Francis has said some puzzling things over the years. Recently, he has peppered the Church with a few more of his insights, whose depths defy easy exploration.
One of them prompted Anthony Esolen (who has a new translation of Augustine’s Confessions coming PRE-ORDER) to respond at Crisis. Francis – really – “has encouraged priests to play soccer rather than, in the first instance anyhow, to preach dogma.”
Perhaps priests should also be doing other things as well. However, I am not sure what those are.
For example, in a letter to the priests of Rome, Francis wrote to put us on guard against “spiritual worldliness”, which leads to “doctrinal intransigence and liturgical aestheticism”.
“Doctrinal intransigence” and “aestheticism” are clearly huge problems most Catholics have to face today. Wherever you go, you run into elaborate liturgies and repetitions of the Athanasian Creed.
One might also wonder which doctrines we are not to be intransigent about.
The Incarnation?
The Immaculate Conception?
The Real Presence?
The Resurrection?
Perhaps something along the lines of morals, then.
Murder?
Defrauding people of their wages?
Or does he, perhaps, have another category of the Church’s doctrine in mind?
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Can I accuse my wife of “spiritual worldliness” next time I don’t do my job and she (rightly) is upset?
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I summarized this briefly in an email I sent to a few trusties yesterday:
“Brother Priests: If we must have doctrine, let it be fluid; and don’t you dare try and use beauty to lead souls to the Lord lest they become mediocre aesthetes like yourselves! You Pharisees! Go play soccer with the sheep!”
(I think that just about captures the sublime intellect and magnanimous charity of Franciscus Caesar!)
Besides the world, the flesh, and the devil, we can now add Rome to that triad of forces trying earnestly to drag us to hell.
God bless him, Pope Francis at least deserves credit for consistency. For more than a decade, he’s made it abundantly clear that his bête noire is the “rigid traditionalist,” the apotheosis of all evil, clericalism, decadence and corruption in the Church today. Pope Francis rejects trads and all our works and all our pomps. We, as dangerous exponents of “right wing ideologies,” are the greatest threat to the Church at this time, as he recently told a Spanish-language news organization. It’s quite humbling to realize that the attitude toward you by the Holy Roman Pontiff, the Vicar of Christ, can basically be summarized as “Vade retro me, Satana.” So it seems that we find ourselves in the position of Luther (“Hier stehe ich”), at odds with and defying the Pope of Rome. Who’s right? We are being asked to not only jettison the Church’s ancient liturgy but also to “relax” with respect to Church teaching on sexual morality (homosexual acts, specifically). I take comfort in knowing that while we may stand as villains in the eyes of the current pontiff, we are not at odds with most of his predecessors.
When the Jesuits landed in Canada/USA I wonder if they had soccer balls? [They didn’t need soccer balls. They had two that clanked.]
Perhaps if Brebeuf and Jogues had played more soccer games they may have never been martyred.
They just came with stupid things like the creed and taught Gregorian chant. If only they had brought soccer.
Really what Francis is talking about is the sixth commandment. No more preaching the morals of the Church.
Anyhow, one day Francis will be gone and the perennial teachings of the Church will remain in all their Glory.
I need to pray for him, and I don’t like praying for him. He will one day have to give an account to Our Lord as to why he said this. I’m terrified of my own judgement as a Dad of kids. Much is given, much is expected. I think of the influence he has had on so many and not in an uplifting and holy way.
After I managed to stop laughing at the pope’s assertion (was it back in 2015?) that teenage joblessness was the worst evil in the world, I knew that we did not have a pope that we would listen to with the idea we could take what he says at face value. He has proven that so, so many times. “Spiritual worldliness”, though, that just about takes the cake: he has risen to new heights of risibility. Or is that new depths? I dunno.
Do you think we will ever get back a time when the media of the world no longer reports everything the pope says, so we can go back to the old ways when the pope didn’t affect the average person much at all? When (for the most part) you could be a very devout Catholic and not even know who the pope is? When doctrine and the Mass didn’t change from one lifetime to the next?
A thought experiment: if our priests and shepherds should be spending more time playing soccer and less time focusing on Da Rules, perhaps the soccer rulebook needs to be thrown out as well? Score an own-goal? You keep the point instead of the other team! Draw a red card? Tell the ref what to do with it and keep playing. Miss the goal on that pesky penalty kick? Eh, the scorers will accompany you and add a point anyway. Smh…
My comment on Pope Francis goes back to when he was first elected. He started by saying some pretty liberal things. His office kept on telling us that they weren’t translating his Argentinian language properly. Then some people who spoke his language told us the translation was correct. Yes, he did say those things.
Now he has dropped the subterfuge.
You could take “spiritual worldliness” in so many possible directions… A few things that spring to mind that would qualify:
– Desiring a “choir”, more guitars, more irreverent racket at Mass
– So-called “innovations” in the Liturgy, like saying the Red and the Black
– Omitting the homily or avoiding preaching on important social and moral issues
– Desiring forms of worship with a strong outward expression when you’ve no interest in the faith; although only God truly knows the motives of people in the pews
If the context of this pontificate were rather different, I would say calling out “spiritual worldliness” would be an appropriate thing for the shepherd to do for his flock. Why do we worship the way we do? Is it the appropriate way to offer praise and petition to God? Is the desire for a “Liturgy of the Unceasing Homily”, or more guitars, or visually-rich forms of worship done out of desire to please God or some other, more selfish motive?
It would seem his Holiness wishes to take us back to the 1960’s. What is surprising is to me is they never learn. That approach did not work. I grew up then. I have watched family and friends walk away. It was never a crusty old traditionalist that they left, it was the new approach that did the most damage. It just does not work.