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Traditionalists are less than delighted with the new pope
While there is also some skepticism from left wing Catholics,
many traditionalists are viewing the selection of Pope Francis as
disastrous.
Since the moment of his election on March 13, Pope Francis has
been warmly embraced by his own flock and even the media and the wider
public in a way his bookish predecessor, Benedict XVI, was not.
Polls
show that anywhere from 73 percent to 88 percent of American Catholics
say they are happy with the selection of Francis, as opposed to about 60
percent who were happy with the choice of Benedict — and many of those
are extremely pleased with the new pope.
Such an effusive welcome
is especially good news for Catholic leaders who spent years fending
off criticism of Vatican dysfunction under Benedict and a cloud of
scandal and crisis at home. And the hot start for Francis is also
crucial in building up a reservoir of good will that will be needed when
the new pope refuses to bend on unpopular teachings or commits a gaffe
of his own.
Yet even as the former Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio basks
in this broad approval as Pope Francis, some constituencies in the
Catholic Church are cautious or even angry at his election, and their
concern has only grown in the early days of his pontificate.
‘Something is profoundly wrong’
Chief
among the critics are the liturgical traditionalists who reveled in
Benedict’s exaltation of old-fashioned ways, and are now watching in
horror as Francis rejects the extravagant vestments and high-church
rituals that were in en vogue for the past eight years.
“Of all
the unthinkable candidates, Jorge Mario Bergoglio is perhaps the worst,”
an Argentine Catholic wrote in a post at Rorate Caeli, a blog for
aficionados of the old Latin Mass rites. “It really cannot be what
Benedict wanted for the Church.”
“Something is profoundly wrong
when the winds of change can blow so swiftly through an immutable
institution of God’s own making,” agreed Patrick Archbold at Creative
Minority Report, another conservative site.
Given that
traditionalists are some of the most devoted and vocal Catholics in the
church, and that they retain both contacts and influence in the upper
ranks of the hierarchy, their pessimism could spell trouble for Francis.
‘A Pope Francis problem’
The
same could be said of politically conservative Catholics, especially
those from the U.S. who have enjoyed access and approval in Rome for
decades, under both Benedict and the late John Paul II.
Their
concerns, while expressed in more muted tones, are tied to a number of
markers: Francis is a Jesuit, for one thing, and even though he is
considered a relatively conservative member of the Society of Jesus, the
Jesuits are considered notorious by the Catholic right.
Their
list of alleged faults is long — they advocate engagement with the
world, they have shown a willingness to criticize the hierarchy, and
they have embraced a radical commitment to the poor. That last one is a
priority for Francis as he sharply critiqued unfettered capitalism and
austerity politics, even taking on the name of St. Francis of Assisi,
the patron saint of the poor.
Indeed, the new pope “would likely
be considered too liberal for a prime time speaking slot at the 2016
(Democratic) convention,” Charles Camosy, a theologian at Fordham
University in New York, wrote in a Washington Post column titled,
“Republicans have a Pope Francis problem.”
St. Francis is also an
icon of environmentalism, which the new pope has similarly embraced.
That discomfits some conservatives — as does praise for Francis from
liberation theologians like Leonardo Boff and Jon Sobrino. Rumors are
already afoot that Francis might beatify slain Salvadoran Archbishop
Oscar Romero, who was killed by a right-wing death squad for speaking
out against injustice.
“Habemus papam: Franciscum.” These early-morning words on Thursday hit me like a torpedo. It took me time to realise that the new Pope — Jorge Mario Bergoglio — was assuming an unused papal name, Francis, mine! More shocking were realisations that this man in white was Argentinean, and, yes, a Jesuit, like me!
The Superior Generals who head the Jesuits are traditionally and teasingly nicknamed “black popes” because of their black cassocks and their unswerving loyalty to Popes. First non-European Pope in 1,300 years, first Argentinean Pope in a 2,000-year Christian history, first Jesuit Pope in a history of over 450 years, and first Pope Francis ever. These firsts promise newness and change — even if Francis, aged 76, seems a tad too old to bring newness and broker change. But he is steady and steely, too.
Honest to God Moving towards a more credible language Joseph Mattam S.J. 1. Introduction Hitler’s Willing Executioners - Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust (D. J. Goldhagen, Vintage Books, 1997) is a challenging book. It narrates how ordinary Germans were willingly involved in the execution and near extermination of Jews in the 1930s and 40s. The Jews are considered God’s chosen people; the Bible, especially the OT, attests that God always protects His people. They are never left without his protection and providence, but the events from 1930 onwards did shatter the above conviction. God was significantly absent in these events. If we look back into our history of say, 500-600 years, we are left with further questions. We may mention just a few, out of the many hundreds, of such important events that have happened and are happening in history: millions of Africans were uprooted from their own country, were made slaves and treated in the most inhuman ways; the genocide of millions in America and Australia (it is claimed that more than 80 % of the local inhabitants have been murdered by the invaders from Europe - The Bible and Colonialism, a Moral Critique, by M. Prior, Sheffield, 1997); Colonialism by which most of the Asian and African nations lost their sovereignty and were impoverished, becoming mere source of enrichment for the colonizing Christian nations.
