“Critics are always helpful, even if not they are not constructive because they make one reflect on one’s actions,” the Argentine pontiff said recently.
He made the remark during the May 24 interview, released today, that he gave to the Chinese Province of the Society of Jesus.
Asked by Father Pedro Chia SJ about how he responded to stress and resistance within the Church, Francis replied that “many times you know that you have to wait, to endure, and often correct oneself because behind some resistance there can be good criticism.”
He added that sometimes he responds to “resistance” with “pain,” saying that “the resistances, as they happen at the moment, are not only against me personally, they are against the Church.”
Francis used the comment to especially mention Sedevacantists, those who argue that the See of Peter is vacant:
For example there is a group, a few people, who only recognized up to Pope Pius XII, not the popes afterwards.
There are very very few people, very few, small groups. In one Spanish magazine a few issues back the showed a list of 22 groups which believe that the chair of St. Peter is vacant – Sedevancatists. But they are small groups. I think over time they will integrate {into the Church.}
Those who hold to the argument that the See of Peter is vacant often, as Francis noted, differ in their stance. Some attest there have been no popes since Pius XII, and others argue that Benedict XVI was the last pope.
However, while Francis told Fr. Chia that he welcomes “critics” as “always helpful,” his track record does not entirely accord with this statement.
As Francis has continued to promote a line of theological and liturgical liberalism, he has repeatedly taken aim at young seminarians and priests, calling them “too rigid” and suffering from “rigidity.”
Such a term has been consistently used to describe clergy deemed as being “too conservative” or concerned with the Church’s tradition, especially in matters of liturgy and morality.
While the Pope regularly returns to the subject of “rigid” Catholics, Cardinal João Braz de Aviz – Prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life – revealed in 2021 the Pope is concerned about the rise of “traditionalist” ideas creeping into “priestly formation.”
“The rigidity of young priests arises because they are tired of the current relativism, but this is not always the case,” said Francis in one such occasion last year. The pontiff called for “normal seminarians, with their problems, who play soccer, who do not go to the neighborhoods to dogmatize.”
Francis’ pointed comments have also regularly been directed against members of the Church in the USA, increasing chagrin from American Catholic commentators and Vatican observers.
Notable D.C. Catholic priest Monsignor Charles Pope responded to such criticism back in 2019, writing publicly online: I know you don’t like my type of priesthood. Further I am an American and this mere fact seems to also make me troublesome in your eyes. I am not afraid of everything you state, but I do have concerns for the ambiguity of some of your teachings and severity of some of your actions.
Yet when we, your less favored sons, ask you questions you will not answer or clarify. In all this I am still your son and share the priesthood of Jesus with you. I await the solicitude and gentle care from you that you say I, and others like me, lack.
Meanwhile I must honestly and painfully say that I am wearied from being scorned and demonized by you.
During a meeting with fellow Jesuits on a papal voyage to Slovakia in 2021, Francis appeared to attack EWTN as doing “the work of the devil.”
“There is, for example, a large Catholic television channel that has no hesitation in continually speaking ill of the pope,” said Francis. “I personally deserve attacks and insults because I am a sinner, but the Church does not deserve them. They are the work of the devil. I have also said this to some of them.”
The Jesuit-run magazine that provided the transcript of the meeting was echoed by Jesuit-run America Magazine which reported that Francis meant EWTN. America added that Francis rebuked an EWTN reporter on the papal flight to Iraq earlier that year:
On that occasion, when the pope reached EWTN’s reporter and cameraman, one of them told him they were praying for him. He responded that maybe Mother Angelica, EWTN’s founder, is in heaven praying for him, but that they—referring to the entire network—“should stop speaking badly about me.”
He used the Italian word sparlare, which means “to bad mouth,” “to say nasty things” or “to speak ill of.”
America’s Vatican correspondent was on the papal flight and learned this immediately after the visit to Iraq.
Indeed, when questioned in-person by this correspondent as to why he had enacted restrictions on the traditional Mass, Francis briefly brushed off the question. “Read the motu proprio; everything is there for you,” he said in reference to Traditionis Custodes.
Despite his comments to Fr. Chia, it appears that – in practise – Francis’ response to “constructive” criticism is not as welcoming as he suggests.