“Thus he has shown the mercy promised to our ancestors, and has remembered his holy covenant” [Luke 1:72, NRSV].
After posting article “115. Synod on the Family: Journeying, Speaking, Listening, Growing,” on 1 November, we have received many oral and written responses that range between “tear-filled” on one end of a colourful spectrum to “disappointed with the Pope” on the other. Apart from thanking us for keeping them better-informed, almost all the responses spoke of a sense of hope, gratitude and delight over what Pope Francis is doing pastorally for the Church and the world. Rarely, but it is there as well, a response would project a disappointment, even vehemently, adopting a tone which is also by now pretty familiar from a sector of the Church to suggest that the Holy Father’s pastoral vision is “misguided”, that in him is seen “a temptation to popularity”, and that while he displays many “symbols” that are rich in action, these are in fact “empty in substance”. In this regard, I must confess that just as we are pleasantly surprised by the tearful responses, we are all the more dismayed by harsh voices that seem to us to be a gross misconception springing from the “blindly” conservative. Strangely, though, while all these positive and occasional negative responses relate to the Synod on the Family, they are more reaction-specific to Pope Francis as the reference point – his pastoral vision, and his gentle pastoral style.
Towards a substantive on-going dialogue, I thought perhaps I should respond to some negative comments and offer some clarification on the matters as I see them.
1. Has Pope Francis given in to the temptation for popularity, preaching compassion, love and mercy without laying a clear path for the flock?
Insofar as the 2-week extraordinary synod goes, my impression is that Pope Francis was keen to see the Church avoid two extremes:
- First, an over-emphasis on laws and doctrines to the point of neglecting the genuine suffering of the people.
Pope Francis is known for urging everyone in the Church, starting with the bishops and the clergy, to not wait for the sufferers to come to us, but to seek them out and offer them pastoral care. And when a person does come seeking help, Pope Francis’ reaction, as Jesus would react, is not to take the person standing before him as a dogmatic dissertation or a law book, but as a human person, a child of God who deserves respect and consideration and who has every legitimate claim on the pastoral attention of the Church. To be sure, no one should use Matthew 23 lightly or disparagingly, but as I write, my mind simultaneously recalls the scribes and Pharisees being harshly reprimanded by Jesus for being heavy-handed on applying man-made rules and regulations that were elevated to the status of divine laws, yet would not lift a finger to let divine mercy shine through in relieving the people’s hardship.
In any case, what I have found amusing to watch is someone referring to a doctrine or a law and even brilliantly rationalizing its logic, to impress upon the listeners of an inevitable conclusion that such and such kind of actions “simply cannot be permitted”, and thus such and such kind of people “must definitively be excluded” from the sacraments of the Church. Often, this line of articulation impresses me as a faultless and competent presentation of the teachings of the Church. And yet, I am always struck by a sense that something is seriously missing as well, for often lacking in this kind of reasoning is any follow-up consideration at all on what might be done to help relieve the pain and suffering of people who are caught in very bad situations. Brilliant and clear-cut articulations on doctrines and laws, experience tells me, tend not only to be harsh, but are quite detached from the vicissitudes of real life as well. From where I stand, I see an underlying reason marking them all: they are lacking in “stories”. And because they are lacking in stories, whether they actually are or not, they can seem so “heartless”. Deep down, what a simple, elderly religious sister once put it so clearly for us would unfortunately come to mind: “They do not have Jesus in their hearts.”
And so what I find disturbing is the rather deadly temptation in those given to emphasize doctrine and law to stress doctrine and law alone and regardless, because their hearts “seemed” hardened. As a result, they often come across as being very brutal in their brilliant arguments, and quite oblivious to real life suffering. Modern living in the 21st century, we must surely know, has its own complicated set of joys and sorrows, opportunities and hardship. Pastoral work in the 21st century must deal seriously with the signs of the times of today. This means putting our hearts, eyes and ears close to the ground where real life stories are lived out, and not leave them in the air-conditioned library of books or in the lecture hall of nice theories. It therefore did not surprise me to hear a synod father sharing with me his observation that whenever excruciating real life stories from the pastoral field were narrated, those who tended to be adamant on strict application of doctrine and law would look confused. Hence, my statement in post No.115 to the effect that in the face of real life excruciating stories, “doctrine and law” would bow in silence.
