Is this the same pope who, early in his pontificate, when asked about a gay clergyman who keeps his vows, asked rhetorically, "Who am I to judge?"

Yes, it is.

Part of the confusion about the decision to permit blessings of gay people who are in a relationship stems from the Vatican's own press coverage of the document Fiducia Supplicans when it was promulgated last December.

Vatican News produced the headline: "Doctrinal declaration opens the possibility of blessing couples in irregular situations." Couples, not individuals.

When reading the English translation of the document, it clearly states, at Paragraph 11:

… it is necessary that what is blessed corresponds with God's designs written in creation and fully revealed by Christ the Lord.

For this reason, since the Church has always considered only those sexual relations that are lived out within marriage to be morally licit, the Church does not have the power to confer its liturgical blessing when that would somehow offer a form of moral legitimacy to a union that presumes to be a marriage or to an extra-marital sexual practice.

But the very next paragraph sets the stage for the pastoral application of the doctrinal principle, stating, "One must also avoid the risk of reducing the meaning of blessings to this point of view alone. …

"Indeed, there is the danger that a pastoral gesture that is so beloved and widespread will be subjected to too many moral prerequisites, which, under the claim of control, could overshadow the unconditional power of God's love that forms the basis for the gesture of blessing."

This was the heart of the document: God's unconditional love "forms the basis for the gesture of blessing."

The pope was indicating that a pastor, charged with helping all persons develop and deepen their relationship with God, can impart a blessing on persons whose situation is, in the eyes of the church, irregular.

"The shift Francis intends is, at once, less exact and more profound than a doctrinal shift," I wrote at the time. "What Francis has been trying to achieve for many years is to relocate the place of doctrine within the magisterium of the church, specifically to insist that doctrine serve the good of souls, not the other way round."

The issue of gay seminarians is entirely different from that of blessing gay unions: No doctrinal issues are involved.

So long as a seminarian is celibate, and has maturely integrated his celibacy into his life, it should not matter if he is straight or gay.

We do not have a transcript of what the pope said to the Italian bishops and, especially, what question prompted him to say what he did.

There have been instances of seminaries with a gay subculture that was destructive of the formation the seminary existed to impart.

The fact that the pope may have used a vulgar Italian word, frociaggine — translated as "queerness" in most media accounts but I suspect "campiness" is closer to what was meant — when discussing the subject suggests he might have had in mind precisely such a situation.

The pope has now apologised for using the term.

The idea that the pope has suddenly revealed his hidden bigotry towards gay persons, which seems to be the consensus on social media, is ridiculous.

Nothing about this man or his papacy suggests he is bigoted towards anyone.

Whence, then, this ambivalence in the pope's statements?

How did he go from "Who am I to judge?" to this?

It has to do with the inherent conflict of his position as pope.

He is the universal pastor of the church and he is the defender of Christian doctrine.

He wants to help people grow closer to God, and knows that accompanying them, not judging them, is the best way to achieve that. He also believes what the church teaches.

It is this last point that the activists on both sides forget. Continue reading

• Michael Sean Winters is the author of Left At the Altar: How Democrats Lost The Catholics And How Catholics Can Save The Democrats (Basic Books, 2008).

It was terrible, also, because of its ecclesial significance, which is a related but different concern, one that strikes at a deeper issue for the nation's bishops.

The commentary from Fordham University's David Gibson, touched on some of the reasons why closing Catholic News Service was ill-advised pastorally.

Gibson observed that CNS is "a counterwitness to the proliferation of ideologically driven Catholic media platforms that are driving the church apart, and regular Catholics around the bend — often right out of Catholicism."

That is surely true.

It is also clear that not enough bishops were alarmed by the prospect that the only remaining wire service specifically focused on news about the Catholic Church in the United States would be the Catholic News Agency, a subsidiary of EWTN.

More bishops need to adopt the posture taken by Bishop Christopher Coyne of Burlington, Vermont, a former chair of the bishops' Committee on Communications.

"In Burlington, we don't want anything to do with CNA because of its affiliation with EWTN and the anti-Francis rhetoric on the network," Coyne told America magazine recently.

