The key to Pope Francis

. . . the distressing spectacle of a Jesuit trying to do public relations. . .


I've noticed something about the current pope that I do not find engaging and clever, though doubtless he means it so. I find it disturbing instead. I refer to his habit of making broad and sweeping statements that put the friendliest, worldliest face possible on Catholicism. He then leaves it to others to backtrack a bit, and do his explaining for him. The problem is in what he leaves unsaid.

I reported some time ago on his remarks seeming to suggest universalism--the belief that everyone gets saved in the end, non-Christians, atheists, everybody. What he was talking about is a rabbit hole in Catholic theology, one that leads to the conclusion that the Church cannot say positively who is not saved. It is an uninteresting corollary to the idea that God can do whatever he wants and has not told us everything he does. While seeing their way clear to say who is truly in heaven, the Church cannot say who is certainly in hell.

So after the Pope spoke, people (myself included) had to sweep up the mess he left behind him and explain that, no, universalism is not now, and never has been, a part of Christian tradition as it pertains to the historic faith. But it sure made good headlines for Francis.

So it was, also, with his recent socialist-flavored statements to a UN delegation. Those statements got him fine treatment in leftist-leaning press outlets, and then, if you listened very carefully to other outlets, Catholic apologists came along to clean up again, working to fit his remarks into context of the broader frame of Catholic social teaching, which is not socialist when closely examined.

So too for his crowd-pleasing remark about homosexuality, "Who am I to judge?" In its context this dealt with a hypothetical case, and once again Francis left it to the faithful to backtrack and deal with the concreteness of doctrine as it really is. Francis said:

When I meet a gay person, I have to distinguish between their being gay and being part of a lobby. If they accept the Lord and have goodwill, who am I to judge them? They shouldn’t be marginalized. The tendency [to homosexuality] is not the problem…they’re our brothers.

Notice the two words that I have bolded, above. They are short little words that many people might pass over and scarcely notice, but they are in the special family of words called logical operators. Their particular significance here is that they negate everything else that is said, if the conditions they impose are not met. What do those two conditions really entail in the Church's fuller doctrine? It seems inescapable that you should try not to act on "the tendency" if you have it. Viewed in that way, the statement is not the occasion for delight that some homosexuals have taken it to be.

Francis is too clever by half. Take the above examples together and we have the distressing spectacle of a Jesuit trying to do public relations. We see in excelsis the habit of being narrowly factual, but what is said is not everything. It is the old trick (and it is a very good one) of answering half of a question very logically, then pretending you have addressed the question. Francis's big bold statements please the crowds and get him lots of friendly press. And in a narrowly logical sense they are true. But when placed into the broader context of Catholic teaching the statements unpack into something less than was suggested.

The non-Christian, the socialist and the homosexual come away feeling gratified by what Francis has said, until they examine it closely--if they bother to do so. In all, it's a bit like the advertisements that have glowing promises in the big type and in the fine print, certain disclaimers.