As the vernal equinox opens a Catholic Spring, many asked what Catholics hope to see in Pope Francis. Let’s instead ask what he hopes to see in us.
Habemus Papam! In Pope Francis we have a Holy Father who comes to us at the dawn of Spring. This Pope for the New Evangelization opens a new era of the Church, a new era in which the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics would do well to set aside the question of what sort of Pope we want him to be. He is our Holy Father, not our Holy Keeper, and the more adult, less self-absorbed question we might now ask is “What sort of Catholic do I want to be in union with him?”
For some, there is a more fundamental question, the answer to which might seriously streamline the Church and separate the wheat from the chaff. That question is, “Do I want to be in union with him at all?” It’s a basic question posed today to every Catholic, and its answer cannot have integrity if it is divided or qualified. This question of unity might be the most pressing question of this age of the Church. The divisive “sins against unity” described in my post, “The Sacrifices of a Father’s Love” were cited by Benedict the Beloved as one of the most scandalous challenges of his papacy, and of our lives as Catholics.
And yes, they are “our” sins against unity – meaning us, as a Church. As I described two weeks ago in “Sede Vacante: The Sky is Not Falling on the Catholic Church,” we are consumers of a news media that does not report on Catholic dissent and disruption so much as shape and foster it. Without the market for scandal that our culture provides, the secular media feeding off of it would die. The hopeful news, as I pointed out in that post, is that much of the print news media as we know it is doing just that – dying.
I, for one, cannot in conscience enter Holy Week without an answer to my own question about fundamental unity. My answer is simple: Yes, I choose – from the perspective of my humble state in life – to be united in faith and in truth with this Holy Father. With fidelity, deference, and respect, I commit myself to unity with Pope Francis in all matters of faith. Like so many, I am most enthused about this Holy Father.
For me, this is the answer of a Catholic adult, but it didn’t always feel this way. The irony of the question about whether I choose to be in unity with Pope Francis – and the irony of my response – is that some would view it as childish that I might so openly betray the “question authority” mantra of the 1960s to accept in faith the legitimate authority of the Church as my Baptism and Profession of Faith require. My answer comes with a price tag. It requires that I adopt the demeanor of Saint Paul as expressed to the Church of Corinth (1 Corinthians 13:11):
“When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways.”
What exactly does it mean to follow Saint Paul’s lead on that score? What might it mean to give up childish ways in relation to our faith and our Catholic identity? For one thing, it means that I must entirely free myself from the expectations of the Sixties.
In the 1960s, when it became cool to see myself in opposition to all authority, I was in fact a child. It was the era of Vatican II, and I attempted to describe that era in my two-part post, “Vatican II Turns Fifty: Catholics in an Age of Discontent,” and in Part Two, “Catholics and Culture Collide.” The point I tried to make was that the Second Vatican Council was interpreted then with the perfect storm of social revolution, sexual revolution, and social reorganization sweeping through Western Culture.
Those forces hijacked the Second Vatican Council, distorted its documents through the lens of an entire culture’s adolescent rebellion, and then swept the Church into a hermeneutic of discontinuity and disunity. It is the monumental task of this Pope for the New Evangelization to reinterpret Vatican II for the Church of this time, separated from the cultural tsunami of the 1960s, the era that gave it birth. The Sixties are over. Let’s bury them. God lives, and Nietzsche – who we all so loved to quote back then – is dead!
NOT ALL ARE ABOARD THE BARQUE OF PETER
During the recent period of sede vacante, a few Catholic writers took a break from the media stories of secret Vatican scandals and rumors of the Conclave to have a look at the role of dissent in modern Catholic discourse. Specifically, there was some ire raised by a typically adolescent editorial by Tom Fox, the typically adolescent editor of the National Catholic Reporter (NCR). Father John Zuhlsdorf tackled this in “Dr. Peters v. National Schismatic Reporter.” Bishop Rene Gracida also took it on in “What do the National Catholic Reporter and ‘The Da Vinci Code’ have in common?” Both entries appeared on their blogs on March 1, 2013.