Several bishops have indicated to me that it was not clear that the complete closing of CNS was what they were voting for last year during the executive session at their fall assembly in Baltimore, when they chose one of five models presented by Archbishop Timothy Broglio, chair of the bishops' Committee on Priorities and Plans.

They told me that they understood there would be cutbacks, but not a complete suspension of operations.

What is more, there was no real discussion of the proposal except as a necessary budgetary measure.

Here, then, I need to disagree somewhat with the explanation offered by former CNS editor Tony Spence, who told NCR's Brian Fraga, "The culture warrior bishops at the USCCB have always had a certain amount of animus to CNS because it offers straight unbiased reporting.

"Culture warriors don't want straight unbiased reporting.

"They want an echo chamber where everyone has the same opinion."

That is true, but this was not presented to the bishops as a culture war fight and, if it had been, I doubt it would have secured enough votes to pass, or at least it would have generated more opposition.

No, the deeper - and in some ways worse - problem is that the bishops have lost their own commitment to civic engagement, of which the responsibility for providing reliable information is so integral a part.

One hundred years ago, bishops were princes, and they ventured forth into the public square from their episcopal manses as leaders of their flock, powerbrokers of a sort, more akin to a labour leader or a prominent civic leader.

Ironically, after Vatican II called for the church to be an instrument, even a sacrament of the unity of humankind in the world, the bishops lost their footing.

They were not clear what tasks were to be ceded to the laity and what remained in their competence.

The turbulence of the times, especially the focus less and less on issues of economic justice and more on neuralgic issues of pelvic theology that would come to characterize the culture wars, further estranged the bishops from any kind of civic engagement.

Their role was reduced to that of an ethical authority in the public square, and they never grasped the degree to which the church's traditional, personal ethics on sexual matters was difficult to translate into any kind of public ethics, especially in a pluralistic society.

Then came the sexual abuse crisis and many bishops resorted to hiding under their desks.

Now, the bishops largely focus on the internal life of the church. Continue reading

• Michael Sean Winters covers the nexus of religion and politics for NCR.

Last week, a friend called my attention to a website called "Faithful Shepherds" that was launched a year ago by LifeSiteNews.

They state that their purpose is to provide a "one-stop database" about where Catholic bishops stand on certain issues and to "encourage bishops to be faithful to Christ."

The website considers a range of issue, including homosexuality and liturgy: "Does your bishop encourage Communion on the tongue while kneeling?" is one of the questions posed.

I was glad to see that they properly labeled one category "abortion politics," although they failed to see that certainty about politics is different from certainty about morality.

The weirdest item on the list is Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò's testimony about which they ask "Has the bishop supported an investigation into Viganò's claims?

Does the bishop say his allegations are driven by ideology or are an attack on Pope Franics [sic]? Has the bishop said Viganò is a man of integrity?"

It is odd, is it not, that fidelity to Viganò has become such a calling card among these schismatics.

His screeds are so obviously a combination of score settling, innuendo and simple smearing — if you knew nothing about Viganò and nothing about the people he names and only read the texts as they are, you would be suspicious of the author.

When you find out where your bishop stands on these issues, you can click on a button to send him a postcard, thanking him for supporting the positions LifeSiteNews endorses or asking him to abandon his wayward ways.

First, you are invited to make a donation of $5 or more, and then alerted that your credit card will be charged $2 for the postcard.

You can also "do-it-yourself," as they provide an email address and phone number for each prelate as well.

"For too long, lay Catholics have been without an authoritative accountability tool for U.S. bishops, especially those who deviate from the Church's magisterium," they write.

Seeing as Francis is now the embodiment of the church's magisterium, the fact that they applaud bishops who have criticized Amoris Laetitia and denounce those who have supported it is a bit rich.

Last week, Cardinal Blase Cupich was their featured prelate.

I won't bore you with the bizarre way they frame different items on their list of complaints.

Many are tendentious in the extreme.

Others are true, but in this funhouse of extremism, what is sane is presented as heretical and what is a commonplace is considered an outrage.

I do not believe that any bishop, not even the bishop of Rome, is beyond criticism.

But what makes this Faithful Shepherds website so nefarious, and indeed what makes LifeSiteNews and other conservative outlets so nefarious these days, is that fidelity is defined as being in opposition to the pope.

