In new interview, Francis takes aim at ‘Vatican-centric’ view

“Heads of the Church have often been narcissists, flattered and thrilled by their courtiers. The court is the leprosy of the papacy.”

Once again, Pope Francis has delivered a dose of candor, on topics ranging from reform of the Vatican bureaucracy to his favorite saints. And once again, he’s done it by going outside the usual (filtered) Vatican channels of communication – in this case, in a conversation with an Italian newspaper editor who happens to be a nonbeliever.

The remark about the papal “court” will deservedly make headlines. It should be noted that Francis was not impugning the entire Roman Curia, which he said has another defect: “It is Vatican-centric. It sees and looks after the interests of the Vatican, which are still, for the most part, temporal interests.”

“This Vatican-centric view neglects the world around us. I do not share this view and I’ll do everything I can to change it. The Church is or should go back to being a community of God’s people, and priests, pastors and bishops who have the care of souls, are at the service of the people of God,” he said.

There were several other striking comments in this latest chapter of The Real Francis:

— The church’s evangelization must be carried out through dialogue, not proselytism, which the pope called “solemn nonsense.” This is a man unafraid of putting Christian beliefs out for critical discussion, convinced that “to get to know people, listen, expand the circle of ideas” is part of a process that will attract people and ultimately lead toward “the Good.”

— The church’s credibility rests in its ability to listen to the people, and understand their “needs, desires and disappointments, despair, hope.”

“We must restore hope to young people, help the old, be open to the future, spread love. Be poor among the poor. We need to include the excluded and preach peace,” he said.

— The pope made it clear that the Second Vatican Council is his road map – and he recognizes that 50 years after Vatican II, not enough has been done to implement its call for dialogue.

“Vatican II, inspired by Pope Paul VI and John, decided to look to the future with a modern spirit and to be open to modern culture. The Council Fathers knew that being open to modern culture meant religious ecumenism and dialogue with non-believers. But afterwards very little was done in that direction. I have the humility and ambition to want to do something.”

— As on previous occasions, Francis dropped some strong hints that he will govern in a less authoritative and more collaborative way, using synods of bishops to share governing authority. His appointment of an advisory group of eight cardinals was a step in that direction, he said.

“This is the beginning of a Church with an organization that is not just top-down but also horizontal. When Cardinal Martini talked about focusing on the councils and synods he knew how long and difficult it would be to go in that direction. Gently, but firmly and tenaciously.”

— Saint Francis of Assisi, whose birthplace the pope will visit later this week, will be his model.

“(Saint Francis) dreamed of a poor Church that would take care of others, receive material aid and use it to support others, with no concern for itself. Eight hundred years have passed since then and times have changed, but the ideal of a missionary, poor Church is still more than valid. This is still the Church that Jesus and his disciples preached about.”

— The pope revealed that he meditated deeply before accepting the papacy, asking the cardinals if he could spend a few minutes in the room next to the balcony that overlooked St. Peter’s Square, where tens of thousands were waiting.

“My head was completely empty and I was seized by a great anxiety. To make it go way and relax I closed my eyes and made every thought disappear, even the thought of refusing to accept the position, as the liturgical procedure allows. I closed my eyes and I no longer had any anxiety or emotion. At a certain point I was filled with a great light. It lasted a moment, but to me it seemed very long. Then the light faded, I got up suddenly and walked into the room where the cardinals were waiting and the table on which was the act of acceptance. I signed it, the Cardinal Camerlengo countersigned it and then on the balcony there was the ‘Habemus Papam.’”

— Finally, in beginning a face-to-face dialogue with Eugenio Scalfari, the founder of the Rome newspaper La Repubblica, the pope made it clear that he was not simply conducting an intellectual exercise with one of Italy’s best-known atheists.

In his own gentle way, he reached out to Scalfari, probing the journalist’s beliefs and asking him at one point: “Do you think we are very far apart?”

The two will no doubt meet again. I think the pope will continue to conduct this very public conversation with the idea of inspiring similar bridge-building efforts throughout the church.

Two popes, two saints, two questions

Pope Francis today chose April 27, 2014, as the canonization date for Popes John Paul II and John XXIII, a move that sets the stage for one of the most unusual and significant events of modern church history.

Proclaiming as saints two of his predecessors taps into some deep populist sentiments among Catholic faithful. Yet it also raises questions about the saintmaking process and the relationship between sainthood and papal performance.

The date chosen by Pope Francis makes sense. From a practical point of view, it gives Polish pilgrims in particular an opportunity to travel to Rome at a time of year when roads will presumably be free of snow and ice. April 27 is also Divine Mercy Sunday, which Pope John Paul made a church-wide feast to be celebrated a week after Easter. The pope died on the vigil of Mercy Sunday in 2005.

Last July, Pope Francis approved a second miracle attributed to Blessed John Paul II’s intercession, clearing the way for his canonization. At the same time, in a surprise move, Francis proposed that Blessed John XXIII be canonized at the same time, even though a similar second miracle was lacking.

Francis had a number of reasons for taking this unusual step. For one thing, the church is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council, convened by John XXIII. For another, the new pope has clearly found inspiration in the vision and style of John XXIII, the much-loved Italian who was pope from 1958-63.

I’m convinced the pope also wants the dual canonization to be a unifying event, demonstrating that diverse models of holiness have a home in the Catholic Church.

But the canonizations inevitably raise questions, as well. One is procedural: in most cases, the church’s saintmaking norms call for approval of two miracles before canonization – a first miracle before beatification and a second one before canonization.

If a pope simply waives the miracle requirement (and no one is questioning his right to do so), what does it say about other pending sainthood causes? Are we reaching the point where miracles are no longer needed as a divine seal of holiness?

