondent Jay Levine not to read too much into it.
A highly placed source inside the Vatican claims the Pope was blindsided.
The brief meeting between Mrs. Kim Davis and Pope Francis at the Apostolic Nunciature in Washington, DC has continued to provoke comments and discussion. In order to contribute to an objective understanding of what transpired I am portatili clarify the Following points:Pope Francis met with several dozen persons who Had Been invited by the Nunciature to greet him as he prepared to leave Washington for New York City. Such brief greetings occur on all papal visits and are two to the Pope's characteristic kindness and availability. The only real audience granted by the Pope at the Nunciature was with one of His former students and his family.
The Pope did not enter into the details of the situation of Mrs. Davis and his meeting with her Should not be Considered a form of support of her position in all of its Particular and complex aspects.
he day before Pope Francis met anti-gay county clerk Kim Davis in Washington last week, he held a private meeting with a longtime friend from Argentina who has been in a same-sex relationship for 19 years.Yayo Grassi, an openly gay man, brought his partner, Iwan Bagus, as well several other friends to the Vatican Embassy on September 23 for a brief visit with the Pope. A video of the meeting shows Grassi and Francis greeting each other with a warm hug. ...
In an exclusive interview with CNN, Grassi said the visit was arranged personally with the Pope via email in the weeks ahead of Francis' highly anticipated visit to the United States.
"Three weeks before the trip, he called me on the phone and said he would love to give me a hug," Grassi said.
The meeting between the Pope and gay couple adds another intriguing twist to the strange aftermath of Francis' first-ever trip to the United States. Since news broke on Tuesday of Francis' meeting with Davis, conservatives have cheered the seemingly implicit endorsement, while liberals have questioned how much the Pope knew about her case.
The two encounters -- one with a gay couple and one with a government official who ardently opposes homosexuality -- have left the Vatican scrambling to issue statements that seek to de-politicize the Pope's meetings and agenda.
According to Davis’s lawyer, Mat Staver, the meeting came “from the Vatican itself”—which reads as his deceptive way of saying, “Pope Francis didn’t actually invite Davis to the embassy, but someone with Vatican connections did, so we’re going to keep saying Vatican over and over until enough people think the Holy Father actually invited our client to meet him.”Though many pressed Staver to release the name of the Vatican official, he held out as long as he could until eventually the secret broke. The meeting was initiated by Archbishop Vigano, Vatican ambassador to the U.S., who is a strong opponent of same-sex marriage.
Last spring, for example, Vigano attended an anti-gay rally organized by the National Organization for Marriage. In a press release, NOM called Vigano the “official representative of Pope Francis,” which—as is implied by the designation—they took as a papal seal of approval for their fight against gay marriage. (This is why Vigano has won himself the ire of many Catholics—he should’ve known that when he wades into a culture war, he drags Francis unwittingly with him.)
Grassi brought his boyfriend of 19 years, Iwan, and four friends to the Vatican Embassy for a private audience. Grassi, wearing a bright blue blazer, embraced his former teacher, now clothed in white, and then introduced him to Iwan and his friends. When news broke about Kim Davis’s attendance at the Vatican, Grassi decided to speak out. “Although I didn’t know any details, I knew immediately that he had nothing to do with this, that this was arranged by other people without telling him the real character” of Davis, Grassi said. “I received from friends of mine a lot of quite disturbing mail, telling me that ‘This is your pope, look what he did, and he’s a coward,’ and my defense is ‘We don’t know anything. Just wait until things come out.’ And I’m extremely pleased that I was right. And I never had any doubt that I was right.”
Terry Moran, ABC News: "Would that include government officials as well?"
Pope Francis: "It is a human right and if a government official is a human person, he has that right. It is a human right."
Pope Francis
Responses & Reactions (Hysterical and Otherwise)
First, a few largely uncontested facts: it was Vatican personnel who invited Davis to meet the pope in Washington DC. Neither Kim Davis nor anyone connected to her requested the meeting.What’s more, Kim Davis met privately with the pope. Whether you call it an audience or an encounter or any other thing, it took place in private. To put an even finer point on it, she was not on a rope line to shake his passing hand, neither was she in a line of people to meet him one by one.
Lastly, while Vatican personnel wanted the meeting to be private, Davis was told at the meeting, the secrecy of the meeting was to last only until the pope left the country.
After the news of the meeting broke the gay mafia inside and outside the Church went berserk. ...
The bottom line is that the Vatican has thrust itself squarely into the middle of a debate that’s destined to become steadily more intense. The only way out is a thoughtful and clear statement on what exactly the Church understands by “conscientious objection,” and the sooner the better.If Rome wants to get past Kim Davis and back onto higher ground, that’s the way forward.