The latter part of Father Z’s title, the “National Schismatic Reporter” is his newest nickname for NCR. There are other pseudonyms – some used with far less dignity – but my own name for NCR is the “National Catholic Distorter.” That one has fallen into disuse, however, because it retains the name, “Catholic” in the title, and undeservedly so. On February 27, the day before Benedict’s resignation took effect, NCR editor, Torn Fox offered up this little gem of reflection to his readers:
“With the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI at 8:00 p.m. tomorrow Rome time, his pontificate comes to an end, Roman curial heads resign, and the Vatican shuts down. We all become adults again, at least until we have a new ‘Holy Father.’ “
Note Tom Fox’s use of “scare quotes” framing the words, “Holy Father.” He utters that title with typical tongue-in-cheek fashion, with a wink and a nod to his “trapped-in-the-sixties” readers. The editorial was embarrassingly juvenile. It is a common trait of adolescents to believe that theirs is the only voice in the house worth hearing.
I have an NCR story of my own to tell. When I was a young priest in the early 1980s, NCR was seen as the coolest Catholic thing in print. Among many priests and Catholic leaders, it represented a voice on the left, growing ever further left as the Sixties moved on. NCR saw itself as representing the Church’s social justice arm while independent of any one bishop. By the time I was ordained in 1982, every priest I knew subscribed to NCR. A stack of copies appeared as the sole Catholic newspaper in many parish vestibules in the Northeast where I grew up (or didn’t grow up, depending on one’s point of view). NCR was vastly influential in the American Catholic priesthood. I recall reading back then that it had a subscriber base of 60,000 or more – unheard of for an American Catholic publication.
I first noted a problem with NCR when I found myself at or near the center of some important Catholic news stories. This happened three times in my priesthood, once in the early 1980s, once in the early 1990s, and once again in 2002 when the scandal in the Catholic priesthood was launched nationwide by The Boston Globe (may it rest in peace).
In all three instances, I found that the National Catholic Reporter was not so much reporting on these stories as shaping public perception of them. Many attempts to present another side of these stories were ignored by NCR, or flatly rebuffed, if the facts challenged the editorial positions of the paper. Over the last few decades, NCR has been shockingly one-sided, and offers no apology for that. From a journalistic standard, it presents no news at all, but is merely an extended opinion outlet for only one type of opinion on the Catholic far left. NCR is not at all worthy of its one good journalist, John Allen.
When I was unjustly sent to prison in 1994, two priest-friends thought they were doing me a favor by presenting me with gift subscriptions to NCR. The result was that I received two copies of each issue. I wrote to NCR from prison asking that the two subscriptions be collapsed into one and extended. Some unnamed person at NCR wrote back to me with a suggestion that I simply give my second issue to another Catholic prisoner.
The problem was that I could not find another Catholic prisoner willing to read it. NCR prides itself on what were then “leftist” issues such as prisoner rights. As I attempted to circulate a few copies, the comments I received from other prisoners were remarkable. I kept a short list of representative samples. This is what Catholic prisoners had to say about NCR:
“No thanks! Too negative. I have enough negative in my life.”
“Thanks, but no thanks. This is just nasty!”
“Wow! This is awful. Does the Church do ANYTHING right?” “What an ugly, nasty, negative paper!”
“UGH! Why did you give me this?”
“Why are they Catholic if they see nothing good in the Church?”
… and so on and so on. You get the point.
That’s when I cancelled my subscription to NCR. A couple of years ago, some well-meaning person subscribed again for me, and I was shocked at the paper’s obvious decline. In one issue, NCR’s annual Statement of Ownership and Circulation required by the U.S. Postal Service was in such tiny print that it was impossible to read. I took a copy to the prison library and enlarged it. I was thus alarmed to see that NCR’s circulation was a tiny fraction of what it had been in the early 1980s. It made me wonder how and why the paper survives.
I think the answer to that is to be found in the mainstream media. NCR survives today – and barely – solely because the secular media can count on it for a dissenting voice that presents itself as mainstream Catholic. For that end, NCR allows itself to be used as a tool for secularization, disunity, and the diminishment of Catholic culture in America.
