So last week I remarked that there were some who weren’t even giving Pope Francis a chance before they began to hate him. Those remarks were actually aimed mostly to the left side of the aisle, especially at people who were saying he wasn’t a “real Jesuit” because he’s not your typical “son of Ignatius” that we might see here in the United States who may be more progressive in thought.
However, today, the attacks on the Pope come more from the right side of the church, the more traditionalist viewpoint.
For instance the AP filed this story:
Francis also raised traditional eyebrows when he refused the golden pectoral cross offered to him right after his election by Monsignor Guido Marini, the Vatican’s liturgy guru who under Benedict became the symbol of Benedict’s effort to restore the Gregorian chant and heavy silk brocaded vestments of the pre-Vatican II liturgy to papal Masses.
Marini has gamely stayed by Francis’ side as the new pope puts his own stamp on Vatican Masses with no-nonsense vestments and easy off-the-cuff homilies. But there is widespread expectation that Francis will soon name a new master of liturgical ceremonies more in line with his priorities of bringing the church and its message of love and service to ordinary people without the “high church” trappings of his predecessor.
There were certainly none of those trappings on display Thursday at the Casal del Marmo juvenile detention facility in Rome, where the 76-year-old Francis got down on his knees to wash and kiss the feet of 12 inmates, two of them women. The rite re-enacts Jesus’ washing of the feet of his 12 apostles during the Last Supper before his crucifixion, a sign of his love and service to them.
It seems traditional liturgists are most irked by the lack of pomp with which the Pope celebrates liturgy. And so I have issued a warning to them:
Never go to mass in a poor country.
In Nicaragua, we celebrated mass in a makeshift chapel that was horribly adorned with cheesy religious decor. Nothing was in it’s proper order. Curtains were stained and the stained glass windows were stickers that went over the plexiglass. It was an orphanage so there were often babies crying or moaning, children with special needs at times would be screaming and the dog, a skinny mutt, roamed freely in and out of the chapel.
It was beautiful.
Now granted, it got on my nerves at times, but this was the “everyday” of the chapel. The children were God’s gifts to us and they were just being themselves. And God was there in the midst of the mess.
In the messiness of our lives, God comes to us anyway.
In a youth penitentiary, the Pope came to celebrate that same moment for teens who had run afoul of the law, some who weren’t even Catholic and he offered the same message of Jesus.
“I will come to you anyway, despite your faults, despite the mess in your life, I will not abandon you.”
It seems to me that the most traditional thing the Pope could do was to be the face of Christ for these young people.
But that doesn’t seem like it is enough for some traditionalists. Many who have lambasted others for doing the same:
The church’s liturgical law holds that only men can participate in the rite, given that Jesus’ apostles were all male. Priests and bishops have routinely petitioned for exemptions to include women, but the law is clear.
Francis, however, is the church’s chief lawmaker, so in theory he can do whatever he wants.
“The pope does not need anybody’s permission to make exceptions to how ecclesiastical law relates to him,” noted conservative columnist Jimmy Akin in the National Catholic Register. But Akin echoed concerns raised by canon lawyer Edward Peters, an adviser to the Vatican’s high court, that Francis was setting a “questionable example” by simply ignoring the church’s own rules.
“People naturally imitate their leader. That’s the whole point behind Jesus washing the disciples’ feet. He was explicitly and intentionally setting an example for them,” he said. “Pope Francis knows that he is setting an example.”
The inclusion of women in the rite is problematic for some because it could be seen as an opening of sorts to women’s ordination. The Catholic Church restricts the priesthood to men, arguing that Jesus and his 12 apostles were male.
Francis is clearly opposed to women’s ordination. But by washing the feet of women, he jolted traditionalists who for years have been unbending in insisting that the ritual is for men only and proudly holding up as evidence documentation from the Vatican’s liturgy office saying so.
“If someone is washing the feet of any females … he is in violation of the Holy Thursday rubrics,” Peters wrote in a 2006 article that he reposted earlier this month on his blog.
In the face of the pope doing that very thing, Peters and many conservative and traditionalist commentators have found themselves trying to put the best face on a situation they clearly don’t like yet can’t do much about lest they be openly voicing dissent with the pope.
So they point fingers at the Pope and then out of the side of their mouths they’ll say “Well, the boss can do whatever he wants, I guess.” As if the Pope is somehow placing himself arrogantly “above the law.”
Far from the truth.
Tradition in and of itself is not a bad thing. Neither are rules. They often have our best interest at heart. The problem comes when the tradition and rules make us slaves, blindly following them at all costs, especially at the cost of showing love to another.
At times, we need to have the wisdom to know when it is OK to violate the law, even necessary to do so.
And that is what the Pope is trying to do here. He will be nobody’s slave and by doing so he frees so many from the bonds that have held them captive. Children who have been slaves to addiction and loneliness see that not only the Pope but, that God has not forgotten them, especially the girls who could have been easily ignored by the Pope over rules.
Simplicity is the key thus far, to Francis’ papacy. A dose of simplicity might be enough for all of us to be moved to conversion, to get away from the factions that divide us and move into a healthier and more unified way of being church together.
Simplicity is what God asks of us. Simplicity allows us to see the unborn as a person and not a complex gaggle of cells. Simplicity allows us to view all people with charity and open hearts. Simplicity allows us to see what we really need and that it is a lot less than we presently have. Simplicity calls us to share our gifts with the world, even at a cost to ourselves, because we can always offer all that we are and continue to find that we are fed by that more than we could ever imagine.
Detachment goes a long way for this Pope. Not only is he not attached to things, he’s not attached to rules that separate us from the love of God.
Sounds a lot like Jesus to me.
Or at least the Vicar of Christ.
Viva il Papa!
Are We Friends?