It's not just the scribes in the media who are scrambling for answers. It's Jesuits, too. James Martin, SJ rushes to explain that, in all likelihood, Kim Davis was just another woman presented to the pope. Missing every chance to confront the obvious prejudice surrounding the meeting, he instead clears any potential obstacle to those prejudices. The pope may not know her. The meeting may have been arranged by another bishop. He's just being nice. "Not to put too fine a point on it, but Pope Francis also met Mark Wahlberg, and that does not mean that he liked Ted," Martin concludes.The last flourish is exquisite for the way it makes the class prejudice explicit. Nothing to see here, folks. Just a vulgar woman who was snuck in. The Holy Spirit is definitely not afoot. It was practically an accident, really. Or perhaps it was some dastardly conservative bishop who allowed the cool pope to embrace someone universally despised by the great and good. She's been married four times. Believe me, if he knew, he'd throw her into the well.
Somebody messed up. A source at the bishops’ conference told me on background that the meeting happened “against the advice of the bishops’ conference.” Other reports in both the Washington Post and the New York Times agree that the meeting was arranged by a “Vatican official.” Seeing as the meeting happened at the nunciature in Washington, it could only have happened with the approval and participation of the nuncio, Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano. Perhaps he did not understand how Davis’ case was not really an instance of conscientious objection. Perhaps, he felt sorry for her, as I did, because sending that poor woman to jail was overkill by the judge. Perhaps he did not see how the news of this meeting would trample on the pope’s message and begin to drown out everything else the pope said or did during his six days here....
The fact that the Vatican has chosen not to comment probably means, at least in part, that they don’t want to be dragged into a detailed discussion of Davis’ situation.That said, there’s no way to view the encounter other than as a broad gesture of support by the pope for conscientious objection from gay marriage laws, especially taken in tandem with his statement aboard the papal plane that following one’s conscience in such a situation is a “human right” – one, he insisted, that also belongs to government officials.
I would have more respect for the pope if he had publicly embraced Kim Davis and made an argument for her, as he did in his visit with the Little Sisters of the Poor, who are battling against filling out a form to exempt themselves from Obamacare's contraception requirement, claiming that even filling out the form violates their religious liberty -- even though I vehemently disagree with the pope on that issue. I'd have more respect if he boldly, explicitly made a public statement (not the vague, general statement he made on his plane on the way home only in response to a reporter's question about Davis), as he did in trying to stop the execution of a Georgia inmate who was put to death this morning. But by meeting with Davis secretly, and then at first having the Vatican neither confirm nor deny the encounter -- and now having the Vatican say it "won't deny" the meeting while it still won't offer any other details -- the pope comes off as a coward.
It’s hard to know how much the Pope Francis knew about each individual who was introduced to him during his long trip to the United States. Did he know much about Kim Davis before meeting her? Was he following her case before he entered the country? Did he learn about the controversy from a local bishop after he arrived? Or was her story quickly relayed to him in a receiving line? And how was it explained to him? "Holy Father, this is Kim Davis who…"
This new revelation will leave many people scratching their heads in disbelief and wondering what in God’s name Francis is up to. Because throughout his six days in Washington, New York, and Philadelphia he was careful to downplay—and even avoid mentioning—the many hot-button issues that are the bull’s eye of America’s so-called “culture warriors,” for whom Kim Davis has become a celebrity and icon.Americans who disagree with Davis, including many Catholics, were enraptured with Pope Francis precisely because he did not publicly wade into these issues or lend support to the cause she and her supporters are trying to take forward.
Some of them will now think that the “people’s pope,” as the fawning American media continuously called him during the visit, is either two-faced or being duped by his advisors.
From the Vatican
Formal Addresses of Pope Francis
Cuba
Vatican Radio reported that the Pope gave Castro several books, including one by Italian priest Alessandro Pronzato and another by Spanish Jesuit Segundo Llorentea. The Holy Father also gave him a book and two CDs of his homilies, as well as his two encyclical letters, Lumen Fidei and Laudato si'.In return, Castro gave Pope Francis an interview book titled "Fidel and Religion," written in 1985 by Brazilian priest Frei Betto. The dedication reads: "For Pope Francis, on occasion of his visit to Cuba, with the admiration and respect of the Cuban people."
The director of the Vatican press office, Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, said the meeting was "familiar and informal," and the two men spoke about "protecting the environment and the great problems of the contemporary world."
... At one point, Francis was approached by a man who grabbed onto the popemobile and appeared to be speaking emotionally to the pontiff, who touched him on his hand and head before he was pulled away by security agents. Later video showed what appeared to be the same man throwing leaflets in the air, and backers of a Cuban dissident group said on Twitter he was a member of the political opposition.The head of the opposition group Ladies in White said 22 of the 24 members of her group who wanted to attend Mass were prevented from going by Cuban security agents. Two other well-known Cuban dissidents said agents detained them after the Vatican invited them to the pope’s vespers service at the Cathedral of Havana.
Marta Beatriz Roque and Miriam Leiva, both longtime dissidents, received invitations from the office of the papal ambassador in Havana to attend the service but said they were arrested as they tried to travel to the cathedral.
