A response to my critics: Has Pope Francis poisoned the well?

By Dr. Jeff Mirus ( bio - articles - email ) | Nov 23, 2015

Regarding my essay “Francis on Communion: The Pope’s deeper questions and ours”, the vast majority of the responses were negative. The oddest thing about the responses, however, was that most of them criticized me for positions I did not take.

When something like this happens, it is necessary for the author to admit that he failed to present his ideas in a manner sufficiently clear to his audience. But perhaps the effort was doomed from the start. In this case, readers wanted (and clearly expected) that a sound Catholic writer’s first priority would be to thoroughly critique Pope Francis for giving the impression that it was acceptable for non-Catholics to decide for themselves whether or not they could receive Communion in a Catholic Church.

In fact, I commented on that impression in a previous essay (“The Pope's advice to a Lutheran woman with a Catholic husband on receiving the Eucharist”). I did not wish to pursue it further. Unfortunately, many readers assumed that since I was not opposing the Pope on this question, I must be attempting to sweep away traditional barriers to unworthy reception of the Eucharist. I fear that this assumption colored the response.

Revisiting the Discussion

It may do no good to insist that what I regarded as most interesting was the theological question Pope Francis had raised, namely how to respond properly to the intrinsic tension between the Eucharist as the end of our Faith and the Eucharist as the food that strengthens our Faith. The Second Vatican Council had already recognized, without perhaps realizing the tension inherent in its own statement, that the liturgical re-presentation of Christ’s sacrifice and the gift of His Body and Blood is “the source and summit” of the Christian life.

Pope Francis seriously wondered whether the rules the Church proposes for reception of Communion will be different if she emphasizes the Eucharist’s character as the “source” of Christian life than if she emphasizes its character as the “summit” of Christian life.

In my earlier essay, then, I had wanted to explore what I regarded as an interesting and important theological question. I intended to probe the mystery, not poke the bear! Even looking back, I believe my conclusion was innocent enough:

It is too soon to draw any conclusions about whether or how Catholic discipline on the Eucharist might change in the future. I am not advocating anything other than the development of a stronger habit of study and meditation on the Faith, with less reliance on instinctive shortcuts. I certainly do not claim to have highlighted all the relevant considerations here. But I suspect the stimulation of such a habit is the most positive aspect of this pope’s unusual style of leadership. To me, Pope Francis has a remarkable ability to both annoy and prompt deeper reflection, at one and the same time.

But of course this conclusion must seem objectionable if what I was supposed to be doing was defending existing Eucharistic discipline against the depredations of the Pope! In that case, my mild expression of annoyance was doomed to be regarded as woefully insufficient. In short, I was almost universally faulted for not delivering the goods on a question I had no intention of addressing.

This situation clearly frustrated not only myself but my readers. But I also found it frustrating that some thought I was referring to dogmas as mere “rules”, when it was precisely the purpose of the essay to reflect on the very nature of the Eucharist as opposed to the prescribed guidelines for reception based on various goals and needs—rules, in other words, which have changed (at least in some ways) fairly often over the centuries. Here again, it was not deemed sufficient to write: “Obedient always to past definitions and even, while in force, to current disciplines, we need to grow in our capacity to revere the mystery.”

And why was this insufficient? Clearly because it seemed to many that Pope Francis himself had not revered the mystery.

Growing into the Mystery

Okay, I get it. Pope Francis often—too often, in my unexpurgated opinion—poses an unfair challenge to those who have committed themselves very deeply to what one of my correspondents rightly referred to as the Act of Faith. Let’s review: “I believe these and all the truths that the Catholic Church teaches because Thou has revealed them, who canst neither deceive nor be deceived.”

Now these truths are not optional. We can understand the truth more perfectly, we can improve the clarity with which we present the truth, we can increase the sensitivity with which we impart the truth, and we can even adjust those disciplinary regulations which are (or ought to be) designed to enable us to live more easily in accordance with the truth. All of these things can be adjusted based on a sound appraisal of human nature, a sympathetic reading of human needs, conscientious responses to new problems, and a self-awareness of our own imperfect tendencies.

But Truth is the mind’s conformity with reality. The propositions the Church formulates to express Divinely revealed truths are precisely framed so that a receptive mind can conform itself more easily to reality. This means that the truth is most definitely not a set of so-called “rules” which we can take or leave according to our whims, even if we happen to be the pope; nor is the truth some sort of hang-up of neurotic or fundamentalist souls, let alone neurotic and fundamentalist priests (of the type Francis said he fears when discussing priestly training on Saturday).

There is, I think, a limited but imprecisely identified legitimate target for everything Pope Francis says. Unfortunately, he has repeatedly described the failings of Catholics (and by extension, the failings of the Church) using the exact same terminology liberals use to dismiss conservatives or, more to the point, the same terms secularists use to dismiss people of faith. This confuses and hurts those who place a high priority on conforming themselves to everything the Church teaches. But, as I’ve said before, my own rule in response to this challenge is to emphasize the silver lining—that is, to seek the increase in understanding and grace that is always possible whenever we receive even unjustified criticism in a spirit of generous self-examination.

Could we be further along?

This time, perhaps, my remarks were simply too much out of sync with the prevailing mood of my readership. While I stand by what I wrote, and I continue to hope it contains insight into the reasons Eucharistic discipline can and does change from time to time, there are other things I could have said about the challenge Pope Francis presented. After all, are not the most faithful among us also smoldering wicks and bruised reeds, perhaps especially in these times? Pope Francis frequently speaks as if these alone lack the balance proper to a Christian, or as if he alone possesses this balance. Is this a mark of humility in the Vicar of Christ?

In my lifetime, it has been the pope who has claimed the greatest humility and the greatest affinity for the marginalized who seems to have the sharpest tongue for those who most want to love him. Let me be frank: In today’s culture, spiritually speaking, faithful Catholics have cornered the marginalization market.

And yet it is always fruitful to deflect our emotions into the contemplation of God, and so the intrinsic tension in the Eucharist remains for us to more fully consider. The Eucharist is at once both the means and the end, the source and summit, of our lives. It belongs to the pope and bishops to decide whether to strengthen or weaken the disciplinary emphasis on either pole in accordance with the needs of each place and time. By raising this issue, Pope Francis has once again opened a Christian mystery to reflection and prayer.

But I will close with a strong caution: Such reflection can bear its fruit only if it is rooted in the truth. How much more might we have gained if Pope Francis did not so often appear to be sniping at what orthodox Catholics would call the mind’s conformity with reality?