Catholics
or not (judging by their misrepresentation of the Catholic Church), most media
people do not know Church history and structure, what Magisterium means, or for
that matter, even how a man responds to the call to priesthood. Thus, when the pope or a bishop opens
his mouth, his voice is heard through a secular megaphone that distorts or
filters out the meaning of the message.
Case
in point: the hoopla generated by headlines like “Church ‘obsessed’ with birth
control, abortion and gays,” referring to a recent interview with Pope Francis
that came out in an Italian magazine.
Whether people read only the headline or the whole second-hand report,
it is the headline that will most impact them for it is supposed to carry the
gist of the story.
To
people too busy or uninterested to read or analyze the original interview, it
would appear that the pope is going against the teaching of the Church. They would not care that while Pope
Francis actually said “We cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay
marriage and the use of contraceptive methods…” he also said: “The teaching of the Church, for that
matter, is clear and I am a son of the Church, but it is not necessary to talk
about these issues all the time.”
Did he say the Church is “obsessed”? No—it is the media who said it.
So,
what is Pope Francis really trying to say? Media have painted Pope Francis as a “different pope”, a
“reformer” of the Church, and they are but too quick to color his words to suit
their taste. Even some Catholics
tend to put the pope in a box: a Jesuit box, for instance. Are we not guilty, too, of seeing the
Holy Father as a mere politician and the papacy as but a power play?
Every
pope has his particular contribution to the evolution of the Church. Every pope leaves his fingerprints on
the papal chalice, so to speak.
Each pope responds to the challenges of the age, as well as adapts to
and utilizes civilization’s technological advances in meeting the needs of the
flock. Let us take a quick glance
at the three popes our country’s predominantly young population has known.
Blessed Pope John Paul II
Soon-to-be-saint
Blessed John Paul II will be remembered by the faithful for throwing wide open
the doors of the Church to the world, becoming the most widely-traveled pope in
history. In a world where young
people were asserting their independence from parents, John Paul II discerned
the youth’s search for parental authority and affection, some direction in
life, and he offered them Jesus.
He hugged them, kissed them, dialogued with them, danced with them in
the World Youth Day celebrations that have for decades attracted countless
young people to Christ.
Sensing
the growing sexual unrest in the modern times, he wrote Theology of the Body to tell us, among other things, about the male
and the female in God’s plan for humanity. Seeing the need to remind the faithful of the crucial role
women play in the sanctification of the Church, he came up with Mulieris Dignitatem. Possessing media savvy, he would
revive our interest in Pope Paul VI’s Inter
Mirifica and add his own The Rapid
Development to stress the need for the Church to use mass media in delivering
the message of salvation in the “new culture”. He would reach out to the young through Friendster way before the age of Facebook and Twitter (which
his successor Pope Benedict XVI was to use during his time).
If
his lighthearted approach to evangelizing endeared him to the young, his
humility in working for peace and unity won for the Church the respect of other
religious leaders, particularly when he did something none of his predecessors
of 2,000 years had done: trembling and with slurred speech from Parkinson’s
disease he publicly begged God’s forgiveness for the offenses of the Catholic
church against the Jews, heretics, women, gypsies, and other native
peoples. And in the years when his
eyesight was dimming, John Paul II was to open our eyes to the value of five
more light-filled episodes in the Lord’s earthly life—which were to be hailed
in due time as the Luminous Mysteries of the Rosary.
Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI
Pope
Emeritus Benedict XVI—opened his papacy with the encyclical Deus Caritas Est, a rich exploration of
the word “love” in a world that was increasingly feeling alienated from a
benevolent God. With a serious
mien, he remained to be a sobering presence in the Church. When the Eucharist was being celebrated
this way or that, almost by the whims of parish priests or by popular demand,
Benedict XVI set our sights on the transcendent nature of the liturgy,
promoting the mystery and solemnity of the “summit and source of Christian life.” Ever the gifted theologian possessing
grace and clarity in his manner of writing and speaking, he was also the
perfect person for stressing the indispensability of study in the ministry of
communicating God to the people.
