Among all the ongoing, ever-present media confusion and speculation over literally anything our Pontiff gives voice to, I was at first pleasantly surprised to recently read a couple of promising headlines from major Catholic news sites gushing excitedly: “Pope Francis Affirms Church Teaching on Traditional Marriage” and “Pope Francis Affirms That Homosexual Men Should Not Be Permitted To Enter Seminary”. There were lots of heart reactions in the comments section.
I say I was only pleasantly surprised at first because shouldn’t it be a normal, run-of-the-mill thing for the Pope, the bishop of Rome and leader of the one, holy, Catholic and apostolic church to be acting in accordance with and voicing his approval of Catholic teaching and doctrines? The more I thought about it the more dissatisfied I felt. The fact that people are surprised and excited to see the Pope agreeing with the Church does not bode well.
In the past, popes have been firm and vocal in their support of doctrine. They have publicly spoken out, with unambiguous language, against the evils attacking the Church. They have condemned sin and lauded virtue. Why has this become unusual? Why are we now used to the Pope and other church leaders and representatives presenting a lukewarm view with no convictions, full of wishy-washy sentiments such as “born this way”, “the Church must change with the times”, etc? When did things get this bad?
I am not against Pope Francis. He is at present the leader of the Church and as such must be listened to, supported, and yes, respected. But when you respect someone you wish to see them doing what is right. If they are not doing what is right then you speak to inform them of their possible mistake.
Not many are speaking beyond the Cardinals who signed the dubia, a few scattered traditional priests, several bishops, and a small but feisty contingent of Catholic writers and bloggers. And those that do speak are often silenced. When I was in Rome I heard it whispered that everyone in the Roman Curia is afraid, and that if any of them are heard to so much as murmur anything even slightly against Pope Francis they are summoned to a private audience and often fired from their positions.
However, no matter how bad this all sounds we must remember that the Papacy was instituted by Christ Himself, and that He promised St. Peter, the first Pope, that the Church would stand strong and that “the gates of Hell will not prevail against it.” Even though the waves of Modernism are breaking hard upon the island of our faith, Catholicism will never be fully eroded. Like the rock on which it was built, the Church will forever stand strong.