They do not cite a single instance in which agreement with the pope is a mark of fidelity.

Silly me. All these years, I thought being in communion with the successor of Peter was a significant mark of Roman Catholicism. Continue reading

• Image: LifeSite

A few days ago, my colleague Joshua McElwee reported on the pope's homily at the Mass celebrating the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul.

Monday, the pope marked the sixth anniversary of his trip to Lampedusa with a Mass for migrants, at which he delivered the sermon.

These three texts highlight this pope's penetrating theological vision, why it is so suited to our times, and why it so disturbs a certain kind of American Catholic.

The talk at Naples was, as Mickens noted, remarkable because of the pope's focus on theology in the Mediterranean as it is today, not only as the historic source of Greco-Roman philosophic ideas which so shaped the early church. The conference was considering theology in the wake of Francis' apostolic constitution Veritatis Gaudium that dealt with the renewal of ecclesiastical faculties and universities. In Naples, he said:

"When in the Foreword of Veritatis Gaudium the contemplation and presentation of the heart of the kerygma is mentioned together with dialogue as criteria for renewing studies, it means that they are at the service of the path of a Church that increasingly puts evangelization at the center.

"Not apologetics, not manuals, as we heard, but evangelizing.

"At the center is evangelizing, which is not the same thing as proselytizing.

"In dialogue with cultures and religions, the Church announces the Good News of Jesus and the practice of evangelical love which He preached as a synthesis of the whole teaching of the Law, the message of the Prophets and the will of the Father.

"Dialogue is above all a method of discernment and proclamation of the Word of love which is addressed to each person and which wants to take up residence in the heart of each person.

"Only in listening to this Word and in the experience of love that it communicates can one discern the relevance of kerygma.

Dialogue, understood in this way, is a form of welcoming.

Dialogue, he acknowledged, is no magic formula, but a methodology of respect for persons as well as ideas and the only path to peaceful and just social relations.

Francis also pointed to dialogue as a kind of academic self-corrective.

"We need theologians ― men and women, priests, lay people and religious ― who, in a historical and ecclesial rootedness and, at the same time, open to the inexhaustible novelties of the Spirit, know how to escape the self-referential, competitive and, in fact, blinding logics that often exist even in our own academic institutions and concealed, many times, among our theological schools."

"That phrase "blinding logics" is certainly an incisive description of certain ideologically driven norms in the academy, and it can be found on both the left and the right.

The pope's sermon at the great feast day Mass was one of my favorites of his entire pontificate because of its bold anti-Pelagian challenge:

"There is a great teaching here: the starting point of the Christian life is not our worthiness; in fact, the Lord was able to accomplish little with those who thought they were good and decent.

"Whenever we consider ourselves smarter or better than others, that is the beginning of the end.

"The Lord does not work miracles with those who consider themselves righteous, but with those who know themselves needy.

"He is not attracted by our goodness; that is not why he loves us.

"He loves us just as we are; he is looking for people who are not self-sufficient, but ready to open their hearts to him. People who, like Peter and Paul, are transparent before God."

The conflation of the moral with the holy is a great temptation for the Christian.

In other religions, it may be different, but in ours, holiness consists in a reliance on the grace of God in all circumstances and in every decision.

There is an ecclesiological angle to this anti-Pelagianism as well.

The other day, I came across an article at Patheos about Hans Urs von Balthasar and why he remained a Catholic.

Speaking against the Puritans of his day, he wrote:

If they [the emotivist Puritans] refuse, I fail to understand how they can assert they are in the Church and not outside fighting against her.

However, let us leave them to their fate or, better, to a gentle Providence who may open their eyes to this truth: a sinless, all-knowing Church that would sell off the old dusty one would be no Church at all but only a Montanist-Donatist-Pelagian sect not worth remaining in and having nothing in common with the Church of Jesus Christ.

We leave them to draw that simple conclusion, and proceed to positive argumentation.

I remain in the Church because the old catholica still resembles the Church which leaps to the eyes from the pages of St. Paul's Epistles and the Acts.

Indeed, the resemblance is so striking as to be offputting.