Rosa Flores, CNN: Good afternoon, Holy Father. I am Rosa Flores of CNN. We understand that more than 50 dissidents were arrested outside the nunciature [in Cuba] as they were trying to have a meeting with you. First, would you like to have a meeting with the dissidents, and if you had that meeting, what would you say?Pope Francis: Look, I don’t have any news that that has happened. I don’t have any news. Some yes, yes, no, I don’t know. I don’t know, directly. The two questions are about reading the future. Would I like this to happen? … I like to meet with all people. I consider that all people are children of God and the law. And secondly, a relationship with another person always enriches. Even though it was soothsaying, that’s my reply. I would like to meet with everyone. If you want me to speak more about the dissidents, you can ask me something more concrete. For the nunciature, first, it was very clear that I was not going to give audiences because not only the dissidents asked for audiences, but also audiences (were requested) from other sectors, including from the chief of state. And, no, I am on a visit to a nation, and just that. I know that I hadn’t planned any audience with the dissidents or the others. And secondly from the nunciature, some people made some calls to some people who are in these groups of dissidents, where the responsibility was given to the nuncio to call them and tell them that I would greet them with pleasure outside the catedral for the meeting with the consecrated (religious). I would greet them when I was there, no? That did exist. Now, as no one identified themselves in their greetings, I don’t know if they were there. I said hello to the sick who were in wheelchairs. … Oops, I’m speaking Spanish. I greeted those who were in wheelchairs, but no one identified themselves as dissidents; but from the nunciature calls were made by some for a quick greeting.
Pope Francis plans to meet with Cuba’s president and its priests, its young and its sick, its churchgoers and its seminarians as he travels around the island starting Saturday. But not with its dissidents.The absence on Francis’ agenda of any meeting with the political opposition has sparked bitter critiques from dissidents who say they feel let down by an institution they believe should help push for greater freedom in Cuba.
United States
On Thursday, September 24, in the afternoon after his historic address to Congress, just a few minutes before flying to New York City, Pope Francis received, spoke with, and embraced Kim Davis — the Kentucky County Clerk who was jailed in early September for refusing to sign the marriage licenses of homosexual couples who wished to have their civil marriages certified by the state of Kentucky.Also present was Kim’s husband, Joe Davis.
Kim and her husband had come to Washington for another purpose — Kim was to receive a “Cost of Discipleship” award on Friday, September 25, from The Family Research Council at the Omni Shoreham Hotel.
“Thank you for your courage“
Pope Francis entered the room.
Kim greeted him, and the two embraced.
There is no recording of this conversation, or photographs, as far as I know. But “there is not any thing secret that shall not be made manifest, nor hidden, that shall not be known and come to light.” (Luke 8:17)
Kim Davis gave me this account of the meeting shortly after it took place.
“The Pope spoke in English,” she told me. “There was no interpreter. ‘Thank you for your courage,’ Pope Francis said to me. I said, ‘Thank you, Holy Father.’ I had asked a monsignor earlier what was the proper way to greet the Pope, and whether it would be appropriate for me to embrace him, and I had been told it would be okay to hug him. So I hugged him, and he hugged me back. It was an extraordinary moment. ‘Stay strong,’ he said to me. Then he gave me a rosary as a gift, and he gave one also to my husband, Joe. I broke into tears. I was deeply moved.
Pope Francis paid an unscheduled visit to St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia this afternoon to bless a statue celebrating improved Vatican relations with the Jewish community.The bronze statue, titled “Synagoga and Ecclesia in Our Time,” depicts two figures – signifying Christianity and Judaism – sitting beside each other and displaying their sacred texts in postures of dialogue.
“This statue is exactly a demonstration of two sisters of the same dignity, the church and the synagogue,” said Vatican spokesperson Father Federico Lombardi.
“A Christianity which ‘does’ little in practice, while incessantly ‘explaining’ its teachings, is dangerously unbalanced. I would even say that it is stuck in a vicious circle,” he said. “A pastor must show that the ‘Gospel of the family’ is truly ‘good news’ in a world where self-concern seems to reign supreme!”
In a Philadelphia moment laden with symbolism, Pope Francis on Saturday encouraged all Americans and all religions to unite against efforts that would limit religious freedom.“May this country and each of you be renewed in gratitude for the many blessings and freedoms that you enjoy. And may you defend these rights, especially your religious freedom, for it has been given to you by God himself,” the Pope said Sept. 26.
Much of Catholic America is excited about Pope Francis’ first visit to the United States — and so are many American Muslims.Francis’ visit, said Imam Sayyid M. Syeed, “is even more important for Muslims than it is for Catholics.”
A pope 1,000 years ago exhorted Christians to launch the First Crusade against Muslims, explained Syeed, of the Islamic Society of North America. Now, he continued, there is a pope who wants to destroy hatred the world over, a pope who named himself for a 13th-century saint who counseled Christians to cease their violence against Muslims.
“This pope,” the imam said, “is our pope.”
When Pope Francis concluded his historic address to Congress on Thursday, dozens of lawmakers followed as he left the podium, hoping to clasp the hand or touch the garments of His Holiness.Then there was Rep. Bob Brady (D-Pa.), who instead dashed to the podium to swipe the pope’s drinking glass.
