Should we come back?
Now that it's a pope named Francis who is being
hailed as "a history-making pontiff," "a man who knows how to govern"
and a leader from "outside the walls of Rome," is it a moment for those
of us who were Catholic-raised and Catholic-educated to rejoin the
church after having taken a powder years ago?
It was a strong tailwind of reasons that helped blow us out the door:
revulsion at the child abuse scandals, the hierarchy's shielding of
pedophile priests, the cruelty of church policy on gays and lesbians,
the Vatican's clamping down on American nuns, the attacks on priests who
support women's ordination, a calcified Eurocentric Roman bureaucracy
that rules by fiat and not consensus.
Then, too, a final turn-off:
doctrinal rigidity.
Rome has spoken; that's it, people.
No discussion
allowed.
What's to be learned soon enough about Pope Francis is whether he will
be a tinkerer or an overhauler.
The former is one who hauls his car to
the local gas station and explains to the mechanic that the brakes are
worn, the tires are flat, the radiator is not holding water, the oil
leaks, the lower control arms are broken, the steering wheel can't turn,
the headlights are out, the carburetor is shot, the doors won't lock
and the wipers don't wipe.
The car owner tells the mechanic to just
squirt a bit of Havoline Supreme on the engine and the old girl will run
fine.
The overhauler has different instructions: Put the heap atop the jack,
take it apart, replace the parts, realign the wheels, flush the engine,
put in six quarts of oil and give me a loaner car because this won't be
an overnight job.
Pope John XXIII was an overhauler.
The Second Vatican Council he
created in the early 1960s was as unexpected as it was daring and
inspirational.
Reforms were put into place, ones that made Catholicism
relevant to the faith-based lives of its members who took seriously the
demands of the Gospels.
Will Francis and his inner circle call for the
Third Vatican Council? If so, it needs to happen soon. If it doesn't
come within a year and all we see is useless tinkering, then what is
there to bring back those of us who hightailed?
On what should the convening hierarchy focus during a new council?
Go to confession collectively, for a sacramental start. Confess to the
sin of harassing the American nuns, a group of women who without their
unsung and free labor in hospitals, schools and service in the outposts
of compassion, the church couldn't function.
Confess to the sin of
stonewalling the appeals of the pedophile victims.
Confess to the sin of
expelling Fr. Roy Bourgeois from the priesthood and invite him back to
the fold. Confess to the sin of demeaning gays and lesbians, with
Francis himself apologizing for saying as recently as 2010 that same-sex
marriage is "a war against God" and "a maneuver by the devil."
A Third Vatican Council, with the laity having equal status with the
hierarchy, could become the collagen that keeps together the essentials
of the faith while allowing the nonessentials -- priestly celibacy,
male-only clergy, no contraception -- to be relegated to history as was
the Latin Mass, meatless Fridays and no altar girls.
With a pope named
Francis, it could be a moment for the church to collectively clear its
head by embracing the pacifism of St. Francis of Assisi and finally do
away with blessing just wars. It could be a moment for Pope Francis to
embrace the saint's love of animals by calling for an end to the daily
horrors of factory farming and instructing Catholics to respect the
rights of animals by becoming vegans.
Taking the name of Francis and honoring the saint's commitment to
nonviolence to humans and animals would mean that Catholicism would be a
true peace church.
Do that and I'll be back.
Pronto.