The very Corinthians whom Paul lauds "for the grace of God which was given you in Christ Jesus, because in everything you have been enriched in him" (I Cor.1 ff.), he proceeds to denounce in chapter after chapter for forming cliques, for their arrogance and their incontinence, for loveless behavior at the Eucharistic party (the expression comes from a Swiss parish bulletin), finally for their denial of the Resurrection by attempts to rationalize it.

QED.

Finally, we come to the Mass for the migrants.

There the pope preached on Jesus' preferential option for the outcast and his mission of liberation and salvation. Continue reading

• Michael Sean Winters covers the nexus of religion and politics for NCR
• Image: Lifesite News

Pope Francis typically meets with the local Jesuits whenever he visits a country and the conversations really show the wisdom and the personality of this pope.

For example, we know the first pope from Argentina likes colorful metaphors and stories.

The nation that gave the world the tango would not give us a dull pope. When asked about where he finds consolations, he said:

I'll tell you a story. I like to spend time with children and the elderly. Once, there was an old lady. She had precious, bright eyes. I asked her, "How old are you?"

"Eighty-seven," she answered.

"But what do you eat to be so well? Give me the recipe," I said.

"Everything!" she answered.

"And I make my own ravioli."

I said to her, "Madam, pray for me!"

She says to me, "Every day I pray for you!"

And joking, I add, "Tell me the truth: Do you pray for me or against me?"

"Of course, I pray for you! Many others inside the Church pray against you!"

The story illustrates that he means it when he talks about accompanying people.

He clearly takes delight in meeting this elderly woman and he remembers her specific age.

He remembers her "precious, bright eyes."

He engages with her like a real person: "Give me the recipe."

But, he also makes a very clear point, adding: "True resistance is not in the people of God who really feel they are the people."

His comments about dealing with difficult times demonstrate a different attitude towards evangelisation than, say, what we heard about last week from Bishop Robert Barron at the U.S. bishops' conference meeting.

The pope says:

What to do? It takes patience, it takes hupomeno, that is, carrying the weight of the events and circumstances of life. You have to carry the burden of life and its tensions on your shoulders. We know that we must proceed with parrhesia and courage. They're important. However, there are times when you can't go too far and then you have to be patient and sweet. This is what Peter Faber did, the man of dialogue, of listening, of closeness, of the journey.

Today is a time more for Faber than for Canisius, who was the man of the dispute. In times of criticism and tension we must do as Faber did, working with the help of the angels: he begged his angel to speak to the angels of others so that they might do with them what we cannot do. And then you really need proximity, a meek proximity. We must first of all be close to the Lord with prayer, with time spent in front of the tabernacle. And then the closeness to the people of God in daily life with works of charity to heal the wounds.

The contrast of Faber and Canisius illustrates that these divergent approaches are not new in the experience of the church.

But, whereas Barron calls for a new apologetics, revels in arguing with atheists, and holds up Jordan Peterson as some kind of icon of effective communication, Francis counsels against following the model of the disputatious Canisius, states that we need a "meek proximity" to the people of God, and goes on to say:

The Church is so wounded, and today it is also so wounded by tensions within it. Meekness, it takes meekness! And it takes a lot of courage to be meek! But you have to go forward with meekness. This is not the time to convince, to have discussions. If someone has a sincere doubt, yes, one can dialogue, clarify. But don't respond to the attacks.

It is very hard to be quiet in this age of Twitter, but can we doubt that the pope is right, that aping the culture which has marginalized the Christian faith, as Barron does, is no way to proceed, and that we must bear witness to the suffering of people more than we should try and convince them by argumentation. Continue reading

• Michael Sean Winters covers the nexus of religion and politics for NCR
• Image: Lifesite News

The vote was 96 to 82.

The post is traditionally reserved for cardinals.

Naumann's victory has been reported as a snub for Cupich's progressive approach.

Like Pope Francis, Cupich's approach focuses on dialogue and encounter.

Naumann is seen as more traditional and "a representative of the culture-warrior style of episcopal leadership".

National Catholic Reporter columnist, Michael Sean Winters, says the vote "amounted to the bishops giving the middle finger to Pope Francis."

Winters went on to say that, in 2008, Naumann told Governor Kathleen Sebelius that she should not go to Communion because of her pro-choice position.

Although Cardinal Raymond Burke advocated for this position, citing Canon Law 915 most bishops thought it was a mistake to "politicise the Communion rail".