Then, Scripture in John 8 was cited to me to suggest that Jesus demanded of the adulterous woman to “sin no more”. But, my reading of the John 8:1-12 narrative on Jesus and the adulterous woman yields a picture that is a whole lot richer and more wholesome than that. As I have written in our Christian Living Today series, book No.11, what Jesus left us in that narrative is a blueprint, as it were, for the pastoral ministry of the Church. It offers a two-step pastoral approach in which the order is the key: first, treat the person caught in a bad/difficult/irregular relationship as a human person (adequately considered), with love, care, mercy and compassion [saving her from instant harm, plus “neither do I condemn you”]; and second, help lead her to the beauty and the demand of the Gospel [go and “sin no more”]. However brilliant a doctrinal and legal presentation may be, and however important you may think a piece of religious law is, whenever we see step one missing, it amounts to seriously truncating the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In that case, you would not be helping, but you would only be judging, commanding and telling the person off. This is what I believe the pastorally-oriented Pope Francis has made it his pastoral priority to rectify.
No, the Holy Father does not think laws and doctrines are “bad”, as some have unthinkingly suggested. Not at all! But, throwing the doctrinal and legal books at people who are suffering, before lifting a finger to help them, is bad. It is the misfortune of the People of God wherever they have clerics sitting in nice offices dealing with them in such “bad” manner. Pope Francis has consistently berated an overemphasis on laws and doctrines within the Church wherever he saw it. His reason is clear: an overemphasis on law and doctrine stops dialogue, stops genuine pastoral care, leaves suffering people in the lurch, and drives people away from the Church in disgust. He said it again recently in his homily on the Gospel story of Jesus cleansing the temple that when clerics mistreat the people, they cannot forgive.
- Second, giving in too easily to fake mercy, and accommodating to secular values.
And yet, the Church must not give in to deceptive mercy by abandoning the Gospel.
Thus, what we have in the final 2014 synod report is a serious call to keep our gaze on Christ. Christ is the very “subject” of the Good News. In Christ’s life, words and actions we find the values of the Kingdom to which the entire People of God ought to be drawn. In the domain of marriage and family, the synod report first holds up the beauty and nobility of the sacramental marriage and a loving sacrificial familial living style as that to which all marriages and family lives ought to aspire. That is the standard and the ideal we must help all people gradually move towards.
That being firmly established, and in any case is always a given which no one is seeking to change, Pope Francis has called this Synod to bring to the table for study and discussion, the myriad 21st century challenges to marriages and families from all corners of the earth, and to begin to discuss what could be done to help people experiencing difficulties meeting those Gospel standards. How do we help them? Neither heartlessly throwing the law book at them, nor brainlessly offering them fake-mercy is going to do it. The path Pope Francis has made abundantly clear is to offer the beauty of the Gospel of the Family and to help people out who have fallen along the way.
In all this, the singular point by which Pope Francis has made abundantly clear, and by which I am personally guided, is that the “rudder of the Church” has got to be the Gospel of Christ, not the Pope, not the doctrine of the church, not her law, not the Magisterium. Look at Jesus the Christ – that’s got to be the operative principle for what is genuinely and authentically Christian, and that’s what the final Synod Report says and, evidently, that’s what Pope Francis has been doing the last few decades while he was actually working in the pastoral field in Latin America. So, what the Holy Father is currently doing has nothing to do with scheming for popularity now. Any suggestion to the contrary, if it is merely an unthinking repetition of what some others are saying, is clearly unjustified. On the other hand, if it comes from an aggressive corner of the conservative sector of the Church, then beyond being mean and preposterous, might there not even be an element of malice and insolence against a reigning Pope quite unequalled in the recent history of the Church?
Our question remains: What did Jesus of Nazareth do for people not doing so well in life?
[2] Compassion without truth, mercy without demand?
There is always a voice somewhere that harps back to ‘orthodoxy’, as if Pope Francis must keep repeating traditional Church doctrines and laws to be orthodox. Like Jesus, however, the Holy Father has shown more amply than we need to belabour the issue here, that orthodoxy does not mean superficial allegiance to the outward form of the faith and liturgy. Jesus of Nazareth appeared as a non-stickler of rules and regulations, precisely because he wanted to show how we might complete the Law by attending to its essence and not its superficiality. Notice in the Scriptures how Jesus reproved the religious elite of his time for being rigidly caught up in the ‘form’ of Judaism and totally missing the essence or spirit of the Law. The true spirit of the Triune God is love. Epitomising that love, Jesus showed love and care, sacrifice and dedication to the people in accordance with his Father’s will. He shunned a blind allegiance to doctrine. As followers of Christ, the only life worthy of embrace is a total allegiance to Christ and the life he has taught us to live. By imitating Jesus Christ, if Pope Francis offends you, might it not be that you need to bend your knees to ask why? What is troubling you inside?
