Francis X. Maier, The Catholic Thing. Tuesday, October 26, 2021

Every pontificate gets mixed reviews.  So, too, the current one.  For some, Francis is the great reformer.  He’s a visionary pope.  A voice of the marginalized.  A champion of compassion.  He’s returning the Church to the proper path of Vatican II – a course sadly sidetracked by his recent predecessors and their reactionary henchmen.  For others, Francis is a mediocre intellect with thin skin, the wrong instincts, and a vindictive spirit.  So says a distinguished Catholic scholar at a leading American university.  And he’s hardly alone.

None of this is really new.  During the Karol Wojtyla years, to take just one of many examples, the National Catholic Reporter – that engine of progressive opinion and ecclesial healing – ran a cartoon of the pope’s throne as a papal toilet.  But its editorial team underwent a Road to Damascus conversion, from derision to remarkable piety, with Francis.  It now treats real and imagined enemies of the Francis papacy to a generous lump of malice.

My own thoughts about Francis, though they matter only to me, are ambivalent.  I was raised in a very (Irish-German) Catholic home with a deep love of the pope – every pope.  One of my earliest memories is of my family huddled around a 1950s turntable listening to a recorded message of Pius XII.  Like many American Catholics, respect for the Holy Father is hardwired into my DNA.

That includes fidelity to Francis – often alloyed with frustration, but real nonetheless.  His simplicity is magnetic.  He has a sincere commitment to the poor; a personal devotion to the needs of the homeless, the immigrant and the outcast.  His 2013 apostolic exhortation, Evangelli Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel) is a delight to read.  It’s clear and refreshing; filled with new and energizing confidence.

His first encyclical, Lumen Fidei (The Light of Faith), released the same year and built on material inherited from Benedict XVI, is likewise a superb teaching document.  It’s the most substantive text so far of the Francis pontificate.  But all of his documents have elements of rich content.  His emphasis on mercy is not new; the Church has always stressed mercy – see John Paul II’s 1980 encyclical Dives in Misericordia (Rich in Mercy).  But for Francis, it’s profound and compelling. He obviously means it. And he has a unique, global, non-Eurocentric grasp of the Church and her issues. That’s something vitally important for the decades ahead.

Such is the good news. There’s also other news. Francis often gives an impression of resentment for the shadow of St. John Paul II, his popularity, his intellect, and the body of his teaching.  At times his actions seem designed to diminish Wojtyla through the premature elevation of others.

John Paul I, for example, was surely a good man.  But a saint?  Let’s hope one day, but he was pope for barely a month.  Moving him along rapidly toward sainthood seems odd.  And excessive.

Francis also has the regrettable reputation of limited tolerance for disagreement, a nasty temper, ambiguous messaging, and a dislike for things American – the latter justified, in part, by past U.S. behavior toward Latin America, but perceived negatively by many Catholics here in the States.

Read it all….https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07D248BRY/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_glt_ZEC3MK5HF3A98RKRXWD4