Is the Pope Catholic?

(This article, by Tom Carney, appeared in the Des Moines Sunday Register on March 30.)

Diego Neria was born female but had a sex-change operation eight years ago.

He was raised a devout Catholic, but many people in his parish scorned him after the operation, according to CNN News. After heated discussions with a parish priest and some others in his hometown of Plasencia, Spain, he started staying away from Mass.

“I’ve never lost faith, ever,” Neria says. “But the other thing is the rejection.”

So, with the help of his bishop, he wrote to Pope Francis last year and, says Neria, Francis telephoned him twice. Then came an invitation to visit the pope, which Neria says occurred on Jan. 24 at the papal residence.

The Vatican and the bishop have declined comment, but Neria in an interview about the visit says of Pope Francis: “This man loves the whole world. I think there’s not, in his head, in his way of thinking, discrimination against anyone. I’m speaking about him, not the institution. …But if this Pope has a long life, which all of his followers hope, I think things will change.”

I think so, too, but I believe these public “gestures” of Pope Francis already have great significance. I realize that for many, however, they may bring to mind the phrase, “Is the Pope Catholic?” It is often used as a joking response to a statement that is patently obvious, as in, “Will Democrats and Republicans fight in this Congress?” The answer, “Is the Pope Catholic?”

For many, however, the phrase is not a joke. Some Catholics worry that the Pope may not be sufficiently orthodox, or that he is confusing the faithful with gestures of good will toward people like gays, transgender people and unbelievers. Some other Catholics and non-Catholics may think the gestures are merely that, that underneath all the popularity and publicity, it’s all meaningless and Francis really represents “business as usual” for the Catholic Church.

First, about the concerns of some Catholics who doubt Francis’ orthodoxy. Besides his positive remarks and practices toward gays and transgender people – including his well-publicized rhetorical question, “Who am I to judge?” – many don’t like his attitude toward non-believers, such as when he told non-Catholic and atheist journalists he would “bless them silently out of respect.”

And some were upset that ignoring Vatican practice, he included women in a foot-washing ceremony. Others didn’t like his urging Catholics to place issues such as abortion and contraception “in context,” and focus on Gospel basics, or his remarks that Catholics don’t have to breed “like rabbits.”

Others dislike, some intensely, his criticism of our “economy of exclusion,” which he says results in growing inequality. “This imbalance is the result of ideologies which defend the absolute autonomy of the marketplace and financial speculation,” he wrote. Still others are disturbed by remarks such as he recently made in a speech to cardinals at the Vatican, as quoted in the National Catholic Reporter. He urged these “princes of the Church” to “serve Jesus crucified in every person who is marginalized,” seeing “the Lord present even in those who have lost their faith, or turned away from the practice of their faith, or who have declared themselves to be atheists.”

Francis, like the father in Jesus’ story of the Prodigal Son, seems much more interested in the profligate sons and daughters than in the faithful sons and daughters who obediently and consistently obey their father. And like the elder son in the gospel story, many of those faithful sons and daughters seem to resent it.

Then there are those, inside and outside the church, who have already written Francis off as a wolf in sheep’s clothing, saying things and doing things that attract attention and positive publicity but not really intending to reform the church in the manner they wish.

In my opinion, they have to remember that Francis is a pope, and one of his duties is to maintain the “deposit of faith” – to teach, as faithfully as possible, what Jesus taught. Granted, there is a difference of opinion about what Jesus taught as well as what he intended. And the church, which is not known for acting in haste, must continually seek in the Christian bible as well as in the church’s “tradition” and among its contemporary members, the most accurate and relevant interpretation of its leader’s life and teaching.

Besides the difference of opinion about Jesus’ teaching, of course, many people don’t count themselves among his followers. And a few are indifferent or hostile toward Jesus and institutions claiming to follow him. Pope Francis appears to have no problem with that.

What is certain is that whether you’re a Catholic or non-Catholic critic, it’s hard to argue rationally that Francis is not Catholic. He may be different from other popes of our lifetimes, and we may be ill informed or have forgotten about what it is to be Catholic, but what he says and does is genuinely, authentically and in my view, happily Catholic.

I think the likes of Diego Neria would agree.