Rules for Reading Pope Francis: Rule #4

Following Pope Francis when he goes "off message" or puts aside his prepared notes for a homily or talk reminds me a bit of getting into one of those "Moonwalk Bounce Houses" that people rent for kids parties. UP is still up and DOWN is still down, but they feel different. As a grown-up (and one with a problem back, at that!), I don't find that fun at all. I find it kind of scary.

And that leads me to the 4th "rule" for reading Pope Francis: Don't be afraid. Pope Francis is asking us for more faith--not less.

The Pope may not always use the formulae I'm familiar with, and he may apply the key teachings of the Church in ways that I haven't always thought of, but I'm catching on that what he is saying is more, not less, than what I'm more used to hearing.

Remember what he said to Eugenio Scalfari in the "La Repubblica" interview last week? "There is no 'Catholic god'... there is God." That made some Catholics bounce-house nervous. "Did we miss an important memo? What about the Trinity? Is he 'leveling' the real differences between Catholic understanding and all other religions?"

Far from leveling Catholicism, Francis is giving us a glimpse of what our faith really means: he is heightening the expression of our faith!

This God we believe in as Catholics is not a "Catholic god": There is only One: "He is the LORD and there is no other" and "he rules from end to end and orders all things mightily" while not even a sparrow falls to the ground, or a hair gets brushed off your head that he isn't aware of. This one, holy, infinite God who "delights in the children of men" and "who understands all they do"; "who searches hearts"; who "welcomes sinners and eats with them," is not bound by the means he has given us for meeting him, St Thomas says, not even when those means are the Church and the sacraments.

God is bending over backwards to  reach people even beyond the explicit (and, in the case of the Eucharist, unsurpassable) "usual means" he has given us for meeting him. The Shepherd will do whatever it takes to draw the stray sheep closer to home.

Doesn't that vast vision, hinted at so simply in Francis' words, challenge your faith? It does mine! God doesn't issue a "report card" for good attendance at Mass; He gives us himself. The horizons are so big, I am reminded of what a tin, fragile frame I am using to keep my vision of God in. I'm invited to a new level of faith. And the first step (so it seems throughout the Bible) is "do not be afraid!"



On a related note, here's a great Pope Francis quote found by Suzanne at The Catholic Breadbox: "Relativism is, oddly, absolutist and totalitarian. It does not allow anyone to stray from its own relativism. Basically, it means ‘shut up’ or ‘don't meddle.’"

Francis: Interview #2 UPDATED with CORRECTION

Two interviews in barely two weeks! Francis is taking every opportunity to engage in conversation. Here is the interview he granted Eugenio Scalfari, an Italian journalist, in the same setting as the three day interview with his fellow Jesuit, Antonio Spadaro. I find it amusing that the Pope, who makes good use of his own cell phone, called to offer Scalfari an appointment, but had to wait to be "put through" to the journalist by the newspaper man's nervous secretary.

There are things in that conversation that will raise questions; I've only scanned the interview and found two eyebrow-raisers. A bit of research into the Italian original showed me that both are translation issues [really only one]. And serious ones, to my mind. (What? Did they use Google Translate?) So I am going to just hurry to post the differences between the English as published, and my own rather literal Italian.

If "everyone has his own idea of good and evil and must choose to follow the good and fight evil as he conceives them," is the Pope saying that there is no such thing as objective truth, or objective right or wrong?

This is where it is really, really helpful to know Italian: "Ciascuno di noi ha una sua visione del Bene e anche del Male. Noi dobbiamo incitarlo a procedere verso quello che lui pensa sia il Bene" is more literally (and helpfully?) translated as "Each one of us has his/her own vision of the Good or even of Evil. We must encourage him/her to move toward that which he/she sees as the Good." The Pope is not leveling the difference between truth and untruth, right and wrong: he is saying that we all have a duty to encourage people to pursue the Good, knowing that the true Good will not fail to manifest himself, even if "through a glass darkly." 

CORRECTION: Really, I must apologize right now, even though it is getting late (8:25 Central Time). The Pope made his point about conscience twice. The sentences I cited in Italian, believing these to be the original and only text, came first; these are accurately translated, even if the philosophical uppercase (Good and Evil) in the Italian was lost in the first sentence. The phrase about choosing "to follow the good and fight evil" as one conceives these was the Pope's follow-up statement. Again, rendered accurately enough. In these sentences, the fault was with my own all too rapid reading which conflated the two. 

What the Pope is doing is expressing the fully Catholic conviction of the primacy of conscience. Our challenge, he then explains, is "to identify the material and immaterial needs of people and try to meet them." At times, maybe a lot of times, this means not stopping at the words people use to express their needs, but perceiving the deeper, but unexpressed need. The woman who "needs" an abortion probably really needs a faithful husband; a supportive community; any number of material and immaterial goods. Her uninformed conscience might not take her that far; as Catholics we owe it to her to help her move toward the genuine stability and security she "sees as the Good." 

Me, tearing my hair out at the unreliable translation.

Here's another whopper: This next passage really does contain a translation error:
"The Son of God became incarnate in the souls of men to instill the feeling of brotherhood." Um, the Son of God did not become incarnate in souls. He became incarnate in human nature, in his own human flesh and blood. The Italian is " Il Figlio di Dio si è incarnato per infondere nell’anima degli uomini il sentimento della fratellanza": "The Son of God became incarnate to infuse into the soul of men [could say "the human soul"] the feeling of brotherhood."

Take the rest of the interview with a grain of salt--and with the Catechism at hand, knowing--as Pope Francis told Father Spadaro-- that he is a "son of the Church" and that everything he says should be interpreted in the light of Church teachings. I am sure that other commenters will be providing more of a blow-by-blow, but I wanted to get this out fast.

Read Italian? Here's the original.




Other links:

Interview of Pope Francis by Antonio Spadaro, SJ (updated translation from America Magazine)

Pope Francis School of Life (newsletter)

Related books, media:
Light of Faith (Pope Francis' first encyclical)

10 Things Pope Francis Wants You to Know (booklet by John Allen)

Jorge from Argentina: The Story of Pope Francis for Children