Keeping it Real With Pope Francis: The Catholic Neo-conservative's Sticky Dilemma

In the wake of two revealing interviews with the current pontiff in recent weeks, Catholic "conservatives" are both rationalizing, and reeling over, Francis' off the cuff comments. The central matter is well summed up here:

"To be sure, many Catholics wholeheartedly embraced the change in tone and spirit in which the pope discussed difficult questions like abortion. Unfortunately, some deeply involved in the prolife movement have taken those remarks as a rebuke. That is an overreaction and misinterpretation of what the pope said. Obviously, Francis was objecting to the uncompromising and confrontational rhetoric of some Catholic activists. Why? Because that approach is simply not working. Worse, it is preventing the larger gospel message from being heard both within and beyond the Catholic community. With a third of all baptized Catholics abandoning the church, and those who remain increasingly divided on ecclesial, cultural, and political questions, the pope’s diagnosis is hard to refute. Is it not time, as Francis urged, to “find a new balance” in presenting the church’s teaching to an often doubting flock and a sometimes hostile secular world? “Otherwise,” the pope warns, “even the moral edifice of the church is likely to fall like a house of cards, losing the freshness and fragrance of the gospel. The proposal of the gospel must be more simple, profound, radiant. It is from this proposition that the moral consequences then flow.”

"Even more refreshing was the pope’s insistence that “thinking with the church” does not mean thinking only with the hierarchy. “The church [is]…the people of God, pastors and people together. The church is the totality of God’s people.” It has been a long time since that bit of orthodox wisdom has been heard from Rome..."

The original interview can be seen here.

The American Catholic right (as distinguished from traditionalists) has had a scattered response to Francis' comments, to say the least. Just consider this initial, bang-up analysis from the online Catholic World Report..

"Hours after the interview was released, the dissenting group Catholics United (see the August 2012 CWR article, “The Catholic Con Continues”) released a press statement penned by the CU communications director, Chris Pumpelly. The statement opens by claiming that “Francis articulates his vision of moving the priorities of the Catholic faith away from divisive social issues, like what he calls an 'obsession' with gay marriage, abortion and contraception, while refocusing on core Gospel teachings relating to poverty.” That statement is misleading at best, as “the priorities of the Catholic faith” have always been focused on proclaiming the gospel, even if many individual Catholics—laity, clergy, and religious alike—fail to do so. Pumpelly, like so many “progressives”, seeks to create a faulty “either/or” approach that seeks the silencing of those who uphold the clear and consistent teaching of the Church about sexuality, morality, and marriage.

"...Pope Francis has his own style, which reflects his unique personality and background, but it is also evident that he has the same central goal as his predecessors: to “proclaim the word; be persistent whether it is convenient or inconvenient; convince, reprimand, encourage through all patience and teaching” (2 Tim 4:2)."

He's still on our side, you guys!!! But NOT SO FAST. According to this write-up by Catholic right-wing writer and scholar John Zmirak:

"The pope’s most controversial statements seem to arise from a single motive: He doesn’t like “right-wing” Catholics, and wants to make it clear to all the world that he’s not one of them...I have met this kind of smug zealot up here in the U.S...who joke about burning heretics or who condemn the American founding because so many Founders were Freemasons...Some right-wing Catholics embrace a hardline agenda because they feel weak and irrelevant, and prefer magnificent fantasies of wielding power over their neighbors to the slow grunt work of evangelizing.

Zmirak, though, ultimately concludes:

"We are not living in fascist Argentina. The Culture of Death does not answer to men like General Galtieri, but to the likes of George Soros and Barack Obama. The bitterest traditionalists are not serving as tools of a grasping government which seeks to impose an anti-Christian ideology. Angry conservatives are not the cat’s paws of a potent political movement that seeks to marginalize the Church. The mass murder occurring throughout the West is not happening with the connivance of the Catholic right, but of the Catholic left, which pretends a moral equivalence between fundamental issues like abortion and prudential disputes over poverty programs and immigration totals, as a pretext for supporting candidates who oppose the natural law and the sanctity of life...

"Holy Father: Absurd as some of us are, we on the Catholic right are not your enemy."

Francis is clearly not their friend, either. That's going to become painfully apparent in the weeks and months ahead. Francis had this to say to La Repubblica as well: "It also happens to me that when I meet a clericalist, I suddenly become anti-clerical. Clericalism should not have anything to do with Christianity. St. Paul, who was the first to speak to the Gentiles, the pagans, to believers in other religions, was the first to teach us that."

Now, the pope's the "dissenter," and what are we to do? The absolute foolishness of the neocon ecclesiology has been laid bare, as now we can't just blindly follow all that Pope Francis says. So let's "guard the office" from the tainting of his unscripted, off the cuff interviews, and try to filter what he says ourselves to suit our agenda. JPII disliked left wingers because of the political history of his homeland. Francis dislikes right wingers, also because of the political history of his homeland. This translated into JPII's embrace of right wingers from other countries as well, and looks like it will mean Francis casting them aside. He's got their number, well beyond the secular politics he finds objectionable. The neocons are heavily clericalist, and like many Jesuits today, Francis loathes clericalism.

This could mean the complete undermining of entities like E.W.T.N. and its popular lay surrogates. They've always been tacked on to the papacy, but now what? Dissent from it? Save the papal office from the current pope, when all popes before him in the last century were 'saints?' The attempted integration of Catholicism into the public square (per the late Father Richard John Neuhaus and First Things) has been a disaster...former First Things editor Joseph Bottum now endorses gay marriage. Why? because there's no way back now. Rather than enforcing the Church's points of morality through the secular government (via the G.O.P.) onto non-Catholics, it's now high time to follow the REAL mission of this pope, and fix the Church from within, from the top-down. Now not only curia figures are being tossed out, but ordinary bishops (like Archbishop John J. Myers in Newark) are as well. Stay tuned there.