I much respect Father John Zuhlsdorf and Bishop Rene Gracida, and they are quite right to engage Tom Fox and NCR with a challenge. There is a new conversation taking place, however, and it requires all our attention and engagement. Dissenting voices have run out of much of their volume and impact – except in the secular press which is dying while fomenting Catholic dissent to its last breath.
In a recent commentary in The Wall Street Journal (“What to Look for in a New Pope,” Review, March 9-10) Catholic writer George Weigel – who I find myself quoting a lot these days – wrote of his hope that this Pope will be “a missionary cultural warrior [who] calls the West out of the sandbox of self-absorption.” Brilliant!
The “sandbox of self-absorption” is the perfect characterization for much of the Catholic dissent that contributes to the sins against unity that so wounded Benedict the Beloved. In America, the National Catholic Reporter has been its mouthpiece. It’s time to leave the sandbox of the Sixties. It’s over!
Editor’s Note: Now that the voting has closed for the Catholicism About.Com Best Catholic Blog Award , we wish to extend our gratitude to those who have voted for These Stone Walls and our congratulations to Father John Zuhlsdorf!
Carlos Caso-Rosendi says
March 29, 2013 at 4:32 PMDear Fr. McRae, I like Mr Weigel’s sandbox analogy and I would like to add that the sandbox has not been cleaned in a long while and its stench can be detected a mile away. Who is this man God has sent to preach on sackcloth to a world rotten by excess and shameless luxury? A simple man who shows up at the red district (oh oh, alert!) alongside a couple of young priests carrying thermos with soup. He engages in conversation with the streetwalkers. Some of them cry and ask for confession right there. Others walk away respectfully and call it a night. The pimps run to the scene alarmed but walk away when they see the familiar figure of Monsignor… scum always recognize true manliness and hightails quickly out of Dodge. This Pope ate Rottweilers for breakfast when he was an Archbishop (like Msgr. Wojtyla did in Nowa Huta) that is why I warn everyone: don’t be deceived by his firm gentle manners. His motto should have been “Suaviter in modo fortiter in re” but he chose “Miserando atque eligendo” because God in His mercy gave us another saintly father. Expect Mary to be heralded to the world as the Co-Redemptrix with Christ; expect Russia to be consecrated to the Immaculate Heart in union of all the bishops of the world, including the Eastern Orthodox patriarchs; expect the Church to start breathing with two lungs again. He said it: “the carnival is over” prophetically speaking those words mean that the days of Global Sodom are counted. Mark my words.
God bless you and keep you always. A blessed Triduum for you and your pilgrimage companions.
Your friend Carlos
Juan says
March 25, 2013 at 7:40 AMHi Father Gordon, here is a P.S. to my earlier comment:
On the Vatican web page there is a link that says “Abuse of Minors. The Church’s response”. I would like to see one saying “The Abuse of the Abuse Crisis”.
Needless to say, at the end of my comment , where I wrote “Ester” I meant Easter.
God bless you and everybody else.
Juan.
Fr. Gordon says
March 25, 2013 at 9:58 PMBravo Juan! It is rare that I get to comment on the comments, but yours were just read to me. You are a most astute and insightful TSW reader. Now if only we could engage the Vatican with some news about the abuse of the abuse crisis.
With Holy Week Blessings to all,
Father Gordon
Juan says
March 25, 2013 at 5:38 AMHi Father Gordon,
Thank you for your illuminating reflection on being Catholic at the start of the new millenium and also start of the 3rd Papacy of this 21st century.I also thank everybody else for their enriching comments.
Towards the end of your post Father you write: “. . . the sins against unity that so wounded Benedict the Beloved”. This revived in my mind the letter he wrote in response to the harsh critics of his lifting a few years back the excommunication that had been imposed on Bishop Marcel Lefebvre and his followers. How much bitterness and love all at once in his defensive letter! The words of the vineyard’s owner to the grumbling laborers in Matthew 20:15, “Or are you envious because I am generous?” were fit to be applied to the Pope’s attackers then.
