{"id":22729,"date":"2015-09-03T00:01:29","date_gmt":"2015-09-03T07:01:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/?p=22729"},"modified":"2015-09-03T00:01:29","modified_gmt":"2015-09-03T07:01:29","slug":"i-love-pope-francis-or-do-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/i-love-pope-francis-or-do-i\/","title":{"rendered":"I Love Pope Francis — Or Do I?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>
The papal keys — symbol of the pope’s authority over the church and its people. Photo by Barbara Newhall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By Barbara Falconer Newhall<\/em><\/p>\n

My honeymoon with Catholicism’s newest pope is over.<\/p>\n

I’m done with getting all hopeful and goosebumpy about Pope Francis and the breath-of-fresh-air\u00a0tone he’s setting for\u00a0one of the world’s largest and most powerful international institutions.<\/p>\n

Yeah, yeah. Pope Francis says\u00a0nice things like, “Who am I to judge?” He does amazing things like\u00a0embrace a severely disfigured man\u00a0as the world looks on.<\/p>\n

And it seems\u00a0Francis\u00a0might eventually bring some order to the inner workings of the Vatican and its bank.<\/p>\n

Not to mention Francis’s plan to turn\u00a0the church’s attention back to serving the poor, which reverses\u00a0the policy of his two predecessors. That’s\u00a0terrific. Except that that old liberation<\/p>\n

\"Archbishops<\/a>
Archbishops Joseph E. Kurtz, Bernardito C. Auza and Charles J. Chaput at the meeting of the Religion Newswriters Association in Philadelphia last week. Photo by Barbara Newhall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

theology phrase, “preferential option for the poor<\/a>,” has never set too well with me. God prefers the poor? I don’t think so.<\/p>\n

And, of course, Francis\u00a0got the Cubans and the Americans<\/a> talking. Good job. Too bad similar\u00a0blandishments didn’t work on Israel’s\u00a0Shimon Peres and Palestine’s Mahmoud Abbas<\/a>. But good try.<\/p>\n

No doubt about it, Pope Francis is\u00a0a modest man of the people.<\/p>\n

A Modest Pope Francis?<\/h5>\n

But wait —\u00a0I’m not so sure about the modest part.<\/p>\n

Here’s a guy — not married — who’s telling married women and men that God does not\u00a0trust\u00a0them\u00a0to take charge of their reproductive lives, to\u00a0make decisions for their family’s economic stability\u00a0and to know the limits of their ability\u00a0to fully, attentively parent their children.\u00a0That sex for sex’s sake is not OK with God. That God does not want married couples\u00a0to use birth control, because\u00a0God is\u00a0in charge of\u00a0how many babies a man and a woman shall\u00a0produce, rear and support.<\/p>\n

Where’s the modesty in that?<\/p>\n

And where’s the modesty in Pope Francis’s decision to kick off\u00a0his Year of Mercy with a — temporary —\u00a0mercy for Catholic women\u00a0who have had abortions? \u00a0For the next year,<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
A score of Catholic clergy\u00a0participated in\u00a0the RNA conference. Photo by Barbara Newhall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

women who have had abortions can go to\u00a0their priests for absolution and reinstatement\u00a0into the church. They won’t have to go through the humiliating extra hoops of taking their cases to higher up church authorities.<\/p>\n

But what happens when the year of mercy is over? Church authorities — male human beings — will once again be authorized to decide whether a woman who’s had an\u00a0abortion can be\u00a0absolved of her sin.<\/p>\n

(And what about the men who helped get those pregnancies started, and might well have participated in the decision to abort? Are they excused from the grave mortal sin of abortion?)<\/p>\n

The church — and its male hierarchy, headed by the pope — comes down plenty hard on many\u00a0issues.\u00a0But it’s not the issues that are igniting my\u00a0— for me unusual — rant.<\/p>\n

