The enigma that is Pope Francis: a few new clues

By Phil Lawler ( bio - articles - email ) | Aug 14, 2015

Are you still trying to understand Pope Francis? Join the club.

For those of us who are struggling to understand the Holy Father’s way of thinking, Nick Miroff of the Washington Post has provided a few very useful insights. First he cited the influence of Argentina’s Juan Peron, a populist strongman who was not a conventional leftist, but certainly not a rightist—in fact, a demagogue who defied easy categorization. The New York Times and The Economist agree that Peron, who controlled Argentina during his formative years, had an important influence on Pontiff’s thinking, especially on political topics.

Unfortunately, that bit of analysis does not enable us to predict how the Pope will respond to public issues. Peron himself was unpredictable; it was always much easier to say what he opposed than to know what he endorsed. (Does that sound familiar?)

But Miroff followed up with another column arguing that Pope Francis is “neither a liberal nor a conservative. He’s an evangelist.”

Okay, but what does that mean? Miroff predicts that “partisans of the culture war” will constantly be frustrated by this Pope, because he avoids taking positions that might interfere with his primary goal, which is to encourage people to test the waters of the Catholic faith. Pope Francis has little patience for debates about who is inside, and who is outside, the Church; he wants to concentrate on bringing more people inside. Thus Miroff writes:

He will likely continue to stake out positions on major social questions -- like his remarks on divorce -- but probably to the extent that they further his goal of getting clergy to stop thinking of themselves as gatekeepers of the faith…He wants the church doors open, and for priests and parishioners to stop worrying so much about who walks through them.