Oops, Pope Francis did it again...

The world has once again been abuzz this week with word that Pope Francis is rocking the boat in Rome. The news this time is that a conference of bishops called by the pope to have frank discussions around "family matters" has discussed creating a more welcoming message toward LGBT and divorced people and unmarried couples who are living together.

It's important to note that doctrine and policy are not being changed, but the tone and emphasis are being changed. As one Vatican spokesperson I heard discussing the conference noted, the church has always stated that every person is a child of God, but now "that's the first thing we will say."

(It should also be noted that this is pretty much in keeping with Francis's M.O. up to this point. He hasn't actually changed any Catholic doctrine; he's just changed the conversation to emphasize portions of doctrine that have often been lost in the noise. [God's love for all people, the need to act with humility, presenting an attitude of servanthood to the world, etc.])

In the days since the document was released, there has been some strong pushback and attempts to clarify what is being said, especially from more traditional bishops. At this point, it's not clear what the final word or actions may be, but I'm still excited to see Francis making the effort to have the conversation.

I don't agree with the Catholic Church on everything that constitutes a "sin," but if we spend too much time telling those outside the church about sin, then that's all they hear and any word of welcome or grace (the most important part of the message) sounds false. The message shifts to one of "you need to get your life together before you're welcome in a church" and starts to include "faults" that go beyond sin like doubts or depression. Where else in our society do we have this kind of backwards expectation? We don't say, "get yourself healthy before you go to the hospital" or "become an expert in your preferred field of study before you apply for college."

This whole topic deserves more time and nuance than I'm going to give it in this blog, but please allow me to oversimplify by saying: the message from the church should always emphasize that sin (however we define it), doubts, or personal shortcomings should never stand in the way of being welcomed in church because we are all -- Christian and non-Christian -- imperfect and we are all -- Christian and non-Christian -- still loved desperately by God.

We don't need to get our life together to come to church because being in church--or better put, being in regular relationship with God and God's community--is how we are meant to get our life together. Francis has been showing through his words and actions that if we want to be effective at changing lives, it helps to first have a genuine relationship with a person. Jesus himself demonstrated this in his ministry (see John 8 as an example). If we start with loving people as they are and seek to serve rather than preach, I think we're far more likely to see the growth of God in them (and ourselves) that we hope for.

“Change has been; change will be.” -Collective Soul, “Reunion”

Pope Francis the Economist

Back at the beginning of December, Michael Gerson had an excellent op-ed piece for the Washington Post about Pope Francis' published exhortation "The Joy of the Gospel." (Side note: I'm in the middle of reading the exhortation myself. If you are interested, you can purchase it on Amazon or download a free digital copy for your e-reader here.) As explained in Gerson's article, part of the Pope's exhortation addresses the ethics of economic systems, warning against economic practices that turn people into commodities and value profit over human dignity. This quickly drew some howls of criticism from commentators who accused him of socialism and marxism, among other things.

Since I believe Gerson does an excellent job of refuting these accusations while simultaneously lifting up the themes of Advent, I won't waste time repeating his arguments. Instead, I want to pursue another thread of the debate that caught my attention.

In reading some of the comments and articles critical of the Pope's position, there was a theme running through much of the thinking that either implied or stated outright something like this: "Economics is not a spiritual issue and a pope has no authority to speak on this. The pope should stick to spiritual issues and let us deal with these real world issues." It was as if some were saying, "You stick to saving souls and let us save people's retirement accounts."

The problem with their line of thought is that money IS a spiritual matter. While we may think of the world in terms of spiritual and secular matters, the Bible doesn't. Everything is a spiritual matter because everything comes from and belongs to God.  And if we look at the Bible, it would seem that money especially is a spiritual matter.  

Jesus talks about money more than any topic other than the Kingdom of God. Yep. He has more recorded words on money than on prayer, heaven, hell, or sin.  Roughly 1 in 7 verses in the Gospel of Luke relates to money. (Or so I've read. I've never actually counted every verse to make sure.) In the Old Testament, much of the condemnation leveled by the prophets stems from people failing to do anything to help the poor, hungry, and unclothed.

