Pope Francis: The Good, the Baffling, and the Unclear

Pope
Francis: The Good, the Baffling, and the Unclear | Carl E. Olson | CWR Editorial

Recent
comments by the Holy Father, especially in interviews, are lacking in
three important things

"Nonetheless,
Lombardi stopped short of saying that every line was literally as
pronounced by the pope, suggesting instead that it represents a new
genre of papal speech that’s deliberately informal and not
concerned with precision." —
John Allen, Jr., reporting
today that journalist Eugenio Scalfari's Oct. 2nd interview with
Pope Francis was not recorded, but was the product of "an
after-the-fact reconstruction".

The
19th-century controversialist William G. Ward, a convert from
Anglicanism and a vigorous defender of all things Catholic, once
exclaimed, "I should like a new Papal Bull every morning with my
Times at breakfast." Since weekly papal interviews were not yet
a common occurrence in the 1860s, it's not clear if Ward, were he
among us today, would accept papal interviews in lieu of the somewhat
more authoritative papal bulls. 

A
sense of humor and a sense of perspective are both helpful when
pondering the recent interviews given by Pope Francis. For those who
might be ready to jump off the edge of their Catechism of the
Catholic Church into the cold darkness of either cynicism or despair,
just consider how turbulent things would have been if the internet
had been around during the Avignon papacy. Even worse, imagine if
Twitter, Facebook, and Andrew Sullivan had been around during that
infamous (but little discussed) period sometimes called "the
Pornocracy"—a stretch of six decades or so in the
tenth century that witnessed about as much mortal sin, nepotism, and
abuse of power as the papacy could handle. 

If
that seems like an overly extreme historical reference, you may have
missed how some are saying, with obvious glee, that Francis is unlike
any previous pontiff and is set to remake the papacy and the Catholic
Church in ways that eyes have not seen and ears have not heard
before. You may have also missed how others are saying, with obvious
distress, that Francis is unlike any previous pontiff and is set to
remake the papacy and the Catholic Church in ways—well, you get the
picture. There are also those who are, with the best of intentions,
insisting that nearly all of the hysteria, furor, and meta-narratives
are completely missing that Francis is both a surprising breath of
fresh air and an often misunderstood man who desires nothing more
than a Church radically committed to Jesus Christ and living the
Gospel with a profound spirit of evangelical fervor. The
oft-expressed hope that the Pope can unite and bring all men of good
will together is apparently being realized, albeit in a unity based
in countless arguments over what Francis really says, means, and
intends.

For
my part (and I'm hardly alone here, I'm certain), I reject the first
two options and agree in part with the third, with some important
qualifiers. Let's begin with the Good:

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