Your article encourages us to drop cowardice and self-centered, self-complacent destructive dissent in favor of unity under Peter’s successor’s guidance, now Pope Francis, as our Master and Savior told us. Also Father Gérald LaJeunesse’s comment to your article on March 20th seems most appropriate: “Our joy is that we have someone (thePope) who announces the Joy who is Christ”. As Benedict XVI has told us “Let us look at Christ” beyond who is steering the Church’s boat.
And it was also Benedict XVI, the same who wrote books under J. Ratzinger’s name while he was the Pope, who reminded us that the Pope’s statements can be the subject of healthy, respectful, constructive debate as long as he is not pronouncing himself solemnly in matters of Faith and Morals (ex cathedra).
Finally here is something that Saint Gertrude of Helfta (1256-1302 A.D.) said of our Lord, the One who wants us to be one in Him and the Father (John 17:21), “thou O God of truth, more radiant than any light, yet deeper than any secret thing, determined to dissolve the obscurity of my darkness.” Let us pray this together to cure us from useless dissent and all of our other evils.
God bless you all in the house during Holy Week, Ester and beyond.
In union of prayers, Juan.
Jo the Housewife says
March 22, 2013 at 5:42 PMAfter complaining numerous times to my parish about putting not only NCReporter but also Sojourners!!! in our Catholic reading area, my friends and I made a habit of walking by and tossing them in the trash–where they belonged! We did the same to U.S. Catholic and America, and any others ‘dissenters’ that happened to arrive. The parish gave up on displaying them publicly. If they still suscribe, they hide them from us. It’s like the parent story about kids wanting to see movies with “just a little bad stuff” and the parents explain by making them brownies with just a little dog poop… Why should we read the magazines that are “full of poop” when there are better ones out there??? I’m looking forward to “getting to know” our new Holy Father. Thank you, Father, as always, you are an inspiration to all of us who live in prisons of our own making… PRAYING FOR YOU!!
Judy Stefencavage says
March 21, 2013 at 10:28 AMoh my gosh Father Gordon
You remind me of John F Kennedy when he said at his inaugration: ASk not what you country can do for you, but what you can do for your country”. We need to ask ourselves: Not what can our church do for us, but what can we do for our Church? I have not even read the entire post, but that first paragraph just hit me between the eyes!!!!!
And I love the graphics, keep it up dear Father, you are earning your place in the heavenly garden of Christ. God Bless
Domingo says
March 20, 2013 at 10:52 PMFaith. Hope. Love.
Truth. Goodness. Beauty.
These are the things I read in your posts, Father. Thank you.
Sr Mary says
March 20, 2013 at 10:06 PMThanks Father — I like how Blessed John Paul ll challenged us once:
When Pope John Paul came to Yankee Stadium he reminded us that Lazarus is standing at the door of the USA. – “All of humanity must think of the parable of the rich man and the beggar. Humanity must translate it into contemporary terms, in terms of economy and politics, in terms of all human rights, in terms of relations between the “First”, “Second” and “Third World”. We cannot stand idly by when thousands of human beings are dying of hunger. Nor can we remain indifferent when the rights of the human spirit are trampled upon, when violence is done to the human conscience in matters of truth, religion, and cultural creativity.
We cannot stand idly by, enjoying our own riches and freedom, if, in any place, the Lazarus of the twentieth century stands at our doors. In the light of the parable of Christ, riches and freedom mean a special responsibility. Riches and freedom create a special obligation. And so, in the name of the solidarity that binds us all together in a common humanity, I again proclaim the dignity of every human person: the rich man and Lazarus are both human beings, both of them equally created in the image and likeness of God, both of them equally redeemed by Christ, at a great price, the price of “the precious blood of Christ” (1 Pt 1 :19).”
Kathy Maxwell says
March 20, 2013 at 4:39 PMHi Father Gordon,
Great essay, as usual. I had a very strong feeling that we were going to have the new Pope last Wed. When I realized that it was past the time when they had been sending up black smoke, I stopped what I had been doing to listen to the radio. A few minutes later, I heard the host (Rush Limbaugh) announced white smoke. From that moment until after Pope Francis’ greetings, I cried and swore fidelity, whoever was chosen by God.
