Two weeks ago, internet forums and mainstream media were set ablaze with one of Catholic Church leader Pope Francis’ comments on the way to World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: “If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?”
It is amazing to consider how the statement had been taken apart and rent in twain by so many mainstream media outlets and individuals proliferating social media. Granted, Pope Francis’ first few months in office have shaken up media as he has, with his ‘unconventional’ manner and his dismantling of Vatican tradiziones – all, of course, with sensible reason.
He listens to people with a different chair, stops living in the toxic politics of the papal apartments and washes the feet of children in the Vatican – feeding a press hungry for signs of the Pope’s ‘mercy’ and ‘simplicity’, as if it was shocking for a Pope to possess such traits. Then, he makes remarks about atheists being able to do good – and in so doing be welcomed into Heaven – and it causes a worldwide sensation about the sincerity of the Pope’s kindness and unabashed humility, even if such teachings have remained constant throughout the Church’s entire history.
Now, he says something perfectly sensible about not judging – derived, of course, from Christ’s own teaching of ‘Judge not’ – and again, the media is abuzz with the ‘enlightenment’ of Pope Francis. This is, of course, because the world would compare the present Pope to his predecessor, the Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI.
Pope Benedict was, to cut the long story short, not the best shot with mainstream channels and media. It might have been his appearance – he was not exempt from eyebags due to staying up like the rest of us – or his affection for the richness of Church traditions, in which he reveled and sought to share with the rest of the Catholic laity, especially the young who have little to no sense of their Catholic identity or tradition. These are the young Catholics who force themselves to the nearest chapel every Sunday, who had never been exposed to the Tridentine Mass, receiving the Host from the mouth, or reciting the Nicene creed in all its glory. In seeing the beauty of these traditions, he sought to awaken a love for rich – and definitely not excessive, as I saw no Pope-bearing palanquins – Catholic traditions that had become taboo since Vatican II.
Traditionalists like Pope Benedict are scoffed at for being unwilling to change. But in stark contrast to how mainstream media has painted him, Benedict spoke out against the worst social ills of the day: the world’s unregulated and excessive financialization, commercialism, environmental degradation, and social justice. He spoke of filth in the ranks of the Church and was steely in his resolve to correct the abuses in the priesthood, ensuring that due justice was given to victims of abuse. He wrote tirelessly about social issues in encyclicals such as Caritas et Veritate (Love in Truth), Spe et Salvi (Saved by Hope) and Deus Caritas Est (God is Love) in ways unrecognized by the mainstream media but ever present and guiding in our new Pope’s speech.
Of course, the media picked up when he spoke about the Church’s everlasting positions on Truth in the context of family and homosexuality. Where he was against homosexual behavior – as the Church is – he was never against gays, as the Church ‘judges not’ (Matthew 7:1, NAB), very much like Pope Francis. Yet again, mainstream media prevails in determining public perceptions of unexamined realities like Church teaching. It is, after all, easier to read a pointed news article from the Huffington Post or the Philippine Daily Inquirer than to pore through the wealth of Vatican documents on the internet.
Would you, for instance, expect that the very same ‘outmoded’ Pope Benedict write the following lines protecting the rights of homosexual persons? “It is deplorable that homosexual persons have been and are the object of violent malice in speech or in action. Such treatment deserves condemnation from the Church’s pastors wherever it occurs. It reveals a kind of disregard for others which endangers the most fundamental principles of a healthy society. The intrinsic dignity of each person must always be respected in word, in action and in law.” And he wrote these as head of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith back in 1986, almost twenty years ago, way before the explosion of the internet empowered millennials to read up against the Church without first discerning its teaching.
But did the press pick up on this? Not quite. In this case, it would indeed be difficult for the public to look beyond the trivial legacies of Pope Benedict’s time, such as his red shoes – which, by the way, are not Prada, but are the handiwork of a humble Peruvian immigrant cobbler in a small shop in Vatican City. The institution of the Press, however, declined to highlight this, instead giving Pope Francis the limelight, what with his black pants and plain black leather shoes. Both men excel at different things, and it cannot be denied that Pope Francis’ obvious mirth and jovial Argentine temperament is different from Benedict’s quiet chuckling. While definitely different men, the two Popes love each other as equals, consecrating Vatican City hand in hand, united in the shared wisdom of two loyal tenants in the Lord’s vineyard.
The most important note to ask from ourselves as members of a Catholic University would be to analyze critically the nature of people and institutions before resorting to unwarranted ranting or criticism. Where Benedict struggled to bring back an appreciation for the beauty of the Church’s rich heritage – both cultural and Christological – which it may have forgotten over the course of the years, Pope Francis is emphasizing its message of compassion in ways that might be unnatural for the Press but ultimately consistent with how the Church operates in its role of bridging all through the good. The ultimate goal, after all, is not just the Good but the Truth from which it derives, which the mainstream press, unfortunately, fails to emphasize.
