Pope Francis finds a limit to his liberalism
HOW FAR CAN YOU GO? is the title of a novel by David Lodge, published in 1980 and portraying the lives of young English Catholics from the 1950s through the Second Vatican Council and its aftermath. The titular question refers to both sex and faith — what kinds of intimacy are allowed for Catholic couples before marriage, and what remains of belief after a period of dramatic religious change?
Lodge’s title could also usefully refer to the pontificate of Pope Francis, whose style has been to consistently push at the boundaries of his office, testing how far a pope can go in altering Catholic teaching.
Can divorced and remarried Catholics receive Communion without an annulment? Sometimes, maybe, no: It depends on how you interpret a papal footnote. Is the death penalty intrinsically immoral? Almost certainly, but with just a tiny bit of wiggle room to preserve continuity with the church’s past teachings. Can same-sex couples receive a blessing? Well, you see, it depends on the meaning of “blessing” and “couple”…
In the first two cases, divorce and the death penalty, the pope’s pushing and prodding mostly survived objections from the church’s conservatives. In the third case, the recent document that maybe, sort-of allowed for blessings of gay couples, his fingers got burned; there was a conspicuous revolt by bishops worldwide (not just his reliable foils among American conservatives), a hasty attempt at clarification and watercalming, and a sense that the pope had gone too far.
That’s the background for the Vatican document issued Monday on human dignity, Dignitas Infinita, apparently many years in the making but probably not coincidentally timed to the current moment in the Francis papacy. The document is prolix enough to contain multitudes, but it comes across as an unusually sharp condemnation of transgender identity, surrogacy, and abortion, a clearer-than-usual line against developments in progressive thought and culture.
It’s still very much a Francis-era document: His condemnation of the death penalty is especially emphasized, his rhetoric of inclusion and critiques of anti-gay discrimination are still present. But the fact that it’s attracted more praise from conservative-leaning theologians and more disappointment or “whiplash” from groups seeking changes around issues of sexuality is pretty clearly an intended outcome.
Francis has spent years balancing between conservatives and progressives but favoring the latter. This document puts a limit to that favoritism, a thisfar-no-further, at least when it comes to what the Vatican teaches. What it will tolerate, from the more liberal branches of the church especially, is the key question that remainder of his pontificate will answer.