To get a healthy sense of all this apparent “squabble” in relation to the Synod, we need to recall our historical and ecclesial context. Ever since St. Paul and St. Peter got into argument over the question of who could become Christian, bishops have disagreed, sometimes publicly and at times even acrimoniously. Prior to, and during, Vatican II, bishops were engaged in debates, sometimes publishing letters and opinion pieces to garner public sympathy. It was all part of the process, so that what is happening nowadays between Cardinal Kasper and others on the one hand and Cardinals Burke and Müller on the other hand is nothing new. What the rest of us in the Church need to be constantly reminded of is to avoid polarization against which St Paul repeatedly wrote in First Corinthians.
To get a better grip of what Pope Francis is doing in relation to the Synod, we need to turn for guidance to the spirit of Vatican II [1962-65], the same spirit by which I believe the Pope is guided.
- Pope John XXIII had called for an ecclesial updating (aggiornamento). Some bishops responded that we could not update the Church without weakening or compromising church teaching and giving the impression that some teaching needed correction. Others took the cue from Cardinal Newman’s insight on the developmental nature of doctrine, seeing clearly that the pastoral needs of the 20th Century demanded new and more pastorally effective approaches.
- In his opening address to the Council, Pope John XXIII said: “The substance of the ancient doctrine of the deposit of faith is one thing, and the way in which it is presented is another. And it is the latter that must be taken into great consideration with patience if necessary, everything being measured in the forms and proportions of a magisterium which is predominantly pastoral in character.”
- Law follows theology and never the other way around. Continuing the insight of Pope John XXIII, Pope Francis can see that certain points of theology cannot change, but he also has the piercing insight that the way these theological points get enshrined in practice and in law can and sometimes need to be changed.
With this brief background, we can move on to make better sense of a recurring “complaint” out there against Pope Francis. Why does the Church under this Pope keep talking about the troubled marriages and broken families, and argue over admitting the divorced and remarried to communion, when the good marriages and good families are neglected? Why are we wasting so much time discussing the “negatives”, instead of highlighting the “positives”? Why are we not giving positive values to the young couples and nurturing families genuinely struggling to live the Gospel of the Family?
First, we need to see that the topics of high visibility are often determined by the media. If it throws light on so-called “hot-button issues”, we must surely know that it is its business-agenda to fan the fire in the hope of galvanizing greater public attention. We should not confuse, or worse equate heated public debate with official discussion.
Second, and perhaps even more importantly, there is a disturbing phenomenon here. From my observation, I see a disturbing tendency on the part of these complainants to be so absorbed in focusing on the “good families” and the “good marriages” that they would only demand that the Church accord full pastoral attention to emphasising the beauty of their struggles and triumph, their undying love and sacrifices and so on, so that the Church could affirm, nurture and support the good couples, while holding them up for the rest of the Church to aspire to. And yet, at the same time, they are strangely reticent in what the Church can and ought to do for couples who, despite their best intentions, still end up with divorces and broken homes. The statistics are overwhelming. Are we asking the Church to ignore all the bad “statistics”, reducing suffering humanity to insignificant figures? This is a real temptation, and a truncated vision of the mission of the Church and the Christian family. I recall what Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, Archbishop of Manila said in Quebec in 2008, “Like those who opposed Jesus in the name of authentic religion, we could be blind to God and neighbors because of self-righteousness, spiritual pride and rigidity of mind.” In Rome as one of the three presidents-delegate at the Synod, he said in a press interview, the synod fathers were “listening to not only the success stories but also to the wounds and the failures.”
The mission of the Church and the family cannot possibly be restricted to taking care of those who are already doing well. On the contrary, is it not a basic Christian philosophy that those who are doing well are duty-bound to reach out to those who are not? Do the latter people deserve nothing but disdain, neglect, judgment and exclusion? If the Church is not there to help and give hope to all, who must include those finding life extra-hard, what then is the Church for? What is the Church of Christ for, if she does not take care of what the Lasallian spirit describes as “the least, the last and the lost”? Besides, Jesus’ mandate has never been to leave behind the one that has strayed and go chase after the ninety-nine that have not.
In sum, as these “negative” voices belabour the need for the Synod to dwell more on the good and the beautiful, what struck me as potentially an inadequate vision was the failure to at the same time demand a balanced approach of offering pastoral care to all – those doing well naturally, those struggling but still doing well; those not doing so well; those who are doing badly and are suffering immense pain; and even those who just do not care any more and have fallen away from the Church. All these groups are necessary parts of the Body of Christ; without any one of them, the Body is incomplete. Pope Francis seems a lot more acutely aware of that Pauline imagery of the Body than his detractors. The 2014 synod that he called was to study the myriad and wide-ranging pastoral challenges in this rich and complex field. Here, the Holy Father’s biography comes into play providentially. Coming as he does from a pastoral field located in a poverty-stricken region, Pope Francis brings with him a wealth of experience and accumulated wisdom and a deep Christian spirit. These are the qualities that make him uniquely qualified to help build a Church that is more Christian and a world that is more humane.
