Pope Francis’ position

Clearly, many people have yet to work out Pope Francis who in less than two years has profoundly changed the tone of the papacy, and therefore of the Church.

By some he is being seen as too liberal and by others as not liberal enough.

Some Catholics find it difficult to accept the pastoral openness which Pope Francis believes must be at the centre of an evangelising Church that wants to accompany all people on the pilgrim journey of life towards salvation.

Their fear is that this pastoral approach, which emphasises God’s mercy over the rigid insistence on doctrinal fidelity, will serve to dilute the moral teachings of the Church.

Pope Francis set the tone early in his pontificate when he answered a question about homosexual Christians with the words: “Who am I to judge?”

That answer has been analysed and spun in every direction. It seems self-evident, however, that the pope who defines himself as a sinner, as we all are, predicated his answer on Matthew 7:1-3, which warns us not to judge, with severe consequences for those who do.

In that view, the Church cannot simply exclude people who sincerely seek God, because to do so inherently requires the sin of judgment which Jesus warns us against.

This does not mean that Pope Francis is soft on doctrine, even as he holds that doctrine cannot be an end in itself, but must serve the purpose of guiding the faithful to God.

In his view the teachings of the Church must be communicated in the most effective manner. Sometimes this means that rhetoric must be adapted and the emphasis on what the Church communicates redirected.

The pope’s address in November to an interreligious conference on the traditional family provided a counterpoint to the false image of a fuzzy pope.

He insisted that the traditional family must be preserved and protected and that every child has the right of being raised by a mother and a father. He warned against falling into the “trap of being swayed by ideological concepts”.

This language, much in the spirit of Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI, perplexed many liberals who had formed an image of Pope Francis as an ally in their cause.

The confusion about whose side Pope Francis is on, and about the way he exercises his Petrine ministry in general, was most evident in the wake of the extraordinary Synod of Bishops on the Family in October.

When the very open language of the headline-making mid-term report was revised and three paragraphs of the final document gained only a simple majority, rather than the required two-thirds, conservatives crowed about and liberals lamented the pope’s supposed “crushing defeat”.

Both camps had false expectations: the liberals thought Pope Francis would force his positions on the synod in the way of his predecessors; the conservatives saw his “failure” to impose his supposed agenda as a sign of weakness and a repudiation by the synod.

Of course, the final document gave a fair reflection of the pope’s apparent positions, and where it didn’t, this was a concrete sign of the collegiality of bishops which Pope Francis had himself implemented and encouraged.

The truth is that Pope Francis, like most Catholics, is neither a conservative—even if his position on doctrines could be described that way—nor a liberal, even if his belief in a welcoming, non-judgmental Church coincides with the views of many progressives. Pope Francis, like most Catholics, transcends such labels.

If we want to ascribe a position to Pope Francis, then we must locate him in the middle-ground which loves the Church, its teachings and tradition, and which seeks to follow and serve God to the best of one’s ability and conscience.

It is the middle ground which is not prepared to compromise the essence of the Christ-centred Church in the face of either secular values or doctrinal rigour, but is prepared to engage with and be accessible to the secular world.