A man of great humility and pastoral sensitivity, he ached for Christian unity, and desired to welcome back to the Church’s embrace those who have left. He must
have
empathized with them, understood their wounds and the reasons they broke away
from the fold. For him,
forgiveness, which is the backbone of reform, “is not a denial of wrong doing
but a participation in the healing and transforming love of God which
reconciles and restores.”
Benedict
XVI did what no pope had done in nearly 700 years: step down from the papal
throne. In the eyes of those who
deny the existence of mystery, it was a sign of weakness in a leader; to the
faithful, it was their leader’s way of opening our eyes to humanity’s gaping
need for God in our day and age, and to the futility of merely human efforts in
linking man and God together. His
resignation was a cry for a return to what matters most in a world growing too
self-centered and ruled by increasing relativism: prayer as a way to union with
God, and therefore harmony with man.
Seeing
how much evil had seeped through the cracks of the Church—clerical sex abuse
and corruption scandals left and right; alleged in-fighting in the curia;
priests and nuns succumbing to the temptations of the age and subscribing to
strange teachings that erode their faith; shepherds and their sheep engrossed
in evangelizing strategies bereft of divine inspiration—Benedict XVI must have
felt like our Lord Jesus who, when asked by His disciples why they could not
drive away the evil spirit in a boy (Mark
9:14-29), replied: “This kind
can come out only by prayer and fasting.”
And
so the pope of almost eight years took a leap of faith to pray and fast,
tacitly setting an example for the shepherds the world over to follow. In resigning he chose to be an ordinary
priest, hidden, unknown, in prayer united with and sustained by the Father—very
much like Christ who, weary from a day of teaching, touching the sick, and
being pressed upon by the needy, would seek a solitary, hidden place to be
alone with the Father.
Pope Francis
Enter
Pope Francis, a hot issue from Day One of his papacy. To the media he was a novelty, shirking off the trappings of
his post—no limousines, no fancy throne, no pricey ring, no red shoes, no papal
apartment—that the charmed reporters instantly anointed him as a “revolutionary
pope.” He would be quoted, misquoted,
and quoted out of context, and not a few times concerned Catholics following
his coverage by media would fret that he might be changing Church doctrines on
his own.
A
handful of priests I have poked for comment reserve their thoughts on Pope
Francis’ candor in dealing with media, adopting a wait-and-see attitude, but a visiting,
young Filipino priest studying in Spain actually told me, “His style of
shooting from the hip is rather dangerous.” In a knee jerk reaction I myself would tend to think with
this young priest, knowing what deluge could descend upon the Church if and when
the devil and the media hold hands and kiss, so to speak. Watching the World Youth Day papal
parade on television, I was horrified to see Pope Francis riding an open pick
up truck without a bullet proof bubble, shaking hands with the masses, catching
gifts thrown at him from the crowd—bags, packages, souvenirs, shawls, sometimes
almost to his face. What if one of
those bags contained a bomb?, I gasped.
I thought the pope was taking unnecessary risks—but, no terrorist shook
his hand, and no assassin came to grab him; he is still alive after getting
what he wanted, so who am I to question the prodding of the Holy Spirit?
Just
after WYD concluded, media read too much into what Pope Francis said about
being compassionate with gays. A
few days back media would again be titillated by quotables from the outspoken
pope who sounded as though he were gagging zealous pro-lifers. Eight months into his papacy Pope
Francis, in the eyes of some, “has created enormous difficulties for the
Church” with his “problematic statements too numerous to document.” Reportedly, some Catholic commentators
are already approaching the brink of fatigue doing damage control. Neo-Catholic explainers of What The
Pope Really Means are also reported to be “overwhelmed by their task… as
Francis has dropped far too many bombshells to defuse”.