The half-full glass of water has now become something of a holy relic for the congressman. ...
“Anything the pope touches becomes blessed,” Brady told the paper.
In his first address in New York, Pope Francis lamented the suffering caused by the sexual abuse scandal in the United States – not only for the trauma inflicted on the Church's most vulnerable members, but also for the shame it has brought to priests and religious in general.“I know that, as a presbyterate in the midst of God’s people, you suffered greatly in the not distant past by having to bear the shame of some of your brothers who harmed and scandalized the Church in the most vulnerable of her members,” he said addressing clergy and religious gathered for Evening Prayer at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City Sept. 24.
“I accompany you at this time of pain and difficulty, and I thank God for your faithful service to his people,” he said, adding they have “come forth from the great tribulation.”
Deacon Greg Kandra of the Diocese of Brooklyn says he will find a warm welcome: "You’d be hard-pressed to find [a Catholic] in New York City who doesn’t adore this Pope,” said the popular blogger. “I hear it all the time from believers and nonbelievers, who tell me, without prompting, ‘I love this Pope.’ It’s a cliché to call him a ‘rock star,’ but let’s be honest: He is a rock star — and someone both familiar and new. I think he’s offering the world a slice of Catholicism that is often overlooked: Beyond the rules and the tradition, beyond the theology and the history and the hierarchy, there is hope."
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) was the lone Democratic presidential hopeful -- and the only Jewish contender -- in the House chamber for Pope Francis's speech. When he left, he was beaming, as the pope had cited an American Catholic whom Sanders had plenty of praise for."The name Dorothy Day has not been used in the United States Congress terribly often," said Sanders in a short interview. "She was a valiant fighter for workers, was very strong in her belief for social justice, and I think it was extraordinary that he cited her as one of the most important people in recent American history. This would be one of the very, very few times that somebody as radical as Dorothy Day was mentioned."
Pope Francis paid a short visit to the Little Sisters of the Poor community in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday to support them in their court case over the contraception mandate, the Vatican's spokesman revealed. ...The sisters had filed a lawsuit against the Obama administration for its 2012 mandate that employers provide insurance coverage for birth control, sterilizations, and drugs that can cause abortions employee health plans. The sisters have maintained that to provide this coverage would violate their religious beliefs.
Pope Francis Wednesday reminded U.S. president Barack Obama that religious freedom is one of America's most “precious possessions,” while lauding the nation's Catholics their work toward a society marked by tolerance and inclusivity."With countless other people of good will, (American Catholics) are likewise concerned that efforts to build a just and wisely ordered society respect their deepest concerns and their right to religious liberty," the Pope said Wednesday, addressing the U.S. commander-in-chief at the White House in Washington, D.C.
"That freedom remains one of America's most precious possessions."
Echoing the appeals by the U.S. bishops on the issue of religious freedom, the pontiff told President Obama: "All are called to be vigilant, precisely as good citizens, to preserve and defend that freedom from everything that would threaten or compromise it."
Pope Francis arrived in Washington DC today and immediately showed why his poll numbers are higher than any American politician by turning down lunch invitations from members of Congress to instead dine with 300 members of the homeless community after his scheduled Thursday address.
In what is likely to be the most controversial move of his six-day visit to the United States, Pope Francis declared Spanish missionary Junípero Serra a saint Wednesday, calling him a “protector of Native Americans.”The pope’s decision to canonize the 18th-century Franciscan priest drew criticism because of accusations that Serra forced Christianity on the region, was complicit in the decline or elimination of native populations, and enslaved converts to the faith.
"Junípero Serra left his native land and its way of life," Pope Francis reflected. "He was excited about blazing trails, going forth to meet many people, learning and valuing their particular customs and ways of life. He learned how to bring to birth and nurture God’s life in the faces of everyone he met; he made them his brothers and sisters."Although some have raised concerns about St. Junipero Serra’s work with Native Americans, Pope Francis joined many others who insist that Serra worked tirelessly to protect the rights and dignity of the people whom he served.
"Junípero sought to defend the dignity of the native community, to protect it from those who had mistreated and abused it. Mistreatment and wrongs which today still trouble us, especially because of the hurt which they cause in the lives of many people," Pope Francis said.
“I actually agree with the pope on more issues than many Catholics who agree with him on one issue,” Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, told The New York Times during an interview timed for Pope Francis's Sept. 24 address before Congress.That "one issue" is legal abortion, which has eliminated the lives of an estimated 57 million unborn children since the U.S. Supreme Court issued its landmark decision in Roe v. Wade.
“Maybe there’s an impression I’m a little bit more leftie, but I haven’t said a single thing that’s not in the social doctrine of the Church,” Francis insisted, referring to official Catholic teaching on social questions.At one stage, the pontiff even challenged a journalist to give him an example of something he’s said that was “too strong.”
