A few final (for now) thoughts...

I continue to reflect on the Preparatory Document for the Synod.

I don't want to assume the worst about the Holy Father, tempting though that is. I am also well aware that my personal disposition and formation make me veer more to the 'individual judgement' than to the 'communion of saints' aspect of Catholicism. And that is a tendency I need to address.

But all that said, I do find that the Scriptural commentary that we are offered is rather one-sided.

It is true, for example, that Our Lord preached to the crowd without discrimination; but it also true that the crowd, which at one moment was crying Hosanna went on to cry Let him be crucified.

We read: The proclamation of the Gospel is not addressed only to an enlightened or chosen few. Jesus’ interlocutor is the “people” of ordinary life, the “everyone” of the human condition, whom he puts directly in contact with God’s gift and the call to salvation. 

And again, that is true; but it is only half of a truth. As well as this 'inclusive' approach, Our Lord has an 'exclusive' approach (to use the terrible jargon of those who think like this...). He only reveals the meaning of many parables (eg the Sower) to the Apostles. And even amongst the Apostles he frequently selects just three for some of the most important moments: the Transfiguration, the raising of Jairus' daughter from the dead, the Agony in the Garden, and so on.

But in what I suspect to be the key message here, we read:

This is a true and proper conversion, the painful and immensely fruitful passage of leaving one’s own cultural and religious categories: Peter accepts to eat with pagans the food he had always considered forbidden, recognizing it as an instrument of life and communion with God and with others. It is in the encounter with people, welcoming them, journeying with them, and entering their homes, that he realizes the meaning of his vision: no human being is unworthy in the eyes of God, and the difference established by election does not imply exclusive preference but service and witnessing of a universal breadth.

This, I think, is providing the rationale for the Church turning its back on its previous teaching and practice:  leaving one’s own cultural and religious categories. And appointing a pro-abortion atheist to the Pontifical Academy for Life, for  no human being is unworthy in the eyes of God.   But again, I think it is only half of the truth. 

It is certainly true that Our Lord overturned many of the religious customs and observances of the Jewish people, including the dietary laws. But it is equally true that in terms of the Law, the Decalogue, he reinforced it. When addressing issues of morality, if he changed anything, it was to be more strict, not less restrictive.  Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so. And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery; and likewise: But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.

I suggest, therefore, that there is a difference between clinging rigidly to dietary laws and clinging rigidly to the moral law. And indeed, I think that is the Church's traditional understanding, too.

And I say all this as I am trying to understand where the Holy Father is coming from, and why I find it so antithetical to what I have been taught to cling to...

So my hypothesis is that the Holy Father and I have been raised in very different Catholic environments. He has been formed in a time and place where the ideas of CELAM, culminating in Liberation Theology, were prevalent. This emphasised the social aspect of oppression, the 'preferential option for the poor,' and so on. The risk is that social justice rather than the salvation of souls becomes the focus; that the horizontal dimension of the Faith - our love and care for our brothers - becomes more important than the vertical aspects: our adoration of the Triune God; and that relationship becomes more important than fidelity to abstract truths.

I was raised in a different environment, with a focus on the Four Last Things; that separation of the sheep from the goats, which Our Lord warns us of; and the injunction to seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. The risk is that one focuses on one's personal salvation without attending to our brothers; that the vertical dimension of the Faith - the adoration of God - becomes separated from the second Great Commandment: to love our neighbours as ourself; and that fidelity to the truths received becomes more important than our relationships with others.

In that analysis it is easier to see, perhaps, why there is such a great disjunct between the Catholicism I practice and the approach taken by the Holy Father.

Needless to say, both extremes are flawed; what concerns me is that while I strive, albeit ineffectively at times, to re-balance my errors, it seems to me that the Holy Father is firmly committed to his side of the equation. That may be why (I am guessing), in ways that are almost unthinkable to me, he is happy to set aside both moral precepts, and the most sublime forms of adoration that we have inherited, in pursuit of his social agenda. 

Tout comprendre, c'est tout pardonner.  And I am not saying that I do understand him fully, but striving to imagine how he can do what he does without being a bad man is good for me.  

It is our duty to love the Holy Father, and that is hard to do if we regard him as evil. But if we merely regard him as wrong (which I certainly do), but mistaken rather than malign, that is easier.

In all events, to the extent that we regard him as an enemy, we are under orders to pray for him. 

So whatever our analysis of the current trials to which the Church is subject, let us not cease to offer up prayers for him; and for the whole Church.