In the earlier words in this statement, Pope Francis sounds to me like another cultural warrior, even though he does not single out legalized abortion in the first trimester or artificial contraception or same-sex marriage. Instead, he says, "I want us to defend ourselves against worldliness, comfort, being closed and turned in."
Before Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio was elected pope, he reportedly gave an impassioned speech to his fellow cardinal-electors in which he sounded the theme that the church should not be closed in on itself. Thus what he said to the young people in
But what, exactly, does Pope Francis have in mind for practicing Catholics to do to "defend [themselves] against all that is worldliness, comfort, being closed and turned in"?
For example, does he really think that very many American Catholics will undertake to defend themselves against creature comforts -- as though they had also taken a Jesuit vow of poverty? Come on.
Frankly, these sound like the aspirations of practicing Catholics who might join a religious order -- as Jorge Bergoglio himself did as a young man, and as I myself did at one time in my life. (Disclosure: For a number of years in my life, I was a member of the Jesuit order, the same order that Bergoglio belonged to. However, for many years now, I have not been a practicing Catholic. Nevertheless, from my experience in the Jesuits, I can tell you that much of what Pope Francis says in his recent Apostolic Exhortation is Jesuit spirituality writ large, so to speak.)
DIGRESSION: For an accessible introduction to Jesuit spirituality, see The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything: A Spirituality for Real Life by James Martin, S.J. (2010). For a more advanced discussion of Jesuit spirituality, see The Way to Love: Meditations for Life by Anthony de Mello, S.J. (2012). END OF DIGRESSION.
When Cardinal Bergoglio spoke to his fellow cardinals of the need for the church not to close in on itself, he may have meant that practicing Catholics such as Carroll are devoting too much time and energy in intramural quarrels and that they need to turn their attention to larger issues outside the church. (Like Fr. Hans Kung, Carroll has a laundry list of changes in the church that he would like to see occur. But he discusses only a few of them in the profile in the New Yorker.)
If I am correct in suggesting that Pope Francis is a cultural warrior, as all Jesuits are, then Carroll and the rest of us will have to wait and see how he tries to lead Catholics in their ongoing cultural wars against unfettered capitalism, secularism, and relativism.
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