Asked about a recent Newsweek cover story asking if the pope is Catholic, Francis joked that “I’m ready to recite the Creed if need be,” referring to an ancient statement of core Catholic beliefs recited at every Mass.
I wish to be among you as a missionary of God's mercy and tenderness, but allow me to encourage you too to be missionaries of God's infinite love. May no-one lack the witness of our faith and our love. May all the world know that God always forgives, that God always stays by our side, that God loves us.
The pope is spending four days in a country whose Communist dictatorship has remained unrelenting in its repression of free speech, political dissent and other human rights despite a warming of relations with the Vatican and the United States. Yet by the end of his third day, the pope had said or done absolutely nothing that might discomfit his official hosts.Pope Francis met with 89-year-old Fidel Castro, who holds no office in Cuba, but not with any members of the dissident community — in or outside of prison. According to the Web site 14ymedio.com, two opposition activists were invited to greet the pope at Havana’s cathedral Sunday but were arrested on the way. Dozens of other dissidents were detained when they attempted to attend an open air Mass. They needn’t have bothered: The pope said nothing in his homily about their cause, or even political freedom more generally. Those hunting for a message had to settle for a cryptic declaration that "service is never ideological."
In a stunning show of political indecorum, Obama has invited a series of individuals who publicly flout Catholic teaching, including a pro-abortion religious sister, a transgender woman and the first openly gay Episcopal bishop, along with at least two Catholic gay activists.
Commentary
Last night saw the conclusion of Pope Francis' historic visit to three leading U.S. cities. We saw media adulation and adoring crowds everywhere. But many of us, trying to see the big picture, are wondering about his overall message, as indicated by the relative priority he gave to various current issues. The general tone and spirit of the Holy Father's trip was well captured by a cartoon that has been doing the rounds: a downcast Obama, in the Confessional with Francis, says, "I'm the most pro-abortion President ever"; and the Pope responds through the screen, "But what's your position on climate change?"
Francis got to see the reality of American faith and life on this trip in a uniquely powerful way. In Washington he experienced our political center. In New York he encountered our greatest financial and international city. But in Philadelphia he saw the face of a great city built and sustained by ordinary Americans – the face of nearly a million everyday working people enthusiastically in love with him. I think he'll remember that. ...Pope Francis told the U.S. bishops that family “is the primary reason for my present visit.” What is the significance of the Pope making his first papal visit to the U.S. in the context of the family?
Family has been a constant theme of his pontificate. It's the basic cell of society. Because of the global influence of the United States, problems here have an impact around the world. Given all the current issues in our country related to the nature of marriage, the breakdown of families and the purpose of human sexuality, the timing of the papal visit seems pretty logical."
There were turns of phrase or gestures along the way that might have gotten another pontiff into trouble – his disparaging reference to “crying nuns” in Cuba, for instance, or his fairly tough language on religious freedom on Saturday, or the fact that, despite being expected to meet victims in private Sunday morning, he has had very little to say publicly about the clerical sexual abuse scandals.None of that, however, really put a dent in the “People’s Pope” storyline.
Perhaps that will be another sense in which Francis becomes a pope of firsts, disproving the conventional wisdom that honeymoons always someday end.
The United States this past June did something that the Catholic Church and the Vatican have for years railed against: granted marriage equality to its gay and lesbian citizens.Yet, Pope Francis had nothing to say about it. Not then and not now.
Considering that Pope Benedict often vocally expressed harsh condemnation of marriage equality -- even traveling to Spain to speak out against it when that country was among the first to legalize marriage for gays and lesbians and called it a "threat to the future of humanity"-- it's astonishing how silent Francis is on the issue.
The speech to Congress was in all likelihood ghostwritten by someone in Cardinal Wuerl or Cardinal McCarrick's stable. That would explain its cautious, small feel. They represent a wing of American Catholicism that wants to get along with the dominant liberal establishment, which requires downplaying “divisive” issues. It was telling that in that speech “a man and a woman” or “a mother and a father” made no appearance in the material on the importance of the family.No so the United Nations speech. It had vim and vigor. He emphasized the leitmotif of his papacy: criticism of our global system and its “social and economic exclusion.” He warned his audience not to be satisfied with “declarational nominalism,” a wonderful turn of phrase that both draws on specialized Catholic insider terminology (nominalism) and chastises the United Nations (and other international organizations) for issuing empty declarations.
Yesterday, Pope Francis addressed a number of issues by name when he spoke to Congress. He talked about immigrants; he delved into economics; and he got very specific on environmental degradation, the arms trade, and abolishing the death penalty.One issue that Pope Francis did not get specific about was abortion.
In the internal life of the Church in the U.S., Francis’s visit has undoubted real meaning—in the lives of bishops, priests, religious, and lay people who flock to his Masses and other gatherings, or only view them from afar, and in the things he does and says as supreme pontiff during his visit. Still more important will be his episcopal appointments, his reforms of canon law, his guidance on the pastoral care of the family during and after the upcoming Ordinary Synod, and a hundred other decisions he will make from Rome. These practical deeds of the Pope, as Ross Douthat observes, will carry more weight in shaping the future, not just of American Catholicism but of the universal Church.But here in a free and democratic society, Francis will come, and he will go, and our politics will go on as though he had never visited. This I count as fundamentally a good thing.
