I still fail to understand why some people feel that they have to respond whenever Pope Francis says something. This includes some bishops. If you want to make people nervous, just make a comment about something. There are some people out there who seem to thrive on making everyone else uncomfortable. I find that behavior more remarkable than anything that Pope Francis has said to date.
There is also an attachment to Pope Benedict XVI that is starting to become toxic. I’m not so sure that Pope Emeritus Benedict would appreciate it. I’m beginning to understand how children of divorced and remarried parents feel. You can’t move that. My mom put that there.” Well, “Hello! But this is no longer your mother’s home.” In other words, Pope Benedict does not live in the Papal Palace nor does he occupy the Chair of Peter. He’s as bound to Pope Francis as the rest of us are. But we don’t want to accept this. Because we can’t accept this, we’re looking for little things to signal some kind of conflict between the two men. The conflict does not exist.
Even if Pope Francis undid everything that Pope Benedict did, there would still be no conflict, because there is only one pope. The former pope would simply have to assent just like any other bishop. I truly believe that he would do so gladly.
My other concern is that the left and right are too concerned about their interests. They lack an ecclesiological vision. Their vision of the Church is very self-serving. They claim that it’s based on Vatican II or on tradition. The truth is that their vision of the Church serves what they believe the Church should be, not what the Holy Spirit says the Church should be. As long as both sides maintain this trend of thought, they’re going to talk past each other and they will never find a pope who satisfies their needs, because they’ve made Catholicism all about their needs, not about Christ’s mission.
As I never tire of saying, people are focusing on statements and deeds that have nothing to do with them. Take for example what someone said about Pope Francis’ statement on pro-life ministry. I have worked in pro-life ministry for a very long time. I run the largest pro-life ministry to men in the USA. I’m the superior of a religious community founded to live and proclaim the Gospel of Life according to the mind of St. Francis of Assisi and St. Maximilian Kolbe.
What the pope said about the way that we deal with abortion and the mistakes that he points out do not make us feel anything like this. The truth is that we have no feelings at all. The ministry is about Christ. It is part of the mission of the Church. It responds to the issue of abortion according to the mind of the Church at the moment. We have no problems with what Pope Francis said. If he says that he does not talk about abortion all the time and that we don’t have to do so either, then we won’t do so. We can preach the Gospel of Life without having to mention abortion in every sentence.
Also, we’re big boys. We accept that we are ALWAYS wrong and the popes are ALWAYS right. This is what St. Francis commanded us to believe under pain of grave sin. This command has not gone away. Ask the FI. We are happy to do whatever the pope says that we must do and stop whatever he says we must stop. We’re happy to change and modify what he says to modify and to keep what he says to keep. It is our hope that the laymen, diocesan priests, and religious from other communities who work alongside us in this ministry will learn from our witness. We’re not in this just to stop abortion. We’re in this to live the Gospel in a very particular way and nothing would make us happier to see others learn to live the Gospel the same way.
So where’s the problem?
