Pope Francis And The Shadow Magisterium

By JAMES K. FITZPATRICK

I continue to get letters from readers unhappy with what they see as Pope Francis’ left-wing biases. Some of these critics strike me as over-the-top, but not all. Some deserve to be taken seriously. My response to the charges of the latter group is to not jump the gun, to not assume that the Pope is going to make some major change in the Church’s teachings on issues such as same-sex marriage, when the Pope’s instruction is likely to be far more nuanced.
But I will concede this point: There are those on the left, both within and outside the Church, who are seizing the moment of Pope Francis’ popularity and what they see as his left-leaning outlook to coax the Church away from established doctrine. I don’t know how susceptible the Pope will be to this “charm offensive,” but it is important to recognize that it is going on.
There is another angle to consider, even if one is confident, as I am, that the Pope will not be sweet-talked into changing the Church’s teaching on matters of faith and morals. I have in mind the role of the “shadow Magisterium.” By that I mean those in the Church who will push during this time of enthusiasm for Pope Francis for the changes in doctrine that they want, whether or not Rome is calling for the changes. Such a strategy can work.
Think back to the way the “spirit of Vatican II” was used to advance an agenda never advocated at the Second Vatican Council. It amazes me to this day when I read analysts of Vatican II who document that the council never called for the Latin Mass to be phased out and Communion in the hand to be made the norm. We should be on guard for what will be pushed in the name of “Pope Francis’ friendlier Church.”
Consider, for example, a May 15 article in The New York Times entitled “Pope Francis and the Art of Joy” by Pulitzer Prize-winning author and regular Times columnist Timothy Egan. Egan calls Pope Francis “perhaps the most radiant, powerful, and humane figure on the global stage.” (There’s the schmoozing.) He believes that Francis’ encyclical on the environment will put him “directly at odds with the Republican leadership, and the Koch brothers.” (There’s the maneuvering.)
Egan is pleased that Francis appears to be distancing himself from the position on homosexuality taken by Pope Benedict XVI, who, writes Egan, “once signed a letter saying homosexuality was ‘an objective disorder.’ This Pope would rather focus on the millions of poor clinging to a thin lifeline than talk about people’s sex lives.” Egan praises Francis for rejecting the Vatican’s “trappings of power and empire,” preferring to project a “sense that he’s an average man who’s in on the joke”; he applauds Francis’ now-famous “Who am I to judge” quip to reporters in Brazil about those with same-sex attractions. Egan notes the comfort he takes in Francis’ comments to reporters last year about his “secret to happiness.” According to Egan, the Pope said, “Slow down. Take time off. Live and let live, don’t proselytize.”
I submit that Egan is giving us a clue to what the “shadow Magisterium” will be preaching in the coming years, sometimes from the pulpit, but more often in university classes and in liberal Catholic journals of opinion. For starters, think about what Egan is calling for regarding homosexuality. If the Church does not define homosexuality as an “objective disorder,” what term does Egan prefer that it use? A “deviant” behavior? An “abnormal” behavior? A “perverted” sexual longing?
Obviously that is not what Egan wants. But the Church uses the term “disordered” to make clear that it recognizes that homosexual longings may not be a free choice and that there is no reason to assume that an individual beset with same-sex longings is guilty of sin; that it is only when that individual engages in sexual activity that the question of immorality arises.
Egan fails to mention that in his Brazil statement Francis reiterated the Church’s teaching that, while a homosexual disposition is not in itself immoral, homosexual acts are objectively sinful. And that his “Who am I to judge?” statement applies to individuals who “were trying to live their lives in accordance with God’s will.” All that makes a difference.
Is Egan saying then that if it is wrong to think of homosexual attractions as a disorder, that they are a free choice? Not a chance. That is heresy on the secular left. But here’s the problem: If those attractions are not a disorder, or the result of free choice, how are we to think of them? We know what the answer from the homosexual lobby would be. They will tell us that in the “friendlier Church of Pope Francis” homosexuality will no longer be seen as either a disorder or a free choice, but as an alternate form of sexuality, “deviant” only to the extent that being left-handed or a redhead deviates from the norm.
In other words, what the homosexual lobby will be calling for is an admission from the Church that it has been in error on this matter since the time of Christ. Quite a demand. Especially when one considers that the shadow Magisterium will be attempting to draft Pope Francis, whether he agrees or not, into making the case.
In addition, we will be told by the shadow Magisterium that the “trappings of empire” that gave us the notion of the infallibility of the Popes can now be disregarded, since they have not been taken seriously by enlightened Catholics, like Francis, who are “in on the joke.” It will not matter that Pope Francis means no such thing.
The shadow Magisterium will jump upon Pope Francis’ call to “live and let live” and “not proselytize,” not as a version of Jesus’ injunction to “not to cast the first stone,” but as a push for the moral relativism ascendant in the modern secular world. But, sorry, there is no moral relativism in Jesus’ warning to the men about to stone the woman “taken in sin.” After rebuking them, he told the woman not to “do your own thing,” but to “go and sin no more.”
And watch: The case for moral relativism will be made by people who are as judgmental as all get-out about “homophobes” and “climate change deniers.” Judgmental here, nonjudgmental there. The politically correct have learned that they can get away with the double-standard. We’ll see if they do this time around.