Sowing Confusion?
Sept 22, 2024 | 1,041 words | Religion
An aged and increasingly infirm Pope Francis may not be around much longer, but it seems he can’t leave this mortal coil soon enough to suit his conservative detractors. The pattern of their remarks is by now well-established: Start with a few carefully chosen words about what are no doubt the Argentine pontiff’s best of intentions, before coming down hard over his blatant disregard for this or that aspect of basic Church teaching. These critiques are often quite erudite, and always leave the impression the commentator is far more Catholic than is the current pope.
The latest example of this ‘critical ardor’ was unfurled as the 87-year-old Francis ended his grueling 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific Rim region. It was the longest and among the most complicated trip of his papacy – visiting Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor, and Singapore. These four island nations were chosen to demonstrate an outreach to what Francis has called “the peripheries,” his term for overlooked, faraway places with small, minority or persecuted Catholic communities.
The trip went from September 2 -13, and Singapore was the last stop. During an interreligious meeting at a Catholic Junior College there Francis said religions “are like different languages in order to arrive at God, but God is God for all. And if God is God for all, then we are all sons and daughters of God.” Not exactly what could be described as a wild-eyed, heretical idea.
Then Francis added a call to enter into interreligious dialogue, which was also not a surprise move considering he was speaking at a meeting centered around the concept of interreligious dialogue, conducted at the tail end of an historic trip to an area of the world with small, minority or persecuted Catholic communities.
So where did he go wrong this time? Well, it seems the pope spoke about this dialogue as if it were an end in itself. “Interreligious dialogue is something that creates a path.” That may seem the most obvious of declarations to some, but his critics were quick to pose this important follow-up question: A path to where?
Precisely! The archbishop emeritus of Philadelphia, Charles A. Chaput, a highly regarded pillar of orthodoxy here in the United States, couldn’t respond fast enough to what struck him as the latest papal misstep.
In a piece dated September 16 under the banner of First Things, that esteemed journal of conservative thought that prides itself on bringing faith into the public square, The Most Reverend Chaput came out with guns blazing: “That all religions have equal weight is an extraordinarily flawed idea for the Successor of Peter to appear to support.”
The Archbishop then went on to wax poetic about how all the world’s religions express a human yearning, how humans have a need to worship, but that not all religions are equal in their content or consequences. Chaput is a polished writer and is always a pleasure to read. But I fail to see how his perceptive observations about religion in general and Catholicism in particular implicate Francis as being derelict in his duty to teach the faith clearly and preach it evangelically.
In one especially dramatic flourish, Archbishop Chaput writes: “To suggest, even loosely, that Catholics walk a more or less similar path to God as other religions drains martyrdom of its meaning. Why give up your life for Christ when other paths get us to the same God? Such a sacrifice would be senseless.” Wait a minute, “drains martyrdom of its meaning”? Here I must confess the archbishop has lost me entirely. I thought the purpose of interreligious dialogue was to eliminate religious intolerance and religious persecution, thereby avoiding the need for anyone to die for their faith.
By now Chaput was on a roll, as he continued: “But the witness of the martyrs is as important today as ever. We live today in an age when the dominant religion is increasingly the worship of the self. We need the martyrs – and each of us as a confessor of Jesus Christ – to remind an unbelieving world that the path to a genuinely rich life is to give oneself fully to another, to the other.”
This is a beautiful sentiment and is beautifully stated. But for the life of me I cannot see where Francis has contradicted any of this. How has he earned the ire of so many who feel that as the bishop of Rome and the institutional head of the worldwide Catholic Church he fails to teach and preach clearly. Why are we always reading from his critics that “loose comments can only confuse,” and that “too often confusion infects and undermines the good will of this pontificate.”
Not to put too fine a point on it, but why does the archbishop emeritus of Philadelphia feel the need to remind this pope “Christians hold that Jesus alone is the path to God. To suggest, imply, or allow others to infer otherwise is a failure to love because genuine love always wills the good of the other, and the good of all people is to know and love Jesus Christ, and through him the Father who created us.”
This may be true, Archbishop. But while it is always good to lead a thirsty horse to water, you cannot always make that horse drink. It is one thing to believe I have received an irreproachable deposit of faith. It is another thing altogether to go around telling sincere believers of other religious traditions they have it all wrong.
My Catholic faith is a tremendous gift that prompts not only a deep sense of gratitude on my part, but also a profound humility. What Archbishop Chaput describes as the requisite stance he thinks we Catholics should take strikes me as the opposite of humility. As well as being wholly inappropriate, considering his issue seems to be with an “unbelieving world.” Missing from his staunch analysis is the simple fact interreligious dialogue is intended to help bring the world’s believers together, despite our many dogmatic differences.
That should not be too hard to understand. I don’t know why so many smart people continue to go out of their way to dismiss this pope as well-meaning but hopelessly misguided.
Robert J. Cavanaugh, Jr.
bobcavjr@gmail.com