Posted on by Marc O. DeGirolami

Pope Francis’s Remarks on “Social Dialogue in a Context of Religious Freedom”

Pope Francis has issued an Apostolic Exhortation–Evangelii Gaudium (“The Joy of the Gospel”)–which ranges over many subjects, emphasizing in particular and in many places the obligations of Catholics toward the poor and toward realizing just social, political, and economic arrangements.

In a substantial portion of the Exhortation (beginning at paragraph 182), the Pope discusses the social teaching of the Church and he focuses on two issues: the alleviation of poverty and the Church’s special concern for the poor; and “The Common Good and Peace in Society.” As to the latter, and because they involve issues of religion and public life that we consider here at the Center, here are the Pope’s remarks (footnotes omitted) about the importance of “social dialogue in a context of religious freedom,” which conclude his reflections on the social dimension of the Gospel:

255. The Synod Fathers spoke of the importance of respect for religious freedom, viewed as a fundamental human right. This includes “the freedom to choose the religion which one judges to be true and to manifest one’s beliefs in public” A healthy pluralism, one which genuinely respects differences and values them as such, does not entail privatizing religions in an attempt to reduce them to the quiet obscurity of the individual’s conscience or to relegate them to the enclosed precincts of churches, synagogues or mosques. This would represent, in effect, a new form of discrimination and authoritarianism. The respect due to the agnostic or non-believing minority should not be arbitrarily imposed in a way that silences the convictions of the believing majority or ignores the wealth of religious traditions. In the long run, this would feed resentment rather than tolerance and peace.

256. When considering the effect of religion on public life, one must distinguish the different ways in which it is practiced. Intellectuals and serious journalists frequently descend to crude and superficial generalizations in speaking of the shortcomings of religion, and often prove incapable of realizing that not all believers – or religious leaders – are the same. Some politicians take advantage of this confusion to justify acts of discrimination. At other times, contempt is shown for writings which reflect religious convictions, overlooking the fact that religious classics can prove meaningful in every age; they have an enduring power to open new horizons, to stimulate thought, to expand the mind and the heart. This contempt is due to the myopia of a certain rationalism. Is it reasonable and enlightened to dismiss certain writings simply because they arose in a context of religious belief? These writings include principles which are profoundly humanistic and, albeit tinged with religious symbols and teachings, they have a certain value for reason.

257. As believers, we also feel close to those who do not consider themselves part of any religious tradition, yet sincerely seek the truth, goodness and beauty which we believe have their highest expression and source in God. We consider them as precious allies in the commitment to defending human dignity, in building peaceful coexistence between peoples and in protecting creation. A special place of encounter is offered by new Areopagi such as the Court of the Gentiles, where “believers and non-believers are able to engage in dialogue about fundamental issues of ethics, art and science, and about the search for transcendence”. This too is a path to peace in our troubled world.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Vatican Removes Controversial Papal “Interview” From Its Website

Here’s what looks to be the final update on that interview Pope Francis gave to Eugenio Scalfari of the Italian newspaper La Repubblica this fall. Readers of this website will recall that the interview quotes Pope Francis as saying, among other things, that “proselytism” is “nonsense” and that, with respect to conscience, everyone must follow his own idea of good and evil. Progressives swooned; traditionalists grumbled; everyone wondered what it all meant.

Shortly after the interview ran, it emerged that Scalfari had reconstructed the pope’s words from memory. Scalfari had not tape recorded the pope nor taken notes during the meeting . In other words, the La Repubblica “interview” was not an interview at all. Why a respected newspaper would publish an imaginative reconstruction as though it were a real interview is beyond me–but the Vatican stated at the time that the interview was basically “trustworthy,” if not verbatim. And the Vatican posted the interview on its website.

Last week, however, the Vatican decided to take the interview down. According to this report from the Catholic News Agency, Pope Francis became concerned that people might misunderstand the interview–particularly the discussion of conscience. According to a Vatican spokesman, “The information in the interview is reliable on a general level but not on the level of each individual point analyzed: this is why it was decided the text should not be available for consultation on the Holy See website.” The music was right, I guess, but the lyrics were bit off. Probably the interview is still available at La Repubblica, though.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Mannaggia!

You know that interview Pope Francis gave to Eugenio Scalfari of the Italian newspaper, La Repubblica? The one in which the pope made some puzzling comments about conscience and proselytism? The one that so many people, including me, have been poring over for insights into the pope’s thoughts on religion, politics, and law? It turns out it’s not an interview at all, but an after-the-fact reconstruction. Apparently, Scalfari neither tape-recorded his interview nor took notes at the time. Some errors have already begun to emerge. The Vatican has “confirmed the basic ‘trustworthiness'” of the interview–whatever that means. But, John Allen writes:

None of this, of course, is to excuse La Repubblica‘s sloppiness in not making clear to readers that what was being presented as the literal words of the pope was actually a reconstruction, not a transcript.

