October 6, 2013   David Timbs (Melbourne)     David's previous articles

              (Comments welcome here) 

 The Disturbance and the Backlash

From the moment he stepped onto the balcony of St Peter’s Basilica after his election as Pope, Jorge Bergoglio served notice that he would be his own man and that he would lead in a way somewhat more differently from his predecessors. Pointedly, he appeared without the traditional drapery of the Imperial papacy. Before he blessed them, Francis begged the large gathering to pray a blessing on him. He has made a habit now of surprising, astonishing and even scandalising many Catholics and non Catholics alike. While for some of the more aggrieved, Francis has emerged as a disappointment and a disgrace, for others he has become a sign of encouragement and renewed hopefulness.

Pope Francis has begun to challenge and rattle the old established paradigms of place and grace in Catholic life. Personally he resists being labelled and categorised by those who feel secure and comfortable in a Church environment in which everyone is acutely conscious of his/her place and identity in the ecclesiastical pyramid. Whatever he says or does these days seems to assault people’s sense of equilibrium and ‘divinely’ established order – often referred to by Benedict, perhaps mistakenly, as unchangeable and unalterable. His spontaneity and unpredictability are putting almost everyone on edge and placing both supporters and critics in a state of almost permanent suspense and anxiety. It seems that those most uneasy are those with little tolerance for rapid change and who lack the ready ability to adjust both thought and imagination.

What has become increasingly noticeable is frequency and intensity of negative, even openly hostile, responses and reactions to Pope Francis especially from the so-called Traditionalist/Conservative Catholic media. They indicate deep shock, outrage, bitterness and anger with Francis. The sources of all this are traceable to his perceived break with the protocols of his predecessors, from the reserved formality and very directive magisterial behaviour and doctrinal emphases of the former Pope Benedict XVI. Some Traditionalists accuse Francis of a kind of rupture, a break from papal continuity and betrayal of Catholic Tradition. Perhaps indeed Francis has already distanced himself somewhat from his two immediate predecessors. Sandro Magister certainly suggests this and offers some powerful insights and reflections on the mind and behaviour of Francis in an October 3 Chiesa.Espresso.Repubblica article. [1]

Ironically, some of the most embittered Traditional Catholics are even more furious at Benedict than with Francis. They feel shattered and disappointed with him for resigning the papacy and for not completing the agenda of the Reform of the Reform. This program of roll back entailed an almost total revision of Vatican II, its history, its vision and its energies. It came to naught and with it the aspirations of the Traditionalist for the reinstatement of Catholic life and practice in pre-Conciliar times.

This disappointment, grief and anger are all understandable. Significant numbers of Traditionalists, after decades of security provided by two very authoritarian papacies with their brand of Euro-centric Catholic culture are now feeling wounded, rattled, disorientated, upset and angry. Their sacred world, once enshrouded and preserved in an atmosphere of unquestioned authority and power, of absolutes and utter certainty is, for them, now shattered. Many have reacted in different ways, some with resentment and rage, others have sought taken refuge in forms of quietism, spiritual hibernation or passive aggressive God-is-punishing-me types of resignation. Others appear to be caught between other forms of inner disturbance or outright of the legitimacy of Jorge Bergoglio’s election to the papacy (Sede-vacantism). That this election was God’s will and the action of the Holy Spirit does not appear to be an indication of divine providence. It certainly worked for these people in 2005 when Joseph Ratzinger was elected Pope and became Benedict XVI.

The Pope is reminding all, Catholics especially, that Jesus Christ is the centre of Christian existence and source of its meaning, that the Church is fundamentally not an organisation or a system of command and control but the living People of God and that those summoned by Christ to lead are given as their primary mandate the honour and duty to serve. "The Church is, or must return to being the community of the People of God, and priests, pastors and bishops with the care of souls (duty of pastoral care), are at the service of the People of God." [2]

Pope Francis has begun to reawaken and promote the memory and legacy of the Second Vatican Council. He has also given strong indication that its teaching, in its integrity, would be central to his teaching and programmatic for the course of his papacy. Francis is clearly not looking to the imaginary security of past centuries of ecclesiastical changelessness and predictability. In a recent interview Francis noted that the Council had "decided to look to the future with a modern spirit and to be open to modern culture. The Council fathers knew that being open to modern culture meant religious ecumenism and dialogue with unbelievers. But afterwards very little was done in that direction. I have the humility and ambition to want to do something."

Francis, while not specifically mentioning the process of post-conciliar implementation of Council reforms by the world’s bishops, may be hinting that there had been a slowdown in its implementation. He is not talking out of a vacuum nor is he overly coy. Jorge Bergolio was a Jesuit Provincial and a metropolitan Archbishop. He reads and must be aware of the criticisms of his predecessors, particularly Benedict, that there had been an intentional backward looking programme of revisionism which had stripped much of the doctrinal muscle tissue away from the bones of the Council. Francis hasn’t stopped talking about the value of collegiality, subsidiarity and the synodal process all of which were either diluted or done away with under JP II and Ratzinger/Benedict.

The very mention of Vatican II, its visions and its principal theological themes, lightening rods for heated controversy over the past few decades, have begun anew to cause some grief, discomfort and resentment among Catholic conservatives. Paradoxically, over the previous two papacies the favoured target of their ridicule and preferred whipping boy was the much despised ‘Spirit of Vatican II.’ The supporters of Vat II and the keepers of its flame were called many things, among them ‘Catholic Lite,’ modernists, reprobate heretics and others.

