Summary:
Pope Francis gave a remarkable interview last month to a
group of Catholic journalists. Much has been made of the pope’s remarks in the
mainstream media, focusing mainly on the significance of these remarks as they
relate to hot-button social issues. But based on the pope’s fresh understanding of
the relationship of the Church to the human community, the secondary role of
doctrine, the unfolding and evolving nature of the divine presence in human
experience and the critical role of doubt as part of the human quest for God, I believe Pope Francis could be identified as a religious humanist.
Just last month, Pope Francis spent three days speaking with
Catholic journalists. The full interview was conducted in Italian by Antonio Spadaro, S.J., editor in chief
of La Civiltà Cattolica, the Italian Jesuit journal, and published in English in the
journal America, the National
Catholic Review. The interview has been widely covered in major American
newspapers, including The New York Times
and The Washington Post.
Much of the mainstream media coverage has attempted to focus
on the pope’s comments regarding hot-button social issues like abortion,
contraception and homosexuality. Frank Bruni’s op-ed in The New York Times for September 22 lauds the pope’s humility. But
all of these issues are sidebars, peripheral to the main thrust of Francis’
remarks.
What strikes me most in the interview is the way the pope
articulates an understanding of the religious life and the religious quest that
seems to reflect much of the religious humanism that I have been struggling to
articulate in this blog. For this pope, the center of religious life is the
individual human being as part of a human community. Consider, for example, the
way Francis comes to understand the infallibility of the Church, which he describes as a spiritual journey undertaken by all the
faithful. It is this ongoing collective journey of the people of
faith accompanied by the Holy
Spirit that is infallible, not the institution of the Church or the person of
the pope. Pope Francis declares,
“The people itself constitutes a subject. And the church is
the people of God on the journey through history, with joys and sorrows.
Thinking with the church, therefore, is my way of being a part of this people.
And all the faithful, considered as a whole, are infallible in matters of
belief, and the people display this infallibilitas in credendo, this infallibility in believing, through a supernatural
sense of the faith of all the people walking together.”
If I understand the pope
correctly, he asserts here that divine truth is revealed not in
hierarchical doctrine handed down by authorities as a way of controlling human thought
and behavior. Rather, divine truth emerges from the community of the faithful
entering into dialogue with one another and with their spiritual leaders as
together they make what the pope calls the “journey through history.”
Francis offers a fresh perspective on the
role of doctrine in the Church. “The people of God
want pastors,” the pope insists, “not clergy acting like bureaucrats or
government officials.” He understands that the Church needs to reach people in
their deepest aspirations, their deepest concerns and fears. It is the duty of
the church to bring a message of God’s love for humanity, and it is this
message that precedes any doctrinal imperative. Indeed, any doctrinal
imperative can only proceed from this sense of God’s love and the Church’s duty
to bring to the community of faith the hope that God’s love inspires.
“The dogmatic and moral
teachings of the church are not all equivalent. The church’s pastoral ministry
cannot be obsessed with the transmission of a disjointed multitude of doctrines
to be imposed insistently… But the proclamation of the
saving love of God comes before moral and religious imperatives. Today
sometimes it seems that the opposite order is prevailing.”
He acknowledges
and celebrates the historical process, the historical journey that a people of
faith undertakes and the religious and spiritual dynamic that emanates from the
process. Religious awareness and understanding are not static. The way we have
understood God and the divine/human relationship evolves just as other
historical and intellectual processes evolve.
“We must not focus on occupying the spaces
where power is exercised, but rather on starting long-run historical processes.
We must initiate processes rather than occupy spaces. God manifests himself in time
and is present in the processes of history. This gives priority to actions that
give birth to new historical dynamics. And it requires patience, waiting.”
In addition,
there is no room for a notion of absolute certainty in Francis’ conception of the human quest for
God. Doubt is an essential ingredient inasmuch as doubt leads us to further
discernment and a more intense desire to continue the journey.
“If a person says that he met God with total
certainty and is not touched by a margin of uncertainty, then this is not good.
For me, this is an important key. If one has the answers to all the
questions—that is the proof that God is not with him... Uncertainty is in every
true discernment that is open to finding confirmation in spiritual consolation.”
Religious truth is uncovered as part of the spiritual quest
undertaken by the people of faith. That truth is not primarily concerned with
doctrine, but with a message of love and hope—a message of a divine/human
connection which allows the individual human and the human community to share a
sense of meaning, purpose and value in a cosmic, transcendent context and to
participate in an unfolding process of realizing and expressing divinity and
sacredness in the world and in human experience. Yet, this remains a human
experience, subject to doubt and uncertainty. At the same time, it is precisely
this doubt and uncertainty that encourages further human discernment as the
quest, the journey, continues. Only that ongoing quest can be considered
infallible.
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