Barring further clarification from the Vatican, it’s now impossible to cite any particular lines or formulae from that interview and attribute them directly to the pope, since we don’t know quite where Scalfari ends and Francis begins.

Oh, well, never mind, then.

Is that any way to run a newspaper?

Posted on by Marc O. DeGirolami · 1 Comment

All Popes Are Political (Just Like the Rest of Us)

When I teach Professional Responsibility, one of the most interesting discussions we have concerns Rule 2.1: “In representing a client, a lawyer shall exercise independent professional judgment and render candid advice. In rendering advice, a lawyer may refer not only to law but to other considerations such as moral, economic, social and political factors, that may be relevant to the client’s situation.”

My experience is that students are, in general, highly resistant to the permissive injunction to lawyers to offer “moral, economic, social, and political” advice to their clients. They don’t see that as within the lawyer’s role. The lawyer should be “neutral” or “nonjudgmental.” Moral and political non-neutrality is for other people.  The lawyer’s role is to fulfill the client’s desires. Morality and politics has nothing to do with it.

I have always found this position unpersuasive. In no way is a “neutral” or “nonjudgmental” or “noninterventionist” or “simply uninterested” position non-moral or non-political.

In the first place, a neutral or putatively noninterventionist position slides imperceptibly into a consequentialist mode of moral and political reasoning. Decisions that implicate moral or political considerations (and many decisions for which a lawyer’s counsel is sought do this) are simply assessed from a particular cost-benefit vantage point–a consequentialist calculus from the perspective of one, the client. But the lawyer does not escape moral or political judgment by tacitly adopting this kind of consequentialism. She is neck-deep in morality and politics! The real problem is that she has adopted a moral and political world view without realizing it. Indeed, she has adopted a position against those moral and political systems which at times demand non-consequentialist choices.

Second, the neutral or allegedly uninterested position puts a thumb on the scale of the egotistical choice. The right thing to do is what the client wants, and what the client wants serves the client’s interests. Again, this is a perfectly plausible position to adopt as a lawyer. But it is a deeply moral and political position. The morality and the politics may be unattractive; indeed, they may be downright ugly. But there is no escaping the political and moral conviction that undergirds this view, no matter how hard one may want to escape it. There is no such thing as a morally or politically neutral lawyer.

All of this came to mind when I read my friend Mark’s two posts about whether Pope Francis is a “nonpolitical” pope. There is no such thing. It is unnecessary to rely on the overtly political comments in Pope Francis’s recent interviews to prove the point. To be sure, one could easily counter the “nonpolitical” argument by pointing to the Pope’s criticisms, in these selfsame statements, about political liberalism; or one could point to his emphasis on economics and the Church’s role in the alleviation of poverty; or one could point to his relativist conception of moral conscience. All of these views have profound and direct moral and political import.

But this is all, to some degree, beside the point. At least in this way, popes are closer to lawyers than to mystics. The pope is the head of the institutional Catholic Church (not only that, or even primarily that, but certainly that); he is not St. John of the Cross. Mystics live in isolation from society and politics. Popes do not. And it is inevitable that a pope’s views on those questions about which popes are called on to give their voice, their counsel, and their wisdom will implicate moral and political judgment.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian · 37 Comments

A Non-Political Pope?

You can’t tell too much from one interview, of course, but the interview Pope Francis gave an Italian Jesuit journal last month, and which was released last week, seems like a blockbuster. Everyone understands this. Progressive Catholics are elated. After long years in the wilderness, they believe, they have one of their own as pope. Traditionalists have been more circumspect, but it’s hard to miss the sense of alienation. Traditionalists are used to thinking that, however much they have to battle with progressives at the local level, the pope has their back. Now, that’s very unclear.

As an outsider, I don’t feel right getting involved in intra-Catholic debates. There’s too much I don’t know, and anyway it’s not polite. But this interview does suggest three observations. First, Pope Francis has a definite vision for the Catholic Church. When he gave his airborne interview on the way back from Brazil last month–the interview in which he famously said, “who am I to judge?”–some traditionalists consoled themselves that he had spoken off the cuff or allowed himself to be misunderstood. After this interview, it’s impossible to think so. He knows what he means and means what he says.

