The Francis of the Media and the Real Francis

By Sandro Magister
The Chiesa
May 15, 2015

http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1351047?eng=y

When it comes to Pope Francis, there are now two of these who are ever more distant from each other: the Francis of the media and the real one.

The first is exceedingly well-known and has been making the news since his first appearance on the loggia of the basilica of Saint Peter’s.

It is the narrative of the pope who revolutionizes the Church, who lays down the keys of binding and loosing, who does not condemn but only forgives, or rather who does not even judge any more, who washes the feet of the female Muslim inmate and the transexual, who abandons the palace to plunge into the peripheries, who opens the workshop on everything, on the divorced and remarried as on the Vatican’s finances, who closes the checkpoints of dogma and throws open the doors of mercy. A pope who is a friend of the world, who is already being praised for his upcoming encyclical on “sustainable development” even before seeing what will be written there.

In effect there is a great deal, in the words and actions of Jorge Mario Bergoglio, that lends itself to this narrative.

The Francis of the media is also to some extent a creation of his own, and brilliantly so, in the span of one morning miraculously overturning the image of the Catholic Church from opulent and decadent to “poor and for the poor.”

But as soon as one grapples with what the pontificate of Francis has brought that is truly new, the music changes.

The old curia, justly or unjustly so execrated, is still there and completely intact. Nothing has been dismantled or replaced. The new developments are all additions: more dicasteries, more offices, more expenses. The career diplomats, whom Vatican Council II was almost about to abolish, are more firmly in power than ever, even where one would expect to find “pastors”: like at the head of the synod of bishops or the congregation for the clergy. Not to mention the “inner circle” in direct contact with the pope, with no definite roles but highly influential and with deep-reaching impact in the media.

Then there are the burning questions that captivate and divide public opinion much more. Divorce, homosexuality.

Pope Francis wants these to be discussed out in the open and he was the first to do so, with a few calculated and very effective soundbites, like that “Who am I to judge” which has become the identifying mark of his pontificate, inside and outside of the Church.

For months and months, between the two summers of his first and second year as pope, Bergoglio gave space and visibility to the men and movements in favor of a reform of the pastoral care of the family and of sexual morality.

But when, at the synod last October, he saw that among the bishops the resistance to this reform was much stronger and more widespread than foreseen, he corrected his aim and from then on has not said a single word in support of the innovators. On the contrary, he has gone back to hammering on the controversial themes of abortion, divorce, homosexuality, contraception, without swerving a millimeter from the strict teaching of his predecessors Paul VI, John Paul II, and Benedict XVI.

From October until now, Francis has spoken out on these questions no fewer than forty times, hitting hard above all against “gender” ideology and its ambition to colonize the world, in spite of the fact, as he said, that it is “an expression of frustration and resignation that aims at blotting out sexual differences because it no longer knows how to deal with them.” Moving from words to actions, he has denied the “placet” for the new ambassador of France because he is homosexual.

Francis has also toughened up on divorce quite a bit. “This doesn’t resolve anything,” he recently said concerning the idea of giving communion to the divorced and remarried, far less, he added, if they demand it, because communion “is not a badge, a decoration, no.”

He knows that expectations are very high in this matter and knows that he himself has fostered them. But he has distanced himself from them. “Overblown expectations,” he now calls them, knowing that he cannot satisfy them. Because after all the proclamations of a more collegial government of the Church, of the pope and the bishops together, it is a given that Francis will side with the will of the bishops, the great majority of them conservative, and give up on imposing a reform that is rejected by most.

In spite of everything, the media continue to sell the story of the “revolutionary” pope, but the true Francis is farther and farther away from this.