Five days after announcing a landmark deal with China over the appointment of bishops, Pope Francis released a letter to Chinese Catholics on Wednesday. The gist of it amounts to, “Trust me.”
Specifically, Francis asked the roughly 13 million Catholics in China to “place your trust ever more firmly in the Lord of history and in the church’s discernment of his will.” The idea is to ask for faith despite whatever uncertainty Chinese Catholics may be experiencing, especially those of the “underground” church who’s been tenacious in their opposition to the Communist government out of loyalty to Rome and now feel like the rug has been pulled out from under them.
One core reason the pope needed to appeal for trust is that while a deal has been announced, few details of what precisely it contains are known. Thus it’s impossible to say at this stage exactly how much freedom of movement the pope has sacrificed in order to get the Chinese authorities to sign on the dotted line, or what its implications may be for the future of the faith in China.
In some ways, the situation isn’t entirely dissimilar from the approach Francis has taken on the charges leveled a month ago by Italian Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, a former papal ambassador in the US, that Francis knew of sexual misconduct charges against ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick in 2013 and failed to act.
When those charges first arose, Francis refused to address them, and essentially did so again Monday night during a new conference aboard his plane returning to Rome from a four-day trip in the Baltics.
Francis declined to respond to any question that wasn’t specifically related to the trip, although he did volunteer some thoughts on the clerical abuse scandals – among other things, arguing that the Pennsylvania grand jury report released in mid-August shows progress in the Church’s fight against child abuse, since the number of cases from recent years is dramatically lower than the 1960s, 70s and 80s.
However, the pope didn’t say a word about Viganò’s allegations, nor did he answer the obvious question journalists aboard the plane really wanted to ask: Will he order the disclosure of records showing what the Vatican knew about the McCarrick case, and when it knew it?
In other words, here too the pope is basically asking people to trust him.
If Francis wants the trust of Chinese Catholics, he might consider telling them what exactly they’re being asked to trust him about – in other words, the content of the new deal the pontiff has inked with the Chinese government.
Once Catholics know how the deal is structured, what’s been given away and what’s been maintained, they might be more inclined to withhold judgment until they see how it works out on the ground.
Similarly for abuse survivors, if they saw Francis committed to getting to the bottom of what went wrong in cases such as McCarrick’s, and having sufficient faith in the Catholic rank-and-file that coming clean won’t destroy their faith or shatter whatever illusions remain, they might be willing to give the pope a bit more breathing room as he tries to figure out a path forward.
Full story at Crux.
Never trust a dictator.
Understatement of the year.
I agree with Ron and anonymous.
Knowing what I know about Bergoglio’s past and on-the-job performance, I wouldn’t hire him for anything.
I wonder how many cardinal electors have regrets about voting for him. Or do they just regret he and they are being exposed for gay-money-sex corruption at the Vatican?
They couldn’t have picked a worse pope to damage the church. We’re way beyond damage control now. We’re seriously confronting the possibility of widespread defections among the laity or schism.
Henry Sire warned us about this man, and providentially events have transpired that reinforce the author’s conclusions.
May the Lord bless the Pope and give him life and yield him not up to the will of his enemies.
The same things were said of John Paul II, if you are old enough to remember.
WelI I am old enough to remember Pope John XXIII, and know well the opposition to John Paul II. There is no similarity at all between the criticisms of JP II and those leveled currently at Francis. By the way, it may be justly opined that Francis’ true enemies are his own friends, and that his true friends are those like Vigano who are calling him on his conduct.
There is no “trust deficit.” A “deficit” implies that it could be eventually cured by earning future “surpluses”, here, meaningful actions to earn back the trust of the faithful.
That, however, is an impossible task for Francis. He has proven to be untrustworthy by nature. He has squandered any opportunity to be worthy of trust. Regardless of what Francis (and his accomplices) say or do, there will never be any trust.
For the Church to remain credible in the modern world, the Pope must be transparent regarding the McCarrick case. If the Holy Father made a mistake in how he handled this matter, so be it. He is the Pope not God! If Pope Francis did indeed mishandle the McCarrick matter, he must come clean and ask for forgiveness.
Fraternal correction:
The Church IS credible. It was founded by Jesus Himself (Matt.:16). Thetefore, it is impossible for the Church to lack credibility.
The article points to the lack of credibility in Francis and his cabal of prelates. Comments should be restricted to that context only. The Church is the Bride of Christ.
Harold, thanks for your fair minded thoughts. But I don’t even understand why Francis is being blamed for McCarrick’s scandal. He removed him from the Cardinalate, yet both JPII and Benedict had evidence of his shenanigans. It was Benedict, not Francis, who allowed McCarrick to continue as if nothing happenned, even though Benedict sanctioned him. And some of that “turning the other cheak” happenned while Vigano was Nuncio to the US. Now that Vigano is gone, Francis acts to punish McCarrick. So I just don’t get why Francis is getting the bad rap, even though he was the FIRST one to take decisive action. Francis ENDED the coverup, he didn’t instigate it!
Let’s just pray them on them