... While the Left fantasizes about an imaginary Hero Pope come to beat up the American Right for its views on social issues, the real Pope will be on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, endorsing a markedly traditional Catholic view of the family, reflecting the structure of the Holy Family itself and forming a kind of fortress against what he’s called the “ideological colonization” of same-sex marriage. The family, he said earlier this year, is “threatened by growing efforts on the part of some to redefine the very institution of marriage, by relativism, by the culture of the ephemeral, by a lack of openness to life.” Does that sound like a pope come to tear the Church down—or a pope come to protect it?
Pope Francis is not exactly the silent type when it comes to social, political, or economic issues. When he thinks something is wrong, he lets the world know, as he has just done in his encyclical Laudato Si’, in which he champions environmentalism and excoriates materialist consumerism. A few months ago, in Bolivia, he spoke of “the unfettered pursuit of money” as nothing less than “the dung of the devil.”So, why is it that he refrained from calling the Castro regime and other such failed experiments in materialist totalitarian communism “the dung of the devil”? Is communist materialism any less fiendish? Is communist political and economic repression any less reprehensible? Why didn’t he call Raúl and Fidel Castro to repentance? Why did he praise them instead?
Francis gave no support to Catholics who have fought abortion, the redefinition of marriage, doctor-assisted suicide, and other cultural issues. He also made no mention of threats to religious liberty.He may have omitted some of these topics because he wants to steer clear of appearing to intervene directly in our political debates. Congress presently has before it specific legislation to defund Planned Parenthood and expand religious liberty (an issue tied to conflict over same-sex marriage). This is a good reason to take care. Nevertheless, complete silence on these issues demoralizes those who are on the front lines of these battles.
The only specific issues Francis mentioned before Congress are associated with progressive politics: abolition of the death penalty, global warming, and arms control. This reinforces the trends of this papacy, at least in relation to the United States. Francis discourages conservative Catholics, more by silence than anything else. He encourages progressives, both by his silences and his affirmations.
In addition to the fact that this [Francis' reminder of the "Golden Rule"] is the most bare-bones acknowledgement of the sanctity of life one could get in a speech before a governmental body that sends half a billion dollars a year to an organization that kills millions of children and sells their parts to the highest bidder, the entire emphasis was placed on abolition of the death penalty, which is not even consonant with the long-held teaching of the Church. (And as a friend asked me after reading the speech, “When did ‘murderer on death row’ become a stage of human development?”)
Aside from a line about how the Golden Rule requires the protection of human life at all stages of development, and a veiled reference to his opposition to same-sex marriage, Pope Francis said nothing that would discomfit a progressive (at least one who can put up with a lot of mentions of God). He called on Americans to be generous to immigrants, to abolish the death penalty, to fight poverty and hunger "constantly and on many fronts," and to protect the environment. These are, of course, goals that are more often associated with the American left than with its right, and so Francis' words carry more of a challenge to Republicans than to Democrats.But the pope's argument was couched in terms that appeal to Americans of all political persuasions. There was no pointed rebuke of those who oppose particular climate change policies or immigration initiatives. The only specific policy Francis endorsed was abolishing capital punishment. Liberals can easily make the case that their policies flow naturally from the values the pope invoked in his speech. But most conservatives accept those values too, and those conservatives who listened to the speech with an open mind can make the case that they have a superior understanding of how to act on them.
For me, however, as a migrant to the United States, it was especially gratifying to watch Francis say very positive things to say about America. The word “liberty” was used no less than five times, "freedom" seven times, and "subsidiarity" (a Catholic expression for protecting liberty) twice. He also invoked America’s "spirit of enterprise," and repeated what he’s said elsewhere: that "Business is a noble vocation, directed to producing wealth and improving the world.” And while insisting that more needs to be done to address poverty, the pope also exclaimed, "How much has been done in these first years of the third millennium to raise people out of extreme poverty!"All this suggests that Francis has listened — as he said he would — to those American Catholics who’ve suggested that some of his previous statements about economic life weren’t attentive to the facts about poverty and the most effective ways of diminishing it.
Francis is not an American politician, but his perspective on the state’s role in these issues lines up pretty well with that of most American Democrats. To greatly oversimplify, Democrats believe the U.S. needs to regulate the economy and the environment, while allowing people to make their own choices about whom they marry and whether to have an abortion. Republicans—again, oversimplifying greatly—think people should generally be able to do what they want with their money and their carbon footprint, but social behavior should be regulated by the state. Francis aligns more with Democrats than Republicans on other issues: He favors immigration reform, played a major role in the Obama administration’s détente with Cuba, and supports the Iran nuclear deal. No wonder the president and other American liberals are trying to claim him—and conservatives see him as a threat.
