WYD: When a Jesuit Meets Other Jesuits

The Pope spoke, among other things, of the indietrism (backwardism) of conservatives, and of the broad welcome which must be given to everyone, in particular to homosexuals. Here are some extracts from his remarks, reported by the Civiltà Cattolica on August 28.

Rejection of Conservatives

On conservatism in the United States: “There is a very strong, organized reactionary attitude, that is organized and shapes the way people belong, even emotionally.”

“I would like to remind those people that indietrismo [being backward looking] is useless and that we need to understand that there is an appropriate evolution in the understanding of matters of faith and morals, so long as we follow the three criteria that that Vincent de Lérins already indicated in the fifth century: doctrine evolves ut annis consolidetur, dilatetur tempore, sublimetur ætate. In other words, doctrine also progresses, expands and consolidates with time, and becomes firmer, but is always progressing. Change develops from the roots upward, growing in accord with these three criteria.”

Once again, Pope Francis quotes St. Vincent of Lérins in a truncated manner, but he continues without shame: “Vincent of Lérins makes the comparison between human biological development and the transmission from one age to another of the depositum fidei [deposit of the faith], which grows and is consolidated with the passage of time.”

“Here, our understanding of the human person changes with time, and our consciousness also  deepens. The other sciences and their evolution also help the Church in this growth in understanding. The view of the Church as monolithic is erroneous.”

And Francis makes the same reproaches, relying on a falsified argument from authority: “Some people opt out; they go backward; they are what I call “indietristi’. When you go backward, you form something closed, disconnected from the roots of the Church, and you lose the sap of revelation. If you don’t change upward, you go backward, and you take on criteria for change other than those our faith gives for growth and change.”

“The effects on morality are devastating. The problems that moralists have to examine today are very serious, and to deal with them they have to take the risk of making changes, but in the direction I was saying.”

Welcoming Everyone

After thus rejecting the conservatives, the Pope feels no embarrassment in speaking about welcoming everyone into the Church, especially homosexuals: “I believe there is no discussion about the call being addressed to everyone. Jesus is very clear about this: everyone. The invited guests did not want to come to the banquet. So he sent out to the streets to call in everyone, everyone, everyone.”

“So that it remains clear, Jesus says ‘healthy and sick,’ ‘righteous and sinners,’ everyone, everyone, everyone. . .In other words, the door is open to everyone, everyone has their own space in the Church. How will each person live it out? We help people live so that they can occupy that place with maturity, and this applies to all kinds of people.”

And he specifies: “In Rome, I know a priest who works with young homosexual. It is clear that today the issue of homosexuality is very strong, and sensitivity to this regard changes according to historical circumstances.”

“But what I don't like at all, in general, is that we look at the so-called [sic] 'sin of the flesh' with a magnifying glass, just as we have done for so long for the sixth commandment. If you exploited workers, if you lied or cheated, it didn't matter, and instead  sins below the waist were relevant.”

“So, everyone is invited. This is the point. And the most appropriate pastoral attitude for each person must be applied. We must not be superficial and naive, forcing people into things and behaviors for which they are not yet mature, or are not capable. It takes a lot of sensitivity and creativity to accompany people spiritually and pastorally. But everyone, everyone, everyone is called to live in the Church: never forget that.”

Repetitive Speech, Abusive Generalizations

This captious exegesis of the evangelical texts forced Stefano Fontana to react in La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana of August 29: “Indietrism, clericalism and the inevitable ambiguities on the inclusion of homosexuals and transsexuals: this is the usual scenario staged once again more in Francis' conversation with the Portuguese Jesuits.”

The Italian intellectual sees this as a form of psycho-rigidity: “Francis persists with his own mindset and does not allow himself to be minimally challenged by the issues raised. That’s not to say that his Jesuit confreres, being Jesuits, ask embarrassing questions, but the issues they do raise are always punctually addressed with the same thought patterns and abuse of the words he habitually uses: indietrism [stuck in the past), clericalism and so on.”

But he also denounces a tendency to generalize excessively: “Francis makes generic judgments on very complex situations. There is no time in a short meeting for eloquent speeches, but precisely for this reason certain caution should be exercised.”

“For example, in this case, the Pope expresses a very harsh and absolutely schematic judgment on the American clergy and Catholics, summarily accusing them of ideological indietrism: ‘there is a very strong, organized, reactionary attitude, which structures a belonging which is also affective. I want to remind these people that indietrism is useless.”

“The impression that in every meeting with his Jesuit confreres, but one could also say in every interview tout court [period], Francis' answers are standard, that they belong to a fixed conceptual and linguistic repertoire that knows no real evolution.”

“This time too, as in the past, Francis quotes St. Vincent de Lérins on the development of dogma, but he only quotes half his words, i.e., the words that indicate progress but never those that indicate perfect continuity, namely “by all, always, and everywhere.” [ed: “We maintain the belief of what has been believed everywhere, always, by all”, (ubique, semper, et ab omnibus)]. Despite the fact that many experts have pointed this out to him,. . . he continues undaunted.”

On this tendency towards abusive generalization regarding Catholics who focus on the sixth commandment without worrying about the workers they exploit, Stefano Fontana recalls: “The Catechism listed defrauding workers of their just wages as an action that cries out for vengeance before God.”

“In Rerum novarum, Leo XIII placed at the center of the Church’s action those who were ‘alone and defenseless at the mercy of the greed of masters and of unbridled competition.’… Certainly in the past, the attention paid to sins of the flesh was much more intense than today, whereas [and because] today – so many confessors reveal – no one confesses anymore acts against the sixth commandment: thou shalt not commit adultery.”

“But there was certainly no lack of examinations of conscience for acts of social injustice and exploitation, no lack of acts of reparation for those sins, no lack of public interventions of charity as attested by the social saints and their charitable works.”

And moreover, notes Stefano Fontana, we must not forget that “the [sixth] commandment against sins of the flesh is not something private, but has wide repercussions on social and political life, because from the cultivation of unbridled passions all the troubles of society are derived.”