[3] “Feeling Better” without the “Challenge of the Soul”?
I believe human vision is naturally perspectival. A broader vision is developed over time and is really dependent on a combination of factors which must include opening one’s heart, mind and soul to submit to the Spirit, to learn and to accept in humility and love to be more inclusive.
In so far as the narrower manifestations of this perspectival vision is concerned, I must say I saw plenty of it at the synod, both from the clergy and the married couples present at the Synod as auditores and invited to share their stories. By contrast, however, I saw in Pope Francis a much wider perspective. Archbishop John Baptist Odama, who happened to stay in the same house as I did during the two-week Synod, shared with me his impression of Pope Francis. The Pope, he said, is a person who has reached a stage of his human and spiritual formation where he is already well balanced interiorly and exteriorly. The Holy Father, according to this Ugandan archbishop who is known for his prayerful life and deep spirituality, sees the larger picture and is not easily disturbed. This conversation has done me a great deal of good. It has led to many hours of meditation and continues to inspire fruitful reflection and challenging coffee-corner conversation. Summarising Archbishop Odama’s incisive observation in my familiar categories of thought, Pope Francis is at peace with God, with himself, and with the world: he is at peace inside and outside.
Spiritually, I have found this insightful observation a rich mine. In the context of the present discussion, I have found that it is to seriously misunderstand Pope Francis’ pastoral vision to think that he is out to change doctrines and laws. He is not. But, having come from the periphery [Latin America] and not from the centre [Rome], he is keen to make changes to the Church’s “sinful” bureaucracy, reform its “lethargic” pastoral ministry, and trim down the “ostentatious” image of the clergy. He has understandably stepped on many toes that have grown used to the idea of titles and privileges as being inherent in the so-called “ontological difference”, never mind what the Gospel of Christ repeatedly cautions against, so that a section of the ordained as well as the laity is not happy with this Pope.
In the case of the ministry of the Church, a “shift” in emphasis is the key. That is the mark of the current pontificate, as I see it at this time. The “tone” is what really counts. The “symbol” is very much the substance! And the world sees Jesus in this Pontiff who climbs down from high office, high chair, high palaces, wearing a simple pectoral cross… to be with the common people, to feel their joys and sorrows, to kiss “sinners'” feet, knowing that he is himself first and foremost a “sinner” before God. And, because of all that self-emptying, he is “cursed” by the pure, the sinless and the well-heeled for disturbing the image of the “Church”. But, “in Francis, we see Jesus,” a few synod fathers including Archbishop Odama actually said that to me.
And so, people who dialogue with me about the Synod are as much interested in hearing me comment on Pope Francis as on the actual deliberations at the synod floor. To them, I would always speak honestly what I thought: Pope Francis really does not know “how to be Pope” in the way the untouchable-high-and-mighty, well-heeled, and privilege-laden want him to be Pope; Pope Francis does not know “how to be Boss No.1” in the way of commanding fear and awe, not to mention dizzy-respect, so that the second level “bosses” and down through the hierarchy could continue to enjoy the people’s and the world’s adoration and lord it over them. No, watching him in close range over two weeks, my eyes have seen, and “my soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior”, that he is indeed pretty “hopeless” in such kind of behaviour. But, make no mistake, for all his alleged weaknesses, Pope Francis loves his God and Christ. And it is this love for God and Christ which manifests itself authentically and unmistakably in his love for the poor, the suffering, the marginalized and all those living in the periphery of “decent” society and “pure” Christian practitioners. Pope Francis knows who is really “boss” of the world and of all creation. Commenting on the Gospel text “Render to God the things that are God’s” at the Synod closing Mass, he said:
- “This calls for acknowledging and professing – in the face of any sort of power – that God alone is master, that there is no other. This is the perennial newness to be discovered each day, and it requires mastering the fear we often feel at God’s surprises.”
He knows his Lord and he understands what true discipleship is all about. He may not know how to be “Pope” and how to be “Boss No.1”, but he certainly knows how to be a follower of Jesus the Christ. He is slowly but surely showing us, even more than he is telling us, that all our attention must be orientated towards Jesus the Christ, His Kingdom-values, His Gospel, His way towards abundant life.
I have my money on Pope Francis being right in the pastoral path the Church should take.
Dr. Jeffrey Goh.
Copyright © Dr. Jeffrey & Angie Goh, December 2014. All rights reserved.
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