What a wonderful surprise he was! I know the barque is in great hands.
The national Catholic newspaper I read is National Catholic Register. It’s a good one. It’s owned by EWTN.
God bless you, Father,
Kathy
Esther says
March 20, 2013 at 3:08 PMFather Gordon, mahalo for writing this post. It is sad and sometimes upsetting to see the NCR available for people to take and read, at some churches I visit on he mainland. It is no wonder folks don’t have a clear knowledge of good and evil.
with much aloha,
Esther
Mary Elizabeth says
March 20, 2013 at 1:21 PMThanks for this once again, dear Fr. You struck a chord in me.
I was a teenager in the 60’s and really plugged into the media and all the “bad news” they had to offer, especially about the Church. I wish I hadn’t but that is past history.
I flinched as I read your post and remembered how bad the media made me feel about everything I had learned as a Catholic child of regular Mass going parents who believed what the Church taught and loved the pope, and sacrificed heavily to send six daughters through Catholic school. I just remember thinking that I had been lied to by my teachers and my priests and my parents; that the Church was rotten from the inside out; that I needed to discover what the truth really was. All this is to say that the media has a big affect on people especially young and impressionable people! Those who promote a different Christ and a different Church are doing the devil’s work, plain and simply. Though I can’t blame others, I was cast asea in an ocean of negativity and lies about my faith which caused great doubts, and for a long time did not return to good Catholic sense, and the practice of a faith I had once loved.
Thanks be to God for His grace and the intercession of Mary our mother, who saw to it that this child was brought back to the Truth.
I pray that the NCR either sees the light and changes its premise or collapses all together. Either way, they must repent for the years of scandal they have helped to promote by publishing lies and error. Many lost their way and have not yet returned. They are in my prayers daily.
The Truth has to be proclaimed and the lies have to be disputed. Too many voices out there are loudly proclaiming a different Christ. Our Church has a duty to call them on this. I hope more and more Catholics who bought into this a long time ago will be brought to the light of day and see the real Truth.
God be with you Fr. God bless our pope, Francis, and God bless our Church, Christ’s own.
Bonnie says
March 20, 2013 at 12:27 PMFather MacRae, I eagerly await your posts each week and again you are giving us good deep thoughts to ponder, reflect on, and pray about. Unity In faith, we want it back again. In addition through your writings I find myself directed to other good Catholic sites and publications. Thank you so much.
dympna says
March 20, 2013 at 11:55 AMOur three great popes representing Faith, Hope and Love! What a beautiful and appropriate image!
Well done TSW, and congratulations to Fr.Z.
Gérald C. LaJeunesse says
March 20, 2013 at 8:29 AMGordon
Loved your question in the opening paragraph, “What kind of Catholic do I want to be in union with him?” Personally, for me that questions me about how I want to explore, pray, and live my faith as a follower of Christ. It does not mean that I become a blind follower. It does not mean popalatry,which I sensed in these last few days. Remember, Paul had to rebuke Peter in the name of unity. It is not about an open season on the pope either. Respect and reverence to him as you write, AND to all and every person.
For the Church to be alive in what it means to be Christian today, the whole church, not just the pope, has to be a witness of Christ. I am reminded of Moses’s cry that all were prophets!
We readily remember, “Habemus papam!” We should not forget the, “Anuncio vobis gaudium magnum,” which precedes the famous phrase, “I announce to you a great joy.” It is found in the gosple of Luke as the angels announced the birth of the Son of God to the sheherds. The joy is not so much the pope, even if it is a good joy that we do have a pope; it has much more to do with the joy of having a Saviour in the person of the Son of God, Jesus Christ. Our joy is that we have someone (the pope) who annouces the Joy who is Christ.
Btw: I never, but never, enjoyed NCR. I couldn’t take it seriously for some reason. Thank you for enlightening me.
Amitiés,
Gérald, ptre