I spoke recently about this issue with Portuguese Cardinal Jose Saraiva Martins, who formerly headed the Vatican’s sainthood congregation. He told me the miracle requirement was not disappearing.

“Of course, sainthood exists independent of a miracle. But it’s still a valuable confirmation of holiness,” he said. The waiving of the second miracle for John XXIII was simply the exception that proves the continuing validity of the rule, he said.

An even thornier question is to what extent, if any, canonization endorses or exalts a pope’s decisions as head of the universal church. In 2009, when the cause of Pope Pius XII was being hotly debated, the Vatican addressed this issue, saying that while the sainthood vetting process must take into account the historical context in which a person lived, it was “not a judgment on the historical effects of all his operative choices.”

Likewise, Pope John Paul II once said that in beatifying or canonizing a pope, “the church does not celebrate the specific historical decisions he may have made.”

Nevertheless, for many Catholics, the church will be canonizing “John Paul the Great” and not simply a very holy man. His role in the demise of communism, his global travels, his political skills and his development of the church’s teaching authority, in the minds of many, are all part of what made him a saint.

On the other hand, critics who fault the Polish pope for his handling of the priestly sex abuse scandal are bound to question the wisdom of this canonization.

I expect that in coming months we’ll hear the Vatican explain that these popes are being held up as models of virtue and holiness, and not inducted into a papal “hall of fame.”

Historical note

The custom of proclaiming popes as saints was strong in the early church, an era in which many pontiffs were martyred. Of the first 50 popes, 48 were declared saints. That trend stopped in the Middle Ages, and over the last 700 years only two popes have been proclaimed saints.

It seems that recent popes are on a much faster track to sainthood, a trend inspired in part by Pope Paul VI, who launched the sainthood causes of Pius XII and John XXIII at the end of the Second Vatican Council. John XXIII was beatified in 2000. John Paul II was beatified in 2011.

At present, the causes of Pius XII and Paul VI have advanced to the point where they await only a miracle for beatification, the major step before canonization. The cause of Pope John Paul I is also being studied at the Vatican.

Interview offers a 360-degree look at Pope Francis

In a wide-ranging interview with Jesuit publications, Pope Francis said today’s church needs to “heal wounds” by proclaiming the Gospel and moving away from the “small-minded rules” that have sometimes dominated its message.

The interview, published in the United States by America magazine, is well worth reading in its entirely. It gives a more complete picture of the Argentine pope, including his spirituality, his goals as pope and some interesting self-criticism.

Asked what the church needs most today, the pope said it was “the ability to heal wounds and to warm the hearts of the faithful; it needs nearness, proximity.”

“I see the church as a field hospital after battle.It is useless to ask a seriously injured person if he has high cholesterol and about the level of his blood sugars! You have to heal his wounds. Then we can talk about everything else,” he said.

“The church sometimes has locked itself up in small things, in small-minded rules. The most important thing is the first proclamation: Jesus Christ has saved you. And the ministers of the church must be ministers of mercy above all,” he said.

Francis said his primary role as pope was “discernment” and promised that this would be done with consultation. This is not something he always did as a young Jesuit provincial, he said, and his authoritarian and quick manner of making decisions led to trouble.

At the Vatican, he said, he wants to offer consistories of cardinals and synods of bishops a real chance for input, which means giving them “a less rigid form.” That’s the idea behind the “group of eight” cardinals he’s named to consult on Curia reform, he added.

“I do not want token consultations, but real consultations,” he said. In particular, he said the Synod of Bishops in its current form is not dynamic and could learn lessons in collegiality from Orthodox brethren.

As for the Roman Curia, the pope indicated that many problems and complaints brought to Rome’s attention can and should be dealt with by local bishops. “The Roman congregations are mediators; they are not middlemen or managers,” he said. Nor should they be “institutions of censorship,” he said.

Pope Francis emphasized that the Catholic faithful, as the people of God, are “infallible in matters of belief.” He spoke of the “common sanctity” witnessed in daily life: “a woman who is raising children, a man who works to bring home the bread, the sick, the elderly priests who have so many wounds but have a smile on their faces because they served the Lord, the sisters who work hard and live a hidden sanctity.”

In this sense, he said, the church is “the home of all, not a small chapel that can hold only a small group of selected people. We must not reduce the bosom of the universal church to a nest protecting our mediocrity.”

The Ignatian idea of “thinking with the church” involves a dialogue between all its members, he said. “We should not even think, therefore, that ‘thinking with the church’ means only thinking with the hierarchy of the church.”

As he told reporters on his return flight from Brazil in July, the pope said the church “cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage and the use of contraceptive methods.”

“This is not possible. I have not spoken much about these things, and I was reprimanded for that. But when we speak about these issues, we have to talk about them in a context,” he said.

“The teaching of the church, for that matter, is clear and I am a son of the church, but it is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time,” he said.

Francis said the way the church teaches in the modern world is crucial to the success of evangelization, which must focus on the essentials.

“The church’s pastoral ministry cannot be obsessed with the transmission of a disjointed multitude of doctrines to be imposed insistently….We have to find a new balance; otherwise even the moral edifice of the church is likely to fall like a house of cards, losing the freshness and fragrance of the Gospel,” he said.

Asked the about importance of the Second Vatican Council, the pope said its fruits have been enormous, particularly in the area of liturgy.

He said the decision by Pope Benedict XVI to grant wider use of the Tridentine Mass was “prudent,” but added that there was a worrying risk of exploiting the old liturgy ideologically.

All this confirms what we’ve seen and heard in bits and pieces over the last six months: that this pope has a new vision of papal ministry and is unafraid to put it into practice.