Writen by sadataley 9:51 AM - 0 Comments

          Pope Francis Shifts the Axis of the Church

The election of a new pope is something I follow very closely. While I am no longer a committed Catholic, I have maintained a more than passing interest in the scope and reach of the Church. I owe my entire humanist education to an amazing group of committed Catholics. It was from the nuns at Saints Peter and Paul that I developed a sense of compassion. And it was from the Jesuits at Campion College that I developed my intellectual curiosity. I do not think it possible for me to have been better educated anywhere in the world than I was in Jamaica in the seventies. Then in my early twenties something went wrong.

After I left the warm embrace of these loving and erudite teachers, the Church that I started to see was neither compassionate nor intellectual. The Church began to look rabid, judgmental and crazy. The utterances of the most vocal proponents of Catholicism seemed so far removed from the practitioners I had previously known, I felt I could no longer be a part of it. It no longer spoke to me as a young man facing the complicated decisions of modern life. In response, like so many of my peers, I simply drifted away and went on to build a largely secular existence of money, wine, food, sex and decadence. Better Bacchus than Jehovah, I told myself.

However, when the Bacchanal wore thin, as it always does, I found my spiritual yearnings satiated by the less judgmental and more compassionate teachings of Buddhism and yoga. The Buddhists were not seeking to crucify the sinners the way the modern Christians wanted to. To my mind, the central figure in Catholicism, Jesus, actually seemed more Buddhist in his behaviour than the Bible-thumping Christians.

While I stepped away from the fold, the Church was facing battles of its own. Over the course of my lifetime, the church was losing the sex wars largely because of the twin assaults of technology and pagan mass media. They lost the battle on pre-marital sex because of the widespread availability of affordable contraception. They lost the battle on pornography because of television, videos, the Internet and a creative class in Hollywood and Madison Avenue (advertising) who are masters of selling sex. And it appears that, as of this date, they are on the verge of losing the battle on gay marriage, at least in the advanced industrial countries.

As the cultural assault came, the Church dug its heels into orthodoxy and it cost them stewardship and membership. Across the world, Catholic Church attendance (especially among men) and interest in the priesthood as a profession declined massively.

Then to make matters worse, the global cover-up of what appeared to be an epidemic of paedophilic priests have led many to believe that the Church was more interested in power, position and illusion rather than truth and justice. Where, oh where did the Catholic Church of my youth go? Enter Pope Francis stage left to help right the course.

The Harlot and the Homosexual are the two outlaws who have most haunted the Church since its inception. It is not its treatment of the pious that defines the soul of the Church; it is its treatment of its perceived sinners. The Catholic Church has always had a split personality of condemnation (male) and compassion (female).

The books of the Old Testament are filled with stories of judgment and condemnation. God the Father is always getting angry and smiting someone or another for some perceived crime. To condemn Man for all eternity for eating an apple seems a little harsh. And after that grave crime, the Old Testament continues on the myriad ways we fail Him, and His disappointments, and His doling out punishments. Sheesh!

The turn-the-other-cheek books of the New Testament are more about embracing, compassion and love. Where God the Father had a more black and white absolutist view, Jesus the Son has a more nuanced engagement with sinners. For example, see Jesus' treatment of the famous harlot Mary Magdalene or his thrice-denier Peter. I think one of the reasons for the different reactions to sin from Father vs Son is that God the Father (unlike Jesus) had no mother. Males who live outside the influence of women tend to be more didactic and unforgiving.

At any juncture in history, only one of these personality traits is dominant in the Church. When the dominant strain is judgment and condemnation, in the style of the Old Testament, it is the harlot and the homosexual who have the most to fear.

What we also see is that when the Church is in a judging mode, the disagreeing public often hypocritically hides our true behaviour while playing lip service to the doctrine. Think: Shaggy's song Church Heathen. The bravest among us, rather than play hypocrite, end up downright denouncing and defecting from the Church.

When the dominant strain in the Church is one of embrace and compassion, in the style of the New Testament, then the harlot and homosexual can live in relative peace.

Pope Francis ends a protracted era of condemnation and begins a new era of compassion. He is shifting the axis of the Church.