The
supposedly explosive statements Pope Francis has sporadically been making sound
dramatic and liberalizing, causing world media and the Church’s enemies to hail
“Francis the Awesome,” the “rebel pope”, the “slum pope” as their new ally, the
“enlightened pope” they have all been waiting for. In the United States alone, satirist and television host
Stephen Colbert saw Pope Francis as “a seismic ripple throughout the world of
Catholicism”, and comedian Chris Rock, announced that “Francis is the greatest
man alive”. So called “rebel
theologian” Hans Kung was said to be “overwhelmed with joy” at Jorge
Bergoglio’s election, while activist Jane Fonda allegedly tweeted “Gotta love
new Pope. He cares about poor,
hates dogma”. RH champion Barack
Obama was “hugely impressed with the pope’s pronouncements”, while from the
National Abortion Rights Action League came— “To Pope Francis: Thank you”. If the Successor of Peter is causing
anti-life forces to jump with joy over his statements and headlines like CNN’s
“Pope speaks against Catholic traditions”, can the faithful be blamed for
starting to worry?
Is
there a real reason for the faithful to worry? Worry about the pope or about irresponsible
journalists? According to the
Vatican, the infamous interview quoting the pope on the
birth-control-abortion-gay-marriage issue turned out to be a reconstruction
after the fact, since the writer, Eugenio Scalfari, an atheist, did not tape it
at all, nor did he take notes. Any
self-respecting journalist would record such an important interview—why did he
not? Didn’t he, really? Who can say now what Pope Francis
really said or what he really meant?
Through the eyes of faith
I
personally am not bothered by even the most careless-sounding utterances Pope
Francis makes during off-the-cuff exchanges with journalists because while I
understand that he is coming from somewhere unfamiliar to me, I know that he
did not enthrone himself in St. Peter’s seat. Remember the black smoke and the white smoke? If we believe it was the Holy Spirit
who made him pope, His will manifested in the Cardinals’ choice, isn’t it
logical that we believe, too, that he is being guided by the same Holy Spirit,
appearances notwithstanding?
I
choose not to be carried away by the irate reactions to the Holy Father’s
perceived boo-boos, for media bias has much to do with it as well. I’d like to look at his admirable
qualities too, for instance his personal austerity, which I believe he
deliberately insists on to set an example for men of the cloth who have become
oblivious to their vow to be poor, obedient and chaste like Jesus. His challenge to shepherds to “smell of
the sheep” is likewise meant to spur priests out of a stupor induced by a too
comfortable lifestyle.
When
he urged the youth in Brazil to “shake up the Church” and “make a mess in your
diocese” I believe he said so not with a clenched fist but with tongue in
cheek, fully aware his audience would be fired up by drama—it’s the Latino in
him. Same thing when he said about
gays, “Who am I to judge?”—I have a feeling it was calculated to win the gays
over, for Francis sees evangelizing as “entering their door so that they may
later enter yours”. I saw his
point, too, when he said “we cannot insist only on issues related to abortion,
gay marriage and the use of contraceptive methods”; his was just a word of
caution lest in our crusade against anti-lifers we totally neglect other issues
just as vital to the Church, for instance the formation of our youth who will
become tomorrow’s parents. If we
form our kindergarteners properly now, we will not have to bend over backward
stopping them from contracepting in the future.
I
would like to view this controversy through the eyes of faith.
The impression created by
the present pope’s eyebrow-raising media pronouncements results from his
personality and style; in no way does it imply that Francis is “making a mess” of the Magisterium, or losing his faith in the body of Christ.
In his first encyclical, Lumen Fidei, Pope Francis reminds us
that “Christ, on the eve of His passion, assured Peter: ‘I have prayed for you
that your faith may not fail’ (Lk 22:32).
He then told him to strengthen his brothers and sisters in that same
faith.”
I believe Pope Francis is proceeding in the light of faith, challenging and strengthening us, albeit in such an unorthodox fashion. It is the same light of faith that illumined the paths of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI and Blessed John Paul II to carry out their duties as the successors of Peter and turn our troubled times into seasons of grace. Our trials are many but we will walk on undaunted. We have our Lord praying for us that our faith may not fail—how can the Father fail His Son?
I believe Pope Francis is proceeding in the light of faith, challenging and strengthening us, albeit in such an unorthodox fashion. It is the same light of faith that illumined the paths of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI and Blessed John Paul II to carry out their duties as the successors of Peter and turn our troubled times into seasons of grace. Our trials are many but we will walk on undaunted. We have our Lord praying for us that our faith may not fail—how can the Father fail His Son?
CBCP Monitor
