Calling names without naming names: What I like least about Pope Francis

By Dr. Jeff Mirus ( bio - articles - email ) | Oct 27, 2015

We’ve all done it. We have all ascribed certain characteristics to groups of people in a general way, but without identifying whom we are talking about, or why. Sometimes we do this in a constructive manner by explaining, teaching or preaching about the virtues we all should possess and the vices we should avoid. And sometimes we go off on a rant, leaving others to assume that they know who and what we have in mind—that everybody knows who “those people” are.

It is especially unfortunate when someone in authority appears to be speaking negatively about a certain group, but gives no examples of the specific persons or particular behavior he is criticizing. Unfortunately, I believe Pope Francis himself has a tendency to do this, and it is the characteristic I like least about his very interesting and often inspiring pontificate.

I cannot find all the examples quickly enough to meet my deadline, but everyone who follows Pope Francis knows that he has little patience with characteristics such as formalism, elitism, bureaucratic functionalism, lack of human sympathy, self-righteousness, legalism, and so on. Early in his pontificate, he gave a homily in which he criticized a certain stiff punctiliousness in celebrating the liturgy, and of course everybody assumed he was talking about Traditionalists—but that was not necessarily the case. Indeed, he told the cardinals in 2015 that he regarded the “lugubrious face” as a spiritual illness. We must remember that solemnity and lugubriousness are not the same.

Another example was heard around the world in one of his early interviews, when he seemed to rebuke those who stress moral issues for a lack of genuine compassion and love for sinners. Readers will recall his emphasis that we do not need to be talking about the life issues all the time. That’s certainly true, but the world was left wondering whether he was singling out pro-lifers for particular criticism, while letting those who do not give a hoot about Christian morality off the hook completely. It is clear from other remarks that this is not the case, but let’s face it: Pope Francis seldom appears friendly toward those who, in their commitment to truth or orthodoxy, put the least foot wrong.

Now me, I always figured it this way: “Fine. Those of us who have been given much can take the flak. We are not the bruised reeds or smoldering wicks. We can turn all criticism to spiritual good.” Nonetheless, at times this acceptance—shall we call it generosity under fire?—grows wearisome. It is a daily requirement in the Catholic trenches. No surprise then, that we feel we ought not to have to hear it so often from the Pope.

Documented Examples

An even more famous example was Pope Francis’ Christmas address to the Curia in 2014. Under the guise of enumerating the kinds of spiritual diseases that can infect those who serve in ecclesiastical administration, the Pope offered about as delicious a rebuke to the officials of his own curia as an anti-clerical layman could ever savor. He warned against no fewer than fifteen deadly attitudes, including:

• The disease of mental and spiritual “petrification”…found in those who have a heart of stone, the “stiff-necked”
• The disease of excessive planning and of functionalism…when the apostle plans everything down to the last detail and believes that with perfect planning things will fall into place
• The disease of rivalry and vainglory…when appearances, the color of our clothes and our titles of honor become the primary object in life
• The disease of indifference to others…where each individual thinks only of himself and loses sincerity and warmth of human relationships
• The disease of closed circles, where belonging to a clique becomes more powerful than belonging to the Body and, in some circumstances, to Christ himself

Of course, everybody knows at least one person who, as far as we are able to judge, is afflicted by each of these diseases. Moreover, nobody in an empowered position is entirely exempt from such temptations. Still this was the Pope’s Christmas message to his own Curia, and it seemed pretty pointed. Was he teaching or accusing? As you can imagine, the litany was not well-received.

The pattern surfaced again in Pope Francis’ address for the closing of the 2015 Synod on the Family. He reflected on the question of what the Synod was really about. Among about a dozen points of emphasis in his answer, he included these:

It was about bearing witness to everyone that, for the Church, the Gospel continues to be a vital source of eternal newness, against all those who would “indoctrinate” it in dead stones to be hurled at others.

It was also about laying bare closed hearts, which frequently hide even behind the Church’s teachings or good intentions, in order to sit in the chair of Moses and judge, sometimes with superiority and superficiality, difficult cases and wounded families….

It was about trying to open up broader horizons, rising above conspiracy theories and blinkered viewpoints, so as to defend and spread the freedom of the children of God, and to transmit the beauty of Christian Newness, at times encrusted in a language which is archaic or simply incomprehensible.

The World’s Interpretation, and Mine

These remarks were inescapably interpreted by the media as directed against those commonly regarded as “conservative” or “orthodox”, because the Pope’s words so obviously echo the criticisms voiced by the “progressives” or Modernists. I ask you: Who, in this world of ours, is typically regarded as doctrinaire, dead, judgmental, superficial, blinkered, archaic and incomprehensible? Although each deeply committed Catholic can think of someone in his own circle who fits this description in some ways, the shoe really is usually on the other foot. Yet these words all describe one thing in the lingua franca of modern secular culture. They refer to people who really do believe it is the truth that sets us free.

Now in fact I think Pope Francis is too deep for his words to be taken solely in the usual cultural sense. It is obvious that he does not think in our standard cultural categories, and that he has a deep love of Christ, whom he most certainly regards as the way, the truth and the life. He repeatedly refers to the doctrinal security of a Church cum et sub Petro. He seems to work reasonably well with liberals and conservatives alike. But at the very least it would appear that he is either unaware of what everybody else is thinking when he makes such statements, or that he does not care.

Moreover, have you ever wondered this: Is it perhaps likely that those who are unreservedly committed to all that God has revealed—God “who can neither deceive nor be deceived”—are in fact the only group that is spiritually mature enough to even try to apply these mysterious accusations to themselves?

In any case, my larger point is that when he fails to identify clearly the cases to which he is referring—choosing instead to allow his audience to interpret his words according to conventional cultural prejudices—Pope Francis offers criticisms that can do more harm than good. As I said, I am perfectly willing to apply everything to myself; I know I will find in the application some cause for painful growth. I heartily recommend the same approach to everyone.

But this tendency to denounce publicly in general terms, and to accuse without sufficient specificity, is still Pope Francis’ least attractive characteristic as the Vicar of Christ.