“I was overwhelmed by joy,” said Hans Kung, the dissenting
European theologian, in a radio interview after the elevation of
Pope Francis. “There is hope in this man,” gushed Kung, who
predicted that Pope Francis will conform to the progressive
interpretation of Vatican II and not follow the “line of the two
popes from Poland and Germany.”
Leonardo Boff, one of the fathers of liberation theology, was
quoted in the German press as saying that Francis is “more liberal”
than commonly supposed.
Cardinal Roger Mahony took to Twitter to proclaim that the
Church would move from high church to “low” church under Francis:
“So long Papal ermine and fancy lace!”
The National Catholic Reporter approvingly quoted an
unnamed Vatican diplomat as saying that “the Traditional Latin Mass
brigade is finished.”
Esteban Paulon, president of the Argentine Federation of
Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals and Transsexuals, told the Washington
Post that Pope Francis is “known for being moderate” and when
“he came out strongly against gay marriage, he did it under
pressure from the conservatives.” According to Sergio Rubin, whom
the Post calls his authorized biographer, Pope Francis
initially “urged his bishops to lobby for gay civil unions” as an
alternative to gay marriage.
Benedict’s speech on Islam at the University of Regensburg
didn’t sit well with Francis, according to the Telegraph
in the United Kingdom. “These statements will serve to destroy in
20 seconds the careful construction of a relationship with Islam
that Pope John Paul II built over the last twenty years,” it quotes
him as saying.
Reports on his compliance with Benedict’s authorization of wider
use of the Traditional Latin Mass are conflicting, but it is safe
to say that he was less than thrilled by it. According to columnist
E.J. Dionne, “an American bishop noted that the choice of Francis
would not be greeted as a clear victory by conservatives,” since on
“liturgical issues, he has opposed those who seek to roll back
changes instituted by the Second Vatican Council.”
The picture that is forming of Pope Francis from all these bits
and pieces is not that of a Ratzingerian restorationist but of a
centrist prelate whose theological views, tone, and emphases
are characteristic of the post-Vatican II period. He is no Hans
Kung. He is too pro-life and Marian for that level of theological
conjecture. But it is a stretch to think that he shares Benedict’s
rigorous critique of the crisis within the Church and the modern
world. There is a reason why the progressive bloc within the
previous conclave saw him as a desirable alternative to
Ratzinger.
It was telling that Pope Francis in his first address from the
papal window pointed to Cardinal Walter Kasper as a theologian whom
he admires. Kasper is known for his hyper-ecumenism and taste for
theological novelty.
“We are on good terms with the Archbishop of Canterbury and as
much as we can we are helping him to keep the Anglican community
together,” Kasper said in 2010, referring to a group of disaffected
conservative Anglicans that wanted to join the Catholic Church.
“It’s not our policy to bring that many Anglicans to Rome.”
Apparently Kasper and Francis agreed on this issue. Greg
Venable, an Anglican prelate in Latin America, has told the press
that the future pope “called me to have breakfast with him one
morning and told me very clearly that the Ordinariate was quite
unnecessary and that the Church needs us as Anglicans.”
Francis has the benevolent and winning personality of John Paul
II and the humility of Benedict (though his took a less celebrated
form), but his theological views mark him out as more centrist than
his two predecessors. They attributed the collapse of Catholic
institutions largely to a misapplication of Vatican II. Referring
to the liturgy, Benedict spoke of the need for a “reform of the
reform.” Francis appears happy enough with the first reform.
Francis’s papacy may not so much move the Church into the future
as back to the recent past, circa 1970. Quarrels over the proper
interpretation of Vatican II are more likely to explode than end.
Emboldened liberal bishops under him may seek a reform of the
“reform of the reform,” and they may push for a revisiting of
settled moral, theological, and disciplinary stances. None of this
repositioning will take place at the level of official teaching but
at the murkier levels of tone, emphasis, and appointment.
That the Catholic left considers his election a shot in the arm
can’t be chalked up simply to projection. There are enough nuances
here to give them hope. They believe that this is their moment to
try to undo the papacies of John Paul II and Benedict and return to
the casual, informal, and spontaneous liturgical spirit of the
1970s while reviving a more poll-friendly situational ethics.
Tweeted Mahony: “Don’t you feel the new energy, and being shared
with one another?”
Hans Kung accepts that Pope Francis can’t adapt to “everything”
in the modern world, but just hopes the general trajectory of his
pontificate will be progressive. In Pope Francis’s apparent
emphasis on individual conscience (he dispensed with the
traditional spoken papal blessing when speaking to journalists last
Saturday on the grounds that some of them weren’t Catholic or
believers), toned-down morality, and Seamless Garment-style
prioritizing of poverty, peace, and the environment, Kung and
company see a pope with whom they can at long last “dialogue.”
