Why I Needed the Francis Pontificate

Mercy, Mercy, Mercy

I was sorry to hear of Pope Francis’s death, but was encouraged that he was able to give us a final blessing on Easter. May he rest in peace.

When I sat down to write this, I planned to write nothing negative, but to emphasize only what I learned from Pope Francis. I’m reluctant to publicly criticize the Holy Father, the successor of St. Peter, and the first among bishops. However, hiding my concerns about this pontificate has proven to be impossible. I cannot find a way to describe what I learned from his ministry without communicating my periodic distress with his ambiguous teaching and his leadership. Over the last twelve years, I have often been disconcerted. In order to cope with my persistent discomfort, I resolved to ignore most of the day-to-day coverage of the papacy, focusing instead on Francis’s pastoral teachings (Evangelii Gaudium, Patris Corde, Dilexit Nos, for example).

Within a year of his election, the combination of Francis’s penchant for controversial comments, his studied ambiguity about certain moral doctrines, and the press’s confident prediction that he was going to “change the Church” began to affect me. After the stability and clear moral teaching of previous Popes, I was unsettled.

I was not the only Catholic to be concerned about this Pope, and this was not the first Pope to inspire concern among the faithful. If Christ is in fact the head of the Church, then he is never surprised or appalled by His Vicar – and some Popes have been genuinely appalling. In spite of my concerns, I knew my primary job as a Catholic was to support the Pope through my prayers and actions, trusting God for the rest. Consequently, I began to pray for him daily:

May the Lord preserve him, and give him life, and make him blessed upon the earth, and deliver him not up to the will of his enemies.

In addition, I adopted the habit of referring to Francis as “the Holy Father.” Finally, I looked for things to appreciate in his pontificate. It was not difficult to find things to celebrate. For example, I paid less attention to the alarming footnote controversies from the Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia, and more attention to his wise application of 1 Corinthians 13 (St. Paul’s teaching on love) to marriage.

These practices opened my heart to accept some of Francis’s challenges. I would not have suspected that my heart was closed but for his confrontational style.

I was a teenager in the 1970s. My parents were devout and knowledgeable about the faith, but at that time there was widespread confusion about Church teaching on faith and morals, and about her worship and sacraments. All of this chaos was suffused by confident predictions that the Church was changing in a progressive direction. Then John Paul II became Pope, followed by Benedict XVI. Both confidently taught and defended the historical Catholic faith. Both were faithful sons of and advocates for the Second Vatican Council. Both were agents of dynamic orthodoxy, communicating the faith to the modern world with clarity and evangelical fervor.

After the chaotic doctrinal confusion of the 1970s, followed by three decades of an arduous restoration of clear dogmatic, sacramental, and moral teaching, I’m afraid I came to emphasize correct doctrine at the expense of evangelical friendship and mercy. Before Francis, I would not have put it this way – of course I cared about mercy, about the souls of those who needed Christ. However, I must admit that in evangelization and Christian formation my intuition was to lead with clear statements of doctrine. Correct doctrine is, of course, important, and many are attracted to the Church by her clear, consistent teachings. Nevertheless, a great many other wounded and lost souls need something before they can hear doctrine. They need love, kindness, friendship, and mercy.

When Pope Francis began calling conservatives ‘Pharisees’, I knew he was talking about me, and I resented it. I could easily have rejected his challenge as an unfair personal attack. But I was committed to praying for him, and to honoring him as the Holy Father, so instead I examined my conscience. What I found surprised me. I had developed distinct Pharisaical tendencies – a habit of pulling away from those who engaged in the more obvious sins, and from those who obstinately clung to false doctrines. Francis urged me to run toward the sinner, toward those with whom I disagreed, toward those who were not respectable in orthodox Catholic circles, toward those who were left behind by life. Instead of running toward these, I was inclined to look the other way and pass on – ignoring the broken man by the side of the road in the parable of the good Samaritan. Francis’s challenge has been good for my eternal soul, and by God’s grace I hope I’m a more loving and merciful Christian as a result.

The uncertainties of the coming conclave will test my trust in God to guide his Church through the new Pope. But we only learn to trust by trusting. Now is the time to place the human leadership of the Church into the hands of Christ, and leave it to him. Fr. Jacques Phillipe, in The Way of Trust and Love, suggests a simple act of trust. I pray it whenever I realize that I’m worried or fearful about anything. The more unsettled I am, the more frequently I try to pray it. Modified to fit the current time of uncertainty, it goes something like this:

Jesus, I trust in you; I give you the conclave and papal election, and I know you will handle it, according to your perfect will for your Bride, the Church.

May this (or something like it) be our constant prayer in the coming weeks.