Duluth, Minnesota (OpEdNews) January 25, 2022: In my OEN article "Austen Ivereigh on Pope Francis and Dialogue" (dated January 22, 2022), I reflected on the British journalist Dr. Austen Ivereigh's account of the Argentine Jesuit Father Jorge Mario Bergoglio's 1992 essay "Some Reflections on the Subject of Corruption." In March 2013, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio became Pope Francis, the first Jesuit pope.
For my OEN article, see Click Here
For Ivereigh's article, see Click Here
By corruption in the context of religious dialogue among co-religionists, Father Bergoglio means spiritual and moral corruption of certain persons that can be attributed to their embrace of a corrosive ideology.
Now, Father Bergoglio's important point is that there is no point for co-religionists to try to engage in religious dialogue with their fellows whose ideological corruption is so pervasive that it over-rides the religious convictions that they publicly claim to embrace. Put differently, religious dialogue is possible only among co-religionists whose religious convictions have not been compromised by their ideological corruption.
For examples of such ideological corruption among American Catholics, see Massimo Borghesi's new 2021 book Catholic Discordance: Neoconservatism vs. the Field Hospital Church of Pope Francis, translated by Barry Hudock (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press Academic).
Also see my 3,500-word OEN article "Massimo Borghesi's New Book Catholic Discordance" (dated January 5, 2022):
Now, for the sake of discussion, let us consider that what Father Bergoglio refers to as corruption may extend beyond the scope of co-religionists - to wit, that some people succumb to what he refers to as corruption because of their strong embrace of their understanding of a certain ideology over-rides possibly engaging in dialogue with them about some issues such as abortion.
But what if there is not just one such ideology whose embrace can lead to corruption along the non-dialoguing lines that Father Bergoglio describes? For example, what if there are at least two bipolar ideologies whose embrace can lead to corruption. For the sake of discussion, let us consider the two bipolar ideologies involved in the debate about legalized abortion in the United States: (1) the pro-abortion ideology and (2) the anti-abortion ideology. Both of these bipolar ideologies tend to attract culture warriors.
Now, the American historian Garry Wills has cogently argued that "Abortion Isn't a Religious Issue" in the Los Angeles Times (dated November 4, 2007):
However, many religionists embrace the anti-abortion position. Among American Catholics, certain culture warriors have embraced the anti-abortion position so strongly that they are opposed to the doctrinally conservative Pope Francis, at least in part, because he does not advocate their culture warrior stance. But the example of the doctrinally conservative Pope Francis not advocating and not taking their culture warrior stance shows that one can be opposed to abortion on demand but still not be a culture warrior.
For my profile of the doctrinally conservative Pope Francis, see my OEN article "Pope Francis on Evil and Satan" (dated March 24, 2019):
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