Francis has demonstrated that he is more different from his predecessor in both word and behaviour than first some first thought. Despite the attempted semantic engineering by hubristic faux traditionalists like John Zuhlsdorf, an American priest, who has created a significant niche market among the weak-minded, unthinking and easily led by confecting a form of spin which insists that the only authentic mode of interpreting Francis’ mind is through Benedict and his teaching. Since Benedict’s abdication, Zuhlsdorf, who resides outside his Italian diocese and conveniently without ordinary pastoral care, has repeatedly demonstrated a thinly disguised contempt for Francis From the initial passive aggression, Zuhlsdorf has now ramped up the rhetoric to the level of open contempt and invective. [3]

Second guessing and exegeting Francis is now one of Zuhlsdorf’s key marketing strategies and he has attracted a wide cliental. America Magazine, La Stampa and Repubblica have all recently run or reported interviews with Pope Francis and there has been a raft of commentaries and blogs offering opinion pieces. All of these journals and their interviews have thrown large sectors of the Catholic Remnant Right into a state of deep spiritual, emotional and intellectually decline.

A new age of anxiety has dawned. These people, who ostensibly revere Benedict as an intellectual giant actually depend on a tabloid commentator to explain away for them the source of their discontent and confusion. Predictably, self-styled conservatives/traditionalists, more at home with the very directive Benedict and his Curial minders, are relieved that these much interviews enjoy only informal status and in no way enjoy the magisterial status of force of other papal teachings such as Encyclical Letters or official public addresses. A typical reassuring response to the scruple-ridden is ‘religious submission of mind and will’ is not demanded of the faithful.

Zuhlsdorf’s rather noisy and mindless protestations are echoed by sympathetic repeaters and sounding boards across the globe. A British copycat mimics the now standard cheap shot put-down by making an idiotic comparison between Benedict the scholar and Francis the mere humble pastor. The author of the blog infers, I think, that Francis can be forgiven his deficiencies and inadequacies as Pope because of his intellectual inferiority compared with Benedict/Ratzinger. [4]

Sadly, it seems unlikely that the stridency of the attacks on Pope Francis and the undermining of his papacy by some extremist members of the Church will disappear soon. Its continuance is un-Christlike, a defeat for the integrity of his Gospel and a damaging scandal for the People of God. The tragedy is compounded by the fact that the very people who are now most vocal in their criticism of Pope Francis are the very ones who would not abide or tolerate any criticism of his predecessors and roundly condemned this kind of behaviour as gross disloyalty and seriously sinful.

It should also be noted that the most vicious of Pope Francis’ tabloid critics seem to lack a basic equilibrium, perspective and wisdom that can only come with wide personal experience of the creative tensions at work between Church and secular Society. Understanding may eventually develop from initial mere tolerance of difference and diversity. Generally speaking, though, these people are often not really talking from the perspective of authentic faith at all but from peripheral ideologies connected with personal idiosyncrasies. Unfortunately, dialogue and reasoned conversation are almost completely impossible for and with these people.

[1] The article by Sandro Magister, "The Francis Transformation" can be found here.

[2] the Repubblica interview, here.

[3] For a glimpse into a source of Zuhlsdorf’s discontent and his troubled spirit see here. A disgruntled soul mate – a refugee from the schismatic SSPX – expresses a similar carping dissatisfaction with the Pope; the link to that item is here. A commenter on the piece offers a cautionary, paranoid warning about the potential risks to the blogger of persecution and dry martyrdom. These could, presumably, be inflicted on him by the vindictive liberal dissenters who support Pope Francis!

As for Zuhlsdorf, he has been tagged by some even conservative commentators as a ’traditionalist of convenience’ who pushes the expected agenda including a tridentine liturgical rituals and rubrical prescriptions so close to the hearts of this small group within the Catholic community. Among this lot, he has proven to be a deft entrepreneur who vigorous promotes his own cult of personality along with his cash for Latin and various franchises. It seems that he lives permanently, outside his Italian diocese of incardination, courtesy of contacts within a tight little circle of US bishops. He makes a comfortable living serving the legion of the abysmal ignorant, gullible and scrupulous. There are increasing signs that observers are twigging onto Zuhlsdorf, his modus operandi and ideological hubris. It would not surprise many people if he soon ends up among the list of former celebrity priests in the USA.

[4] The article is linked here.

See also the blog, Vexilla Regis, which conjures up memories of the flange, the Mexican Cristeros and Spanish Francoism. Its author, Tony Dixon, may well have some personality issues that go beyond his patently obvious brand of religious ideology. What is most disturbing about Dixon’s opinion piece is the intensity of his barely disguised sarcasm, anger, resentment, racial and social profiling and even hatred directed at Pope Francis. Some examples of Dixon’s neurotic pathology speak for themselves as he lampoons Francis’ reform agenda for the Roman Curia,

"Much will depend on the degree of influence the Council of Cardinals can achieve in its advice of (sic) this wilful man. It seems that altogether too much energy will be spent by too many people minimising the effects of the Argentinian ‘bull in the (Roman) China shop.’

God bless our Pope, the Great, the Good! (I wonder if Dixon is referring nostalgically to JP II). Let us pray for our Holy Father Pope Francis that he might be blessed with humility to respect what has been done by his illustrious and truly saintly predecessors, and that he might recognise reasons behind, and benefits of, their discretion and circumspection and self-effacing pattern of activity founded on authentic personal humility rather than conspicuous acts of public humility." The Vexilla Regis link is found here.

It will be an education to see in the days ahead if, when and to what extent spokespeople for the Traditional/Conservative sector of the local Church critically address Dixon’s charges and challenge them. I predict little more, if anything, than a consenting great silence!

David Timbs writes from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.

06/10/13