It’s that hierarchy, that top-down earthly authority.<\/p>\n

A\u00a0lot of people around the world, Catholic and otherwise, have been charmed by\u00a0the breath of fresh air that is\u00a0Pope Francis.\u00a0I too had been\u00a0feeling\u00a0the Francis effect — until last weekend.<\/p>\n

That Male\u00a0Church Hierarchy<\/h5>\n

That’s when I got a close-up look at the Catholic hierarchy in the flesh. And it was pretty much male flesh.<\/p>\n

The occasion was the annual conference of the Religion Newswriters Association, held this year in Philadelphia.\u00a0I listened as\u00a0four\u00a0— count ’em four\u00a0— archbishops and a passel of Catholic priests and lay people briefed religion reporters on\u00a0church doctrine and the pope’s upcoming visit to the U.S.<\/p>\n

There was a sprinkling of women on the dais, but mostly it was men speaking for the Catholic church. A phalanx\u00a0of smart, skillful, socially adept, articulate, ambitious men.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The Rev. Thomas Rosica, English language assistant to the Holy See Press Office, spoke at the conference. Photo by Barbara Newhall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Men in\u00a0power.<\/p>\n

I’m not a Catholic, so maybe it’s none of my\u00a0beeswax what the pope and his bishops say about religious liberty, birth control, divorce, extra marital sex, and same-sex marriage. I’m not affected\u00a0by papal pronouncements on the\u00a0so-called God-given rightness — the “complementarity” — of marriage between one man and one woman.<\/p>\n

However,\u00a0it is my beeswax if I’m an employee who’s denied birth control coverage\u00a0or who’s been\u00a0fired because I’m in a same-sex marriage<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I’m not the only one to have opinions on these issues. So do U.S. Catholics.\u00a0A new Pew Research Center survey<\/a>\u00a0sheds some light:<\/p>\n

Fewer than half of U.S. Catholics\u00a0surveyed said\u00a0that homosexual behavior, remarriage without annulment, cohabitation, and the use of contraception\u00a0are sinful. A full seventy percent said it’s OK for a husband and wife to choose not to have children.<\/p>\n

Is the pope listening?<\/p>\n

The Pope of Surprises<\/h5>\n

Pope Francis is a man of surprises. He has declined\u00a0to live in the luxurious papal apartments. He calls old friends on the phone out of the blue. He speaks off the cuff to the press. He\u00a0washes the feet of women<\/a> and Muslims.<\/p>\n

“He’s in nobody’s pocket,” said one of\u00a0last weekend’s\u00a0powerful men in black, the Rev. Thomas Rosica\u00a0of\u00a0the Holy See press office.\u00a0Pope Francis is his own man.<\/p>\n

OK then, Francis, pope of surprises. Surprise me. Let go of\u00a0some of that power. Start maybe\u00a0by\u00a0acknowledging that\u00a0women and men are fully competent to decide\u00a0when and if\u00a0they will get pregnant.<\/p>\n

I’m pretty sure God trusts people\u00a0with those big life decisions. Why don’t you?<\/p>\n

If this post resonated with you, you might like “Dying Jesus, Dying Churches.”<\/a>\u00a0 Also, “Why Are All Those Catholics So Darned Catholic?”<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Here’s another Pope Francis Post from me: “Which Way America” With Francis’ Compassion? Or Donald’s Vitriol?”<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

My honeymoon with Catholicism’s newest pope is over. I’m done with getting all goosebumpy over Pope Francis and the tone he’s setting for his church. Read more.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22788,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[601,1530,1531,1532,592,1533,1534,34,1077,433,484,1327],"class_list":["post-22729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-my-rocky-spiritual-journey","tag-abortion","tag-absolution","tag-birth-control","tag-catholic-church","tag-catholics","tag-complementarity","tag-confession","tag-dont-miss","tag-pope-francis","tag-religion-newswriters-association","tag-rna","tag-same-sex-marriage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22729"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22729\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}