Pope Francis’ fiercest opposition: the Church’s clerical workforce

Monday, February 13th, 2023

“Commentators of every school, if for different reasons, with the possible exception of Father Spadaro SJ, agree that this pontificate is a disaster in many or most respects; a catastrophe.” Thus spake George Pell.

The Australian cardinal, who died of a heart attack on January 10, has been described by friends and admirers as a “great leader”, a “white martyr” and “courageous”.

However, when Pell levelled that attack against Pope Francis less than a year ago in a lengthy screed that he sent to all the Church’s cardinals, he showed just how courageous he really was – by issuing it under a pseudonym.

It was published last March by Italian journalist Sandro Magister who, after Pell’s death, revealed that this “memorandum on the next conclave” was indeed the cardinal’s handiwork.

Among other things, it lambasts the Jesuit pope for causing confusion. “Previously it was: ‘Roma locuta. Causa finita est.’ Today it is: ‘Roma loquitur. Confusio augetur’,” Pell says.

And he criticises the pope for remaining silent on a number of moral issues, including the Church in Germany’s push to bless same-sex unions, ordain women priests and offer communion to the divorced and remarried.

The cardinal was 81 when he died and, thus, he was already disqualified from voting in a conclave to elect Francis’ successor.

But that did not stop him from trying to influence the election, as the purpose of the memorandum makes clear.

In fact, Pell was one of the main ringleaders among those in the hierarchy who quickly soured on the Argentine pope.

The big and blunt Australian led the quiet, behind-the-scenes effort to identify an electable papal successor who – as he notes in the memorandum – would “restore normality, restore doctrinal clarity in faith and morals, restore a proper respect for the law and ensure that the first criterion for the nomination of bishops is acceptance of the apostolic tradition”.

Pell showed just how courageous he really was when he used a pseudonym to issue an attack against Pope Francis.

“The Holy Father has little support among seminarians and young priests”

The late cardinal had a loyal following that includes traditionalists and the doctrinally inflexible (certainly in the English-speaking world), especially among the younger clergy and those who are being prepared to join their ranks.

He states this quite matter-of-factly in his diatribe against the current pope.

“The Holy Father has little support among seminarians and young priests,” he claims. There is, of course, ample anecdotal evidence and even certain surveys that support this.

Pell says this “wide-spread disaffection exists in the Vatican Curia”, as well.

This poses a major problem for Pope Francis and his vision for reforming the Church.

While most ordinary Catholics around the world are probably not emotionally or ideologically invested in the same issues or concerns that so troubled Pell; and while these Catholics generally have a favourable or even highly favourable view of the current pope; it will be extremely hard to implement Francis’ vision and reforms if the Church’s clerical workforce is not on board.

Indeed, this unmarried, all-male clergy has become – in many ways – a major obstacle to spreading the Gospel itself, especially in the dynamically evangelical and missionary style that the pope spells out in Evangelii gaudium, his 2013 apostolic exhortation that reads like a blueprint for a revitalized and reformed Catholic Church.

The open, inviting, merciful, non-judgmental, journeying Church of imperfect people that stumbles along trying to discern how to more faithfully love God and embrace and care for all God’s creation (its people, other living creatures and our “common home” the earth), is seen as anathema to those who think like Pell.

The late cardinal accuses Francis of watering down the “Christo-centricity” of Church teaching.

“Christ is being moved from the centre,” he says, an incredible charge against a man who is probably one of the most radically evangelical popes ever.

Pell says Francis “even seems to be confused about the importance of a strict monotheism, hinting at some wider concept of divinity; not quite pantheism, but like a Hindu panentheism variant”. Pell’s clerical admirers — as well as those Catholic layfolk that are just as traditionalist and sectarian — agree with that assessment.

Return to a more ancient custom

The synodal process the pope has opened up in the Church — which he clearly wants to be a permanent and constitutive part of ecclesial life, ministry and governance — cannot fully take root or succeed if a significant portion of the Church’s ordained ministers do not embrace and support it.

The only real option the pope has to try at least to make sure they do is by expanding the pool of candidates for the diaconate and presbyterate (ordained priesthood).

Without introducing any sort of novelty, and returning to its more ancient custom, the Church should re-open the presbyterate to married men in addition to (and not necessarily in substitution of) those who have the charism and ability to profess life-long celibacy.

The Church should also return to the ancient custom of ordaining women to the diaconate.

As it currently stands, limiting the ordained ministry to just one tiny subset of the People of God no longer serves whatever good purpose the creation of an unmarried and all-male clerical caste system might have originally had.

It needs to be scrapped because the pool of candidates right now is far too shallow and, in manifest ways, alarmingly putrid.

But you can be sure that any such changes would be met with the stiffest resistance – by certain cardinals, many bishops and a whole lot of priests and seminarians.

Most of them would fight to preserve, intact, the special club for which God has “set them apart” from the rest of the baptized members of the Body of Christ.

“Just men, just priests… What a wonderful time!”

Cardinal Robert Sarah, the 77-year-old retired Vatican official from Guinea and another traditionalist icon, revealed just how much the current clerical model is cherished as he shared his memories about Benedict XVI with the French daily Le Figaro immediately after late pope’s recent funeral.

“I remember the Year for Priests that he decreed in 2009,” Sarah began.

“The pope wanted to underline the theological and mystical roots of the life of priests.”

And then the cardinal vividly recalled the “magnificent vigil in St. Peter’s Square” to conclude the year-long event with these words:

The setting sun flooded Bernini’s colonnade with golden light. The square was full.

But unlike usual, there were no families and no nuns – just men, just priests.

When Benedict XVI arrived in the popemobile, with one heart everyone began to acclaim him, calling him by his name.

It was striking to hear all these male voices chanting “Benedetto” in unison.

The pope was very moved.

When he turned back to the crowd after stepping onto the stage, his tears were flowing. The prepared speech was brought to him, which he left aside, and he freely answered questions. What a wonderful time!

The wise father teaching his children.

It was like time was suspended. Benedict XVI confided in them. That evening he had definitive words on priestly celibacy. Then the evening ended with a long moment of adoration before the Blessed Sacrament…

A wonderful time, indeed.

Just men, just priests. And among them admirers of cardinals such as Pell, Sarah and a number of others – just men, just priests; those who form the stiffest opposition to Pope Francis and his effort to reform the Church.