Can forgiving Pope win back flock?
Can a forgiving Pope win back disenchanted American Catholics?
When Pope Francis arrives in the United States next week — his first visit to a country where the Catholic Church is over-represented by disaffected, lapsed and liberal parishioners — he will touch down near Washington, D.C., but, metaphorically, lands directly onto the front lines of America’s culture wars.
While Francis’s itinerary has been crafted to highlight his outreach — to the poor, homeless, the young and the incarcerated — his words will be parsed for inferences on more explosive issues within the church; for signals of just how far his hand of mercy will be extended towards a different, trickier, mass of humanity: the disaffected within the Catholic Church in America.
For here comes a pope who has blamed climate change on humanity’s “collective selfishness,” who famously said “who am I to judge?” when asked about homosexual orientation, who wants to make it easier for divorced Catholics to get an annulment, and who has openly embraced “sinners.”
At a glance it seems Francis will arrive in a promised land of accepting ears: A nation of more than 68 million Catholics where many of them, by church orthodoxy, are serial sinners receptive to a more forgiving tone.
Those expecting a match made in heaven may be out of luck.
“There is a sense among many that Pope Francis is going to somehow change teachings on the acceptance to communion for those who’ve been re-married, maybe even show openness to some ‘unions’ among gays or homosexuals,” says Carl Olsen, editor of Catholic World Report.
He suggests there may be sticker shock when disaffected liberal Catholics read the fine print of Pope Francis’s remarks, not just the headlines.
“They really believe that the church should be a type of democratic institution in which their beliefs, their views, their personal experiences should inform the church about what it teaches. And of course that has never been the case.
“The bottom line is, the very nature of marriage as the church teaches can’t change. No Pope can change it. The church can’t change it. It’s just not going to change.”
While Americans tend to see their country as the centre of the world, and are used to getting their way, in many respects, American Catholics are the black sheep of the global flock.
A recent survey by the Pew Research Center highlights deep disconnect between the church’s
teachings and the way many U.S. Catholics live and view the lives of others.
A large majority, 85 per cent, said it is acceptable for a man and woman to live together as a couple outside of marriage, with 54 per cent saying it isn’t a sin; 66 per cent said using contraceptives isn’t sinful. Nearly half of Catholics said the church should recognize same-sex marriage, 43 per cent said a gay or lesbian couple with children is just as good as any other kind of family and 39 per cent even said homosexual behaviour isn’t a sin.
That suggests American Catholics, on some issues, are more liberal than the general population.
The survey also found one-in-four Catholics has gone through a divorce and more than four-in-10 have lived with a common-law partner. Add in those who have had an abortion and those who used contraception, and it accounts for a huge swath of Catholics officially alienated from the full embrace of
the church.
Those numbers may explain another finding: While 20 per cent of U.S. adults say they are Catholics, almost as may say they are either former Catholics (9 per cent) or merely “cultural Catholics” (9 per cent).
James Martin, a Jesuit priest in New York who is editor-at-large of America magazine, says those statistics suggest the United States is fertile ground for Pope Francis.
“It is to those people who feel most marginalized and disenchanted and disenfranchised in and by the church that the Pope appeals to most,” says Martin. He says divorced and remarried Catholics, women who have had an abortion, and gay Catholics are particularly hopeful of the Pope’s new-feel church.
“All these groups that felt marginalized, he is reaching out to them.
“I hear time and again, people who have been on the outs with the Catholic Church telling me they are coming back to the church because
of Pope Francis. And the reason is because his fundamental message is one of mercy and compassion and inclusion.
“It is a very welcoming Pope we are seeing and people feel that welcome.”
But what are returning members of the flock going to find when they return to the fold? Will there be blessings of gay marriages? Will there be women in the priesthood or communion for adulterers? Will divorce and contraception be condoned? Will they want to stay?
Today’s push for liberalization of the church’s stand on popular social issues has parallels with the push in the 1960s for the Vatican to relax its teaching on contraception.
John Vella, editor of Crisis magazine, a journal dedicated to upholding Catholic tradition, suggests the church will gain a buffed public image from Francis’s visit, but he questions the long-term impact of putting a friendlier face on a rigid institution.