On his election to the Papacy, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio took the name of Francis in honour of Saint Francis of Assisi. In keeping with his namesake, Pope Francis has eschewed the red Prada shoes and the over-the-top regalia, opting instead for simple white garb. He has also moved out of the grand Papal Residency into the much simpler Vatican guest house. He envisions a "poor church for the poor". In today's overly materialistic world of 'bigger and grander is better' - dem's fighting words!

Beyond these visible changes to the Papal trappings, Francis has already breathed air into the orthodoxy by suggesting that contraception might indeed help stop the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. He has been willing to open up a discussion about the requirement of celibacy for priests "in certain situations". One size might not fit all. He will take another look at stem cell research. And American Therese Koturbash, who runs an organisation called "Women Priests for the Catholic Church", finds reasons to be hopeful in her quest for equality in the Church. She thinks "we might have a genuine reformer on our hands".

Pope Francis's embrace of the child with cerebral palsy at Easter plays right into original Catholic iconography and messaging. This created one of the most moving images ever to come out of the Church in several decades. The grand master elevates the feeble and reminds us all of the importance of compassion. He is not saying that Christians need to give up their grand materialistic lifestyles; he is saying that we need to remember the weakest among us.

Pope Francis broke the centuries-old Easter tradition when popes usually wash the feet of 12 Christian male priests just as Jesus did for his 12 disciples before he was crucified. This past Easter, Francis actually washed and kissed the feet of non-Christians, including a Muslim woman, and by so doing began to broaden the embrace of the Church. He is not saying that Christians need to become Muslims; he is saying that Christians need to live with Muslims in love.

During the bitter public fight for gay marriage in his native Argentina (it eventually did pass the legislature in July 2010), while Pope Francis (then Cardinal Bergoglio) was publicly opposed to gay marriage he still met with gay activist Marcelo Marquez. According to Marquez, Cardinal Bergoglio "listened to my views with a great deal of respect, and told me that homosexuals need to have recognised rights and that he supported civil unions, but not same-sex marriage". He is not saying that Christians need to embrace the gay lifestyle; he is saying that Christians need to live with gays in love.

Pope Francis is building bridges, reaching across the aisle. By being a pope of love and compassion instead of a pope of judgment and condemnation, Francis is seeking ways to end the divisiveness of Catholic orthodoxy in the changing face of modern life. The central question for Catholicism in the millennia is how will Catholics engage with rising numbers of pre-marital sex practitioners, Muslims, atheists, gays, women who have chosen abortions etc, etc. Everyone is now openly and vocally at the same table and we still have to pass bread. Does Catholicism continue its war against people with different lifestyles and beliefs or should it seek common ground for us all to get along? What is the best path to peaceful relations? Will the Church hinder or facilitate that process?

The world has been thirsting for a figure of integrity, leadership and compassion. Nelson Mandela is the last such man we have seen in some time and he is on his last leg. We are surrounded, if the worldwide media is to be believed, by two-faced politicians, avaricious businessmen, lazy power-embedded journalists, scurrilous televangelists and paedophilic priests. We are all numb. Corruption scandals no longer shock. Leadership everywhere is asleep at the wheel or just out for themselves. The mass of us be damned.

Obama, the Great White Hope, has turned out to be too cynically pragmatic and hopelessly ineffective. Here is the Nobel Peace Prize winner who champions global drone attacks without proper oversight and has started a dangerous legal war on whistle-blowers. Here is the great conciliator who has never been able to get the Republicans to his table. Globally, his star and standing fell very fast. In my view he would have rightly lost the last US election if the Republicans had not been so obnoxious and inept, alienating immigrants, women and gays.

A sense of permanence is needed in this world of the purely ephemeral. Man cannot live on Prosecco and cappuccino alone. Humans need to connect to lasting institutions to find our place. The Catholic Church is one such institution. We need to be part of bigger projects than just ourselves and our lives. The obsessively followed but ultimately shallow world of Kim Kardashian/Rihanna/Beiber has simply not been enough. Enquiries into our spiritual well-being need to be as robust as enquiries into our material well-being.

I welcome what could signal the reemergence of the Catholic Church's influence on the popular imagination. The secular capitalist hold has been too overwhelming and unchecked for too long. A loud voice for the poor and persecuted is needed in the room. A view to our spiritual health and healing needs to be infused into all the important debates. By changing the axis from the judging, condemning Church, to the loving, embracing, compassionate one, Pope Francis walks into a space most desperately needed for the time.

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