Where Pope Francis and many of those who share his tendencies go wrong is on a question of priority: They simply assume prosperity sufficient to support their redistributionist programs. “Business,” the pope says, “is a noble vocation, directed to producing wealth and improving the world. It can be a fruitful source of prosperity, . . . especially if it sees the creation of jobs as an essential part of its service to the common good.” There is some bad economics in that (jobs are a means, not an end) and some vast understatement: It is not the case that business “can be a fruitful source of prosperity” — it is, in human material experience, practically the only source of prosperity. And it doesn’t just happen. Rather, there are necessary preconditions without which prosperity cannot emerge: the rule of law, physical security, property rights, the freedom to engage in commerce and trade. The pope is not the first man of his political stripe to implicitly argue that we can put to good use the fruits of capitalism while holding capitalism itself at arm’s length. The pope’s antipathy here is difficult to miss: In an act of sweeping equivocation, he spoke of the need to “combat violence perpetrated in the name of a religion, an ideology, or an economic system,” as though Google executives were posting Internet videos of Bing users being beheaded."No one would remember the Good Samaritan if he’d only had good intentions," Margaret Thatcher wryly observed. "He had money as well." The United States, the English-speaking countries, Western Europe, and Japan grew wealthy for particular reasons, just as Argentina stagnated for particular reasons. Our great complaint with the Holy Father is that he does not seem to be much interested in what those reasons are.
I have to wonder where is the forthrightness we have come to expect of Pope Francis. At the very least he could have used the words "clergy sexual abuse of minors." This oblique reference will do nothing to assuage the fears of victims’ advocates who believe Francis is more public relations manager than crisis manager when it comes to sexual abuse.Praising the bishops for the courage they have shown before acknowledging the pain of the victims, will undoubtedly raise the charges of "he just doesn’t get it."
There was ... something about being “committed to building a society which is truly tolerant and inclusive, to safeguarding the rights of individuals and communities, and to rejecting every form of unjust discrimination”. A brief mention of religious liberty made it in, too. But a statement about protecting the unborn in the presence of the most pro-abortion president in US history — especially as Congress is attempting to defund Planned Parenthood — didn’t make the cut.
... Without sacrificing his charismatic, populist edge, Francis appears determined to reinsert himself into the context of the Church he leads, and the teaching and world view it represents.Pope Benedict XVI was fond of saying that Christ can’t be separated from the Church, as if one could follow Jesus but reject his Church. Maybe part of what Francis is saying now is that’s it also a mistake to separate the pope from the Church.
The pope’s capitalism is parody seemingly drawn from the pages of Noam Chomsky. It is a system “where the powerful feed upon the powerless.” This kind of exploitation has been the norm through human history, and it will never disappear. But there is less of it in the advanced West, where property rights, the rule of law, open political systems and market competition make it much harder for an entrenched elite to despoil ordinary people. That the pope doesn’t realize this constitutes a serious moral blind spot.
1. Personalities tend to be more popular than institutions, so we should be skeptical about claims that the popularity of a given pope will translate into a “revived” church.2. Francis’s appeal is based largely on his anti-institutional image—his willingness to disregard rules and call out entrenched interests—and so his popularity is especially unlikely to translate into increased attachment to the church. ...
Ahead of the Pope’s visit to the United States, a trip that will be wrought with sound-bytes, drama, and press releases, I thought it would be fitting to put together a short list of instances where the Holy Father has been completely taken out of context or mis-reported (flat-out lied about) by the national media and press corps. ...
When Steve Skojec heard that Jorge Mario Bergoglio had been elected pope, he got a queasy feeling in the pit of his stomach. He can’t say why, exactly — though he follows Vatican politics closely, he didn’t know much about Francis then. But as he watched the new Catholic leader greet the crowds on his office television in Manassas, Va., he was filled with dread."I felt a discontinuity," he said. "A disruption."
Some Cuban human rights activists are looking wistfully on Francis’ predecessor, whose more direct approach, in contrast to the more dialogue-based Ostpolitik of Blessed Paul VI, helped lead to the downfall of Soviet communism.Much of this affinity no doubt has to do with Francis' clear sympathy for some Marxists even if he disagrees with the ideology (he once said he has met many "who are good people").
But an exchange between Cardinal Renato Martino and Fidel Castro in the 2000s also partly shows why Francis, the Holy See — and Benedict XVI, too, to a large extent — have stressed more dialogue than condemnation when it comes to dealing with the Cuban regime.
Meeting Fidel during a visit to the country as president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Cardinal Martino presented the former communist revolutionary with a copy of the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church that his dicastery had just produced. “He responded with some surprise,” Cardinal Martino, now honorary president of the Dignitatis Humanae Institute, told me. “Castro said that in his view, much of the teaching it contained was identical to what he and his regime had been trying to apply to Cuban society for years!”
Humor
We’ve all seen Pope Francis’ smiles and laughs. He’s a pretty happy pope, as popes go. But even he has down times. C’mon; he’s 78 years old, is missing part of a lung, and oversees 1.2 billion Catholics who think they know more about Catholicism than he does. So sometimes he kind of looks like, well, Grumpy Cat. ...