Naumann has also ordered his parishes to cease hosting Girl Scout troops.

He thought they were somehow involved with Planned Parenthood.

Cupich, on the other hand, has openly embraced the ethic of life approach.

His predecessor, Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, introduced this way of thinking.

Pope Francis supports Benardin's perspective in this respect.

• Chicago Tribune
• The Tablet
• Crux
• Catholic News Agency
• Image: Spero News

Vatican reporter Edward Pentin has written "The Rigging of a Vatican Synod? An Investigation of Alleged Manipulation at the Extraordinary Synod on the Family".

The Relatio post disceptationem, or interim report, released half-way through the synod discussions sparked furious debate.

Pentin wrote that at issue were "three controversial paragraphs the contents of which had been barely, or not at all, discussed by the synod fathers".

"One of these paragraphs referred to proposals for readmission of divorced and civilly remarried Catholics to Holy Communion, and two other paragraphs dealt with the pastoral care of homosexuals and cohabiting couples."

Pentin wrote that Archbishop Bruno Forte, the synod's special secretary, was widely considered to have been the main author of the document.

"The Italian theologian, together with all the members of the drafting committee, drew on the lengthy written speeches of each synod father submitted prior to the meeting.

"Apparently, certain points from these written speeches found their way into the draft report, even if the bishops had not mentioned them during the four minutes allotted to each speaker.

"Vatican spokesman Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi said he recalled only one speech out of about 265 that discussed homosexuals during the debate.

"Defenders of the report, therefore, say it is not surprising that much did not seem familiar in the interim report because the written submissions were not made public or distributed to the bishops themselves.

"The oral presentations only reflected a summary or particular point that a bishop wanted to make.

The defenders also noted that the interim report had to be produced quickly, and that there were no transcripts available of verbal interventions.

In a response to published excerpts of Pentin's book, National Catholic Reporter columnist Michael Sean Winters took issue with many of the points made.

Winters described as "pernicious" Pentin's suggestion that the interim report was given to the press in an effort to sway the synod towards its purportedly more "liberal" views.

Sources

• Catholic World Report
• National Catholic Reporter
• Image: International Business Times

The challenge involves ice-cold water being poured over a person's head, in order to raise money for research into amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), sometimes known as Lou Gehrig's disease.

But some archdioceses, including Cincinnati and Chicago, have told Catholic schools not to donate to the ALS Association, which is behind the challenge.

This is because the association currently funds one study that uses embryonic stem cell research, which Church does not consider morally licit.

The Archbishop of New Orleans, Gregory Aymond, emailed priests asking them to ensure their parishioners only donated to "morally acceptable" research.

The Archdiocese of Newark, New Jersey, has also asked parishioners to donate to charities that only use adult stem cells.

The Bishop of Evansville, Indiana, Charles Thompson praised participants' "humbling generosity", but said that the association's research went against Church teaching.

But he urged Catholics to donate instead to the John Paul II Medical Research Institute in Iowa and for people suffering in Gaza, Iraq and Syria.

The institute does ALS research, but only uses adult stem cells.

A spokesperson for the ALS Association, Carrie Munk, told Time that the organisation currently funds one study using embryonic stem cells, but added that donors can ask that their money not be used for this purpose.

In Boston, John Frates, a Catholic who spearheaded the ice-bucket campaign after his son Peter was stricken with ALS, said that he recognised the reasons for Church leader's qualms about the effort.

"I understand the Catholic dogma," he told the Boston Herald.

"I'm also conflicted with the teachings. I struggle with it, too. I just want my son cured."

Writing for the National Catholic Reporter, columnist Michael Sean Winters questioned the Church's lack of imagination on the issue.

"Did the officials in the archdiocese of Cincinnati reach out to the ALS foundation and voice their concern about embryonic stem cell research?" Winters asked.

"Did not the Pope say that he would rather a Church that makes mistakes in its efforts to help the poor, than a Church cooped up in the sacristy?"

Among those who have taken part in the challenge is former US president George W. Bush, who, in 2001, restricted federal funding for embryonic stem cell research.

Sources

• The Tablet
• Catholic World News
• National Catholic Reporter
• Image: The Guardian