Pope Franciss intervention in the Knights of Malta has allowed his critics a potent new line of attack. Where is your mercy? the posters that appeared in Rome last Saturday sarcastically asked, after listing what Breitbart Newscalled recent misuses of papal power.
The idea of the news organization behind Trump and his constitution-defying executive orders on refugees calling out the pope as an authoritarian is so richthat comment is superfluous. But its the outrageousnessof the new narrativethatmakes it so attractive.
It allows those who, in the Church, would in other circumstancesbe enthusiasticauthoritarians and centralists thosewho cheered St. John Paul IIs hammering of the heretics, his clampdown on dissent, and so on now to frame themselves as advocates of pluralism.
Yet they claim that the real irony here is that thepope popular for being Breitbart again an open-minded, grandfatherly figure with an emphasis on mercy over doctrine turning out to be, after all, a dictator bent on an ideological purge.
Having set up this frame, traditionalists and conservatives can then reach for the narrative of victimhood, which, in the modern West, guarantees righteousness with astonishingly little effort.
Yet literally nothing in this account is true.
First, anyone who ever knew him up close in Argentina could tell you that Jorge Mario Bergoglio is a tough leader and radical reformer, who assumes the truth of doctrine but wants the Church to help people live it, rather than use it to throw at rivals. The emphasis on mercy is not a softening or a reducing of doctrine. It is doctrine.
Second, Francis is not imposing his way of thinking a theological school, say on anyone. He is a pluralist, who sees the Church as a place of reconciled diversity in which disagreement can be dynamic and fruitful.
No one could describe Cardinal Robert Sarah, who headsthe Congregation for Divine Worship (CDW), as someone who thinks like Francis, yet the pope appointed him. Equally,Cardinal Gerard Mller, whose tortuous zig-zagging over Amoris Laetitiaoffers at best fitful support to the pope, remains as prefect at the Congregation forDoctrine of the Faith (CDF).
Ifthey are loyal to the pope and his mission, which they are, he does not mind that they take a very different view.
True, he has renewed personnel in both congregations. But does that make him a dictator?The Vatican bureaucracy has no purpose outside, nor justification beyond, enabling the Successor of St. Peter to fulfill his mission. If Franciswishes to replace priests and religious who are under vows, why shouldnt he,especially if theyhave been there a long time?
If those that remain feel intimidatedand anxious as criticsclaim they have an attitude problem rooted in careerism.
As one senior Vatican official put it to me recently in Rome: Surely we exist to serve the Holy Father, and if he sees a better way of achieving his objective by not using us, why should we object? The attitude that he should operate this or that way is making the pope serve the curia, not the other way round.
Yes, the pope is deeply intolerant, but not of those who disagree with him or do not share his outlook, but of obstacles to evangelization. Where Gods name is defaced, he is fierce in restoring it. Yes, he is a purger but of what he identifies as spiritual worldliness, the selling-off of the treasures of the Gospel for what St. Ignatius of Loyola called riches, honor and pride.
In the case of the Knights, Francis is not intervening because he dislikes the medal and epaulette-strewn scarletuniforms or Mass ad orientem, but because of serious problems, brewing over many years, in the governance of the order, especially among its professed members. Theyhave led tocorruption and abuse of its primary purpose, which is evangelization and assisting the poor.
One senior Knight I spoke to this week said there was little doubt of the need for reform, especially in the area of financial transparency and governance. He said there were too many dubious transactions, while appointments to the head of the order often operated according to an old boys network, without proper vetting.
He also said that the system by which the Grand Master is elected only by the professed Knights a small group of 50 requires reform. The professed havenot succeeded in securing many new vocations, yet the order has 13,000 lay members.
My source, speaking on background,alsosaid he knew of one group of Italian knights who had turned out also to be secret Freemasons.
I detect a certain determination by the Holy Father to root this out, and he is absolutely right, he said. This is totally unacceptable.
The Order of Maltais not a charity or NGO; nor is it a club for social and business advancement. Itis a lay religious order, whose leaders are under vows, and which should leadits members to holiness through working closely with the elderly, refugees and other poor. It exists to testify to Gods mercy to the poor, not primarilyto fund-raise through elaborate gala dinners.
If the Knights modus operandi its traditions, its culture, and so on enable the sanctification of its members and the proclamation of Gods mercy, then it is doing what it exists to do. But if they exist predominantly for the interests and enjoyment of its members, with charity as its legitimization, then the order is worldly and needs reform.
Hence Franciss instructionsto his legate, Archbishop Angelo Becciu,that he should work to bring about the moral and spiritual renewal of the order, especially of its professed members, so that it might carry out fully its end of promoting the glory of God through thesanctification of its members, the service of faith and the Holy Father, and assisting neighbors.'
Somecanonists claim that the pope has no right to do this,thatthe Knights status as an entity in international law constrains his potestas. (This was the basis of the former Grand Masters resistance, encouraged by the orders patronus or chaplain, American Cardinal Raymond Burke.)
Yetcanon law itself recognizes no such restriction. It enshrines what the Catechism calls the popes full, supreme, and universal power over the whole Church, a power which he can always exercise unhindered. This poweris not merely claimed but divinely instituted.
The law above all laws the lex suprema is the spiritual health of souls, the salus animarum, and popes that make of use this power are not dictators but fulfilling their role as vicar of Christ.
No organization is obliged to belong to the Catholic Church, but those that do accept papal authority, which includes the rightto intervene in any Catholic organization and shake it down when it getssnarled up. Francis has done this already a number of times: with the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate, and more recently with the Sodalitium de Vitae Christianae.
In each case there were serious divisions and dysfunctions that could not be resolved internally, leading the pope to suspend its leaders and impose a temporary governance.
Thisis what a pope is for.Shepherding sheep mostly involves healing, nurturing, teaching and leading by example; but sometimes bleating creatures obdurately headed for the cliff edge need to be forced to get back on the path.
Canonists who argued that the Order of Malta is sovereign and therefore cannot be intervened might have been, on paper, correct the question had never been put to the test before. But if theywere correct, theybegged the question of whether the pope shouldcontinue torecognize a Catholic organization that claimed autonomy from his authority.
This was why the Knights gave up their defiant fight. Had theypressed the sovereignty argument, the Vatican would simply have withdrawn its recognition, implicitly respecting the orders wish to be an aristocratic club or NGO rather than a Catholic organization.
Still, thefurious reaction isto be expected.
There is a line attributed to Don Quixote (although he never actually said it): If the dogs are barking, Sancho, its a sign we are moving ahead. It is a phrase Francis likes to use when people point to the growing noise of opposition.
Reforms hurt, and conversion is painful. Whenpeople are screaming dictator! or putting up anonymous postersin Rome, its a sign, Sancho, that real progress is being made.
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Cries of 'dictator' show Pope Francis is making progress - Crux: Covering all things Catholic