Francis said he did not want to leave the country before paying a visit to what is considered one of Latin America’s most dangerous prisons. The rehabilitation facility has been run by the inmates themselves since 1989 and family members can come and go as they please. But this also means weapons and drugs can enter and leave the premises freely.There is “something absolutely certain about my own life,” Francis told prisoners. “The man standing before you is a man who has experienced forgiveness. A man who was, and is, saved from his many sins.”
This morning Pope Francis received in audience the representatives of the Czech Hussite Church and the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren, in Rome to celebrate a liturgy of reconciliation on the occasion of the 600 th anniversary of the reformer Jan Hus, distinguished preacher and rector of the University of Prague, whose execution was lamented by St. John Paul II in 1999, who included him among the reformers of the Church.
“A Christian who does not take the dimension of martyrdom seriously in life does not understand the road that Jesus has indicated,” the Pope said May 11, according to Vatican Radio's translation.Addressing the congregation at the Santa Marta residence chapel, Pope Francis said the road indicated by Jesus invites “us to bear witness every day, defending the rights of others; defending our children; mothers and fathers who defend their family; so many sick people who bear witness and suffer for the love of Jesus.”
He encouraged Christians to turn to the Holy Spirit to remind them of Jesus' words, and guide them in preparing to be witnesses “with small every day martyrdoms, or with a great martyrdom, according to God’s will.”
... [Chilean Bishop Juan] Barros was a long-time colleague and supporter of Rev. Fernando Karadima, a notorious abuser in Chile. After Karadima was first accused of sexual abuse, Barros publicly defended his friend and mentor, and reportedly “tried to discredit the victims—even after the Vatican ruled against him [Karadima]” in 2011. The Chilean Bishops Conference subsequently ordered Barros, and three other bishops who had defended Karadima, to apologize.Once Karadima’s guilt was established, Barros denied any knowledge or involvement in the abuse, and continues to do so.
Commentary
... Lombardi had served as the spokesman for Benedict, formerly known as Joseph Ratzinger, a man of Germanic precision. After meeting with a world leader, the former pope would emerge and rattle off an incisive summation, Lombardi tells me, with palpable wistfulness: "It was incredible. Benedict was so clear. He would say, ‘We have spoken about these things, I agree with these points, I would argue against these other points, the objective of our next meeting will be this’—two minutes and I’m totally clear about what the contents were. With Francis—‘This is a wise man; he has had these interesting experiences.’"Chuckling somewhat helplessly, Lombardi adds, "Diplomacy for Francis is not so much about strategy but instead, ‘I have met this person, we now have a personal relation, let us now do good for the people and for the church.’"
The list of disappointments with Francis seems to lengthen every day, from all quarters. He is too ardently opposed to abortion. He has reaffirmed the Church’s longstanding position on the all-male priesthood. He is not fond of free market capitalism or birth control, though both do, by various accounts, reduce poverty. He is too cold-hearted toward the rich. He has failed to make the sacrament of marriage available to gay and lesbian Catholics who can now legally marry in all 50 states. And Laudato Si, Francis’ newly released encyclical on ecology and the environment? Boring, unclear, and weak. Pope Francis can’t win.
Whatever else might be said of other papal address in Bolivia, this one at Santa Cruz was pure Bergoglio. It contains his vision of the world and what is wrong with it. He is telling us—not asking our opinions. He has already made his conclusions. It is what I would call a very apocalyptic and utopian address. It describes both how terrible things are and how idyllic they can be. There is little room for a common sense middle, for a view that the world might just go on its own way as it has for millennia. It was a “second commandment” (“love thy neighbor”) and not a “first commandment” (“Seek ye first the Kingdom of God”) exhortation. It was closer to Joachim of Fiora than to Augustine of Hippo.As far as I could judge, we find, in this particular address, almost no trace of traditional Christian concerns with personal virtue, salvation, sin, sacrifice, long-suffering, repentance, eternal life, or an abiding vale of tears. Sins and evils are transformed into social or ecological issues that require political and structural remedies. Problems are at the same time said to be “global” and “individual”. Pope Francis urges individual action and global refashioning. The evil is caused by capitalism in the form of money and greed. The free market capitalism, severely limited by the state, that actually exists has little hearing. Time cited a comment that such moderate capitalism was the only way that could really achieve what the Pope wanted for the poor before him. Thus the central questions that the Pope brings up in this address is: “What works? What does not work for the end envisioned?” This end that Pope Francis seems to envision is nothing less than a world transformation of mankind to save itself, soon—indeed, now!
Kasper is much more the media's theologian than he is the pope's. Francis did indeed endorse Kasper's book on mercy and give him a prominent role in the Synod on the Family, but the media has gone much further in promoting the Cardinal's person and proposals. In recent days, the pope has shown some signs of turning against his ideas—calling Kasper's hopes "overblown expectations."