SUMMARY
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It’s not the latest game show. And it’s not fun at all.
Woodrow Wilson put it succinctly. “If you want to make enemies, try to change something.”
President Aquino, DBM Secretary Butch Abad, DSWD Secretary Rogelio Singson, and BIR Commissioner Kim Henares can attest to that. They are in good company.
No less than Pope Francis is experiencing the perils of being a reformer.
Time magazine’s Taboola called out media for printing “papal bull”. So much reportage about the Pontiff is misinterpreted, misquoted, and misleading.
The Pontiff has been at the receiving end of stinging derision and disparagement from his very own prelates. Are we surprised? Not at all.
Like any other institution, the Church has its dark chapter. Anyone who studied world history still remembers the Inquisition – ”An ecclesiastical tribunal established by Pope Gregory IX circa 1232 for the suppression of heresy – notorious for the use of torture.”
We’ve always known that the Church is not always holy.
The papal enclave elected Cardinal Archbishop Jorge Mario Bergoglio following the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI amid scandal and crisis. The moment he chose the papal name Francis after St Francis of Assisi, the conservatives knew he would be a game changer.
The name Francis is a first. He was the first Jesuit pope, the first from the Americas and the Southern Hemisphere. The first non-European pope in 1,272 years – since the Syrian Gregory III in 741.
At his first media interview, the Pope praised St Francis of Assisi: “The man who gives us this spirit of peace, the poor man.” He added, “How I would like a poor Church, and for the poor.”
Alarm bells must have clanged in the hearts of the conservatives.
Pope Francis is known for humility, concern for the poor and commitment to dialogue as a way to build bridges between people of all backgrounds, beliefs, and faiths.
He chose to reside in the Domus Sanctae Marthae guesthouse, nixing the posh papal apartments used by his predecessors. He refused the traditional papal mozetta cape opting for simpler vestments devoid of ornamentation. He chose silver rather than a gold piscatory ring and kept the same cross he wore as a cardinal.
Pope Francis had “common touch and accessibility,” riding the bus instead of the papal car, chatting with the flock. But as the prefect of the Papal Household and live-in secretary of retired Pope Benedict XVI declared, “Pope Francis is not everybody’s darling.”
Fra Enzo Bianchi, the Italian founder and prior of the Monastery of Bose, wrote a column in La Stampa, a Turin daily, about an anonymous bishop who demeaned Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium: il testo ci interoga. The 300-page volume with essays from 19 professors of the Jesuit-run university, was dismissed with disdain. The unnamed bishop snorted, “a campesino, or simple peasant, could have written it.”
On the other hand, Manila Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle said, “The Asian Church feels very much supported by the apostolic exhortation…especially because it insists that evangelization must be done through dialogue.”
In the US, Providence Bishop Thomas Tobin criticized how the Pontiff handled the Synod on the Family because of the statement that welcomed homosexuals and divorcees. “Pope Francis is fond of ‘creating a mess.’ Mission accomplished,” the conservative bishop ranted in his weekly column.
Then he praised US Cardinal Raymond Burke, the Pope’s most vocal critic in the Roman Curia.
Fra Enzo commented, “There are ‘enemies of the Pope,’ that don’t stop at criticizing him with respect, as happened with Benedict XVI and John Paul II, but who go as far as to denigrate him.”
He wryly predicted that the document will be understood by even the poor and simple Christians. And traditional minded Catholics – including priests and bishops – will comprehend it perfectly. But they will not like it.
Those who expect moments of change to be comfortable and free of conflict, have not learned their history. – Joan Wallach Scott
Next, media reported that the Pontiff supports the theory of evolution. When he spoke at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, on “Evolving Topics of Nature,” he affirmed what Catholic teaching has been for decades. “God is not a divine being or a magician, but the Creator who brought everything to life. Evolution in nature is not inconsistent with the notion of creation, because evolution requires the creation of beings that evolve.”
Headlines blared – NPR: “Pope Says God Not ‘A Magician, With A Magic Wand”; Salon: “Pope Francis schools creationists”; US News and World Report: “Pope Francis Backs the Big Bang Theory, Evolution” (Subhead: “Also, the pontiff says he’s not a communist”); New Republic: “The Pope Has More Faith Than the GOP in Science”; Washington Post: “Pope Francis may believe in evolution, but 42 percent of Americans do not.”
NBC News called the Pope’s statement “a theological break from his predecessor Benedict XVI, a strong exponent of creationism.”
It seems like the phenomenon is universal. Media prosper on real, imagined or fabricated conflict and rivalry, blown up to the max. Pitting Pope Francis against Pope Benedict is as old as Elvis Presley vs. Pat Boone.
All those with a mission to reform should be inspired by the Holy Father, who remains serene, secure and impregnable in the face of adversity.
He must have taken to heart the wisdom of Joan Wallach Scott. Those who expect moments of change to be comfortable and free of conflict, have not learned their history. Not this Pope. – Rappler.com
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