How Are We to Judge This Pope?
By Randall Balmer
Pope Francis’ triumphant visit to Cuba and the United States this week calls to mind the visit of John Paul II to America early in his papacy. In 1979, the charismatic new pontiff celebrated a Mass at Living History Farms outside of Des Moines, Iowa, and utterly charmed his audience, estimated at 350,000. “You’ve got a pope,” an Iowa farmer said to his Catholic neighbor, “who really knows how to pope.” Despite the inevitable parallels between Francis and John Paul — the charisma, the disarming candor, the vigor that contrasted with their predecessors — a more accurate comparison, in my view, is with John XXIII. The cardinals chose both men, John XXIII and Francis, to be caretakers of the papacy. Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, the primate of Venice, was elected to the papacy in 1958 on the 12th ballot and took the name John XXIII. His fellow cardinals figured that this mild-mannered prelate wouldn’t make a lot of waves and, considering his age, 76, they could revisit the matter of church leadership in a few years. But John XXIII was hardly a caretaker. Just months into his papacy, he announced the Second Vatican Council, which convened in 1962. It’s time to “throw open the windows of the church and let the fresh air of the spirit blow through,” he declared. Vatican II was transformative, if not revolutionary, addressing everything from liturgy to language, the status of Jews and Protestants, the matter of ecclesiastical authority. Similarly, Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina was elected in 2013 on the fifth ballot, at the same age, 76, as John XXIII. The new pope, a Jesuit, took the name Francis, after the 13th century St. Francis of Assisi, because of his concern for the poor. From the outset, Francis signaled that his papacy would be unconventional. After greeting the crowds at St. Peter’s dressed in a white cassock rather than the red, ermine-trimmed mozetta worn by previous popes, he promptly returned to the hotel where he had been staying during the conclave and settled his bill. He lives in a two-room papal apartment rather than the Apostolic Palace. Francis signaled his solidarity with the poor and with those often viewed as outcasts. In the traditional Christian rite of humility, he washed the feet of prison inmates, including two Muslims and two women, and kissed the head of a horribly disfigured man. Whereas Benedict XVI, his predecessor, had described homosexuality as “an intrinsic moral evil,” Francis, when asked his views on the matter, responded disarmingly, “Who am I to judge?” If Benedict, who was famous for demanding doctrinal conformity, was an eat-your-peas pontiff, Francis takes a different approach: Let’s talk about this. On matters of substance, Francis has condemned the idolatry of affluence and outlined the moral imperative of addressing the ravages of climate change. He encouraged the United States to reopen relations with Cuba, and he has taken on the task of reforming the notoriously bloated and inert curia and the corrupt Vatican bank. So much for a caretaker pope. Francis has a full agenda. Some studies suggest that fully 10 percent of Americans identify themselves as former Catholics, and a shortage of clergy here in the U.S. and around the world raises questions about clerical celibacy, which has been a requirement for only a millennium or so — a relative short duration for an institution that marks time in centuries. Regarding the ordination of women, the pontiff apparently feels blocked by the statements of his immediate predecessors. So far he has said, “That door is closed,” although the Irish Times has reported that Francis was considering the appointment of Mary McAleese, the former president of Ireland who has studied theology at the Gregorian University in Rome, to the College of Cardinals. (There is no gender-specific requirement for cardinal; the appointment is the pope’s alone, and apparently John Paul II once considered naming Mother Teresa to the College.) The mention of McAleese brings us, finally, to the pope’s most pressing issue: the pedophilia scandal. When McAleese, then the president of Ireland, stopped in Boston during a state visit to the United States in 1998, she was browbeaten for her support for the ordination of women by none other than Bernard Law. The archbishop of Boston, McAleese recounted later, told her that he was “sorry for Catholic Ireland to have you as president.” Law, however, was even then shielding pedophile priests in his archdiocese, shuffling them from one assignment to another. According to Spotlight, the recently released motion picture on the scandal, 294 priests under Law’s care have been identified as pedophiles. The tally of their victims now tops a thousand, and the archdiocese so far has doled out more than $85 million in settlements. Law was forced to resign in 2002, whereupon he was named head of Santa Marie Maggiore, one of the most significant basilicas in Rome. He retired from that post in 2011 and, according to WGBH in Boston, lives a very comfortable life within the confines of the Vatican. In 2012, Robert Finn, the bishop of Kansas City-St. Joseph, was found guilty and sentenced to two years’ probation for failing to report one of his pedophile priests to the authorities. The Vatican allowed Bishop Finn to continue in his post until his resignation from the diocese earlier this year. He remains a bishop. Francis has begun to address the issue. He appointed a 17-member commission early in his papacy and established a Vatican tribunal in June. Still, as the very existence of the tribunal itself suggests, the Vatican clearly prefers to handle matters of sexual abuse internally rather turn them over to secular authorities. I want to believe that Francis’ relatively laconic response to the pedophilia scandals is simply a matter of neglect or (in my view) misplaced priorities. But another, shiver-inducing possibility occurred to me as I sat in stunned silence following the screening of Spotlight in Spaulding Auditorium last Saturday. Perhaps the curia is allowing Francis to make relatively radical pronouncements about matters like climate change and income inequality in order to divert attention from the fact that the Vatican continues to shelter the likes of Bernard Law. That’s a cynical view, of course, and I don’t really believe it. Francis seems to be a good man, albeit a man with a full agenda. “Many think that changes and reforms can take place in a short time,” the pontiff said, noting the parallels between himself and John XXIII. “I believe that we always need time to lay the foundations for real, effective change. And this is the time of discernment. Sometimes discernment instead urges us to do precisely what you had at first thought you would do later.” It sounds to me like priestly pedophilia fits precisely into that category. Francis could start by insisting that Bernard Law and others responsible for enabling and covering up priestly pedophilia face up to the consequences of their actions — or their inaction — rather than hide behind something akin to diplomatic immunity. At the very least, they should be required to face the victims of their lassitude. Francis’ papacy is still young, and priestly pedophilia is only one matter on a crowded agenda. But if the Roman Catholic Church is to regain credibility, it should be at the top of his list. May Francis have a long and productive pontificate. There’s a lot of work to do. Randall Balmer is John Phillips Professor in Religion and director of the Society of Fellows at Dartmouth College
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