Contrary to those who want to say economics is unrelated to "spiritual matters," it would seem that God cares an awful lot about how we think about and use our money. Pope Francis doesn't just have the authority to speak on economic issues, but as a spiritual leader, he has an obligation to address money issues. God expects to be Lord over our entire life, not just Sunday morning. If Jesus has redeemed our entire life, then that has an impact in how we spend our money, do our jobs, act in public, and so on. As Gerson points out in his article, the Pope doesn't hate business or money, but he rightly points out that they, like anything in this life, can be used for good or for ill and we need to be conscious of how we use them.

That's a struggle and I for one face it daily, but I cannot divide my life into two boxes called "spirtual" and "secular" and then hand one to God and say, "You can have this one, but don't worry about what's in the other one." That doesn't deepen my relationship to God. To use an economic term, that cheapens the relationship.

"That kind of luxe just ain't for us; we crave a different kind of buzz." -Lorde, "Royals"

A Reflection on Pope Francis's Latest Interview

I felt compelled to share some thoughts on Pope Francis's latest interview that has made waves in the past 48 hours. (If you haven't heard about the interview, you can read much of his responses as summarized by the New York Times here, or you can read the full interview from the Jesuit magazine America here. Warning: the full thing is 13 pages long. I read the summary and skimmed the full thing.)

Quick side note: I've found much of the media's response to Pope Francis very amusing. He hasn't said anything that is radically divergent from Catholic teaching and yet the response to what he says could be summarized in a headline worthy of the Onion: "Pope Gives Honest Answer to Question; World Gasps in Shock".

Anyway, the statements from his latest interview that seem to have generated the most conversation are that the church shouldn't be "obsessed" with "abortion, gay marriage, and contraception" and that the pope insists he's "never been a right-winger." Some liberals seem to take this as a symbol that the Roman Catholic Church is taking a hard turn to the left, while many conservatives seem to be slack-jawed or withholding comment.

As usual, short snippets here taken out of context make great headlines, but not good journalism. First let's understand what Pope Francis is not saying. He is not saying he supports gay marriage, abortion and contraception rights, or women's ordination. In fact, he has said repeatedly he stands by the church's current teaching on these topics. Even in this interview he says, "The teaching of the church is clear...and I am a son of the church." His "right-winger" comment is also more nuanced that it appears. He makes the comment as a way of explaining how his original "authoritarian" style of leadership lead some to believe he was "ultraconservative," but "I was never a right-winger."

So what is Pope Francis saying? In spite of the froth his comments have generated and in spite of the fact that I disagree with some of his Roman Catholic positions, I believe his comments are noteworthy, daring, and important for people of any belief system to listen to.

What Francis (can I call you Francis?) has said is that there are many teachings of the church and that all teachings are not created equal. As such, some teachings deserve more attention than others and some lesser teachings need to be understood in context of bigger ones. For instance, abortion and contraception are opposed by the Roman church because life is seen as a sacred gift of God that must be treated with absolute respect and only God has the right to declare when life can begin or end. Therefore the Roman church opposes abortion and contraception...and murder and powers that rob people of food or livelihood or dignity, etc. It's all from the same core teaching on sanctity of life, but all that ever seems to be communicated is "contraception is evil." I don't see contraception as an evil, but having a conversation about what it means in practice to promote the sanctity of life is a much more interesting -- and important -- conversation than the yes-it-is-no-it's-not type.

This is where I think Francis's comments are helpful to all of us. In a world where we often get caught up in disagreements that try to paint things in simple black or white and where every belief is a hill worth dying on (I'm looking at you, members of the House and Senate), he begs us all to consider: How much time do we spend discussing the big things, our core beliefs, rather than nitpicking the details? Do we even know what our most important beliefs are? I've seen many conversations in many institutions get sidetracked by debating secondary issues that end up hurting the larger mission.

Once again, Pope Francis has not said anything radical, and yet, by speaking honestly and pragmatically, he has made us think about our own belief systems and the faith of others. That is the goal of any spiritual leader.

“The role we play is so important; we are the voices of the underground.” -Ian Axel, "This is the New Year"