Second, I’m not sure the pope is correct to suggest that the Church has been obsessing over sexuality–abortion, gay marriage, contraception. Catholic friends tell me they almost never hear sermons on these subjects. One might say, with justification, that the wider society is obsessing about these issues and the Church is only responding. If the government adopts a new rule that says you must pay for your employees’ contraceptives and abortifacients, and you think such drugs are gravely wrong as a matter of conscience, what should you do? I suppose you could readjust your priorities and say nothing. But if you were to object to such a rule, you would hardly be “obsessing.”

Third, it’s striking that in a long interview the pope said virtually nothing about politics. Only twice did he refer to the Church’s position on public policy questions, once to state that the Church should stop talking so much about sexuality and once to refer to the proper approach to “social issues”:

When it comes to social issues, it is one thing to have a meeting to study the problem of drugs in a slum neighborhood and quite another thing to go there, live there and understand the problem from the inside and study it. There is a brilliant letter by Father Arrupe to the Centers for Social Research and Action on poverty, in which he says clearly that one cannot speak of poverty if one does not experience poverty, with a direct connection to the places in which there is poverty. The word insertion is dangerous because some religious have taken it as a fad, and disasters have occurred because of a lack of discernment. But it is truly important.

Note a couple of things here. For Pope Francis, the phrase “social issues” connotes what Americans would call “economic issues”–an interesting distinction. More important, to address these issues, Pope Francis did not call for political action. He did not say, “When it comes to social issues, the important thing is to redistribute wealth and nationalize health care.” He may favor such programs, I don’t know. But he apparently does not think political programs are terribly important. The essential thing is for the Church to live among poor people, to share their lives, to minister to them–in order to witness to the Gospel. 

In other words, Pope Francis’s interview does not suggest he would like the Catholic Church to adopt a “progressive” politics any more than a “conservative” politics. It suggests he thinks the Church is beyond politics. To me, this is the key take-away from the pope’s interview. There is an old, old debate in Christianity. Is the faith about healing souls or social justice? It’s about both, of course, but which is more important? If I read him correctly, Pope Francis leans strongly in the first direction: Christianity is an interior matter, a question of salvation, of walking humbly in the company of the Lord and his followers. Christians can never be completely beyond politics, of course, and it will be interesting to see how this all develops. But Pope Francis seems, in his way, a mystic. And mystics don’t do politics. 

Posted on by annicchino

True Power as Service

pope

At the special Mass celebrated for the beginning of his new pontificate, Pope Francis focused his homily on the protection of the weak, the poor, and the environment.  Some passages from the homily make it possible to understand what Pope Francis has in mind when he speaks of a renovated way of understanding the nature of power and its use.

In the homily, Pope Francis stated, “I would like to ask all those who have positions of responsibility in economic, political and social life, and all men  and women of goodwill: Let us be protectors of creation, protectors of God’s plan inscribed in nature, protectors of one another and of the environment.” And he added: “Let us never forget that authentic power is service … . Only those who serve with love  are able to protect.”

The election of Pope Francis comes at a time of profound changes in the Church and also in the wider society. The invitation I have quoted from his homily probably should be read as an appeal to both realities. The changes in the governance of the Church will be an important issue on the new Pope’s agenda and Francis probably wanted to signal the necessity of understanding and making use of power in a reinvigorated way. In this regard, it is noteworthy that he will hold Mass on Holy Thursday at Casal del Marmo Detention Center in  Rome and will wash the feet of the young inmates detained there.

The coherence between words and actions seems to be what Pope Francis is asking of the Church and society’s leaders, political and non-political.

The full text of the homily is available here.

 

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Pope Francis, “On Heaven and Earth”

Image Books recently announced it would publish the first English-language edition of On Heaven and Earth: Pope Francis on Faith, Family and the Church in the 21st Century by Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the newly elected Pope Francis.  On Heaven and Earth was first published in Latin America and Spain during 2010, and Image Books, a division of Random House, will publish an English-language edition on May 7, 2013.  The publisher’s description follows.

From the man who became Pope Francis, Jorge Mario Bergoglio shares his thoughts on religion, reason, and the challenges the world faces in the 21st century with Abraham Skorka, a rabbi and biophysicist.

For years Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, archbishop of Argentina, and Rabbi Abraham Skorka were tenacious promoters of interreligious dialogues on faith and reason. They both sought to build bridges among Catholicism, Judaism, and the world at large. On Heaven and Earth, originally published in Argentina in 2010, brings together a series of these conversations where both men talked about various theological and worldly issues, including God, fundamentalism, atheism, abortion, homosexuality, euthanasia, same-sex marriage, and globalization. From these personal and accessible talks comes a first-hand view of the man who would become pope to 1.2 billion Catholics around the world in March 2013.