The Papal Bossa Nova

I wasn't particularly moved by the big crowds that cheered you in Rio, Francis, or by the babies you kissed--after all, John Paul II was as popular as a rock star and kissed plenty of third-world babies while telling their mothers that using condoms was a sin.

The dancing bishops did make me smile--they reminded me of those end-of-the-school-year shows put on by first-graders:  http://youmedia.fanpage.it/video/aa/UfUh9eSwJ9iQ7Zxv

But then came the extraordinary press conference on the plane back to Rome, when you said about gay priests, "If they accept the Lord and have goodwill, who am I to judge them?"

That statement is being deconstructed all over the planet.  Fundamentalists of all denominations will see it as an open door to the kind of relativism that leads souls straight to hell.  Liberals, on the other hand, claim that you didn't go far enough.  You didn't declare yourself in favor of gay marriage.  You didn't contradict your predecessor's decrees about the inherent sinfulness of homosexuality.

You didn't go far enough for me either.  But the humble tone of that "who am I to judge?" was so unexpected, so revolutionary, that it makes me think you might just manage to keep the Church from going down the tubes.

Then you went and said that John Paul II had once and for all closed the doors of the priesthood to women.

You softened that by saying that we do not yet have a deep theology of woman in the Church.  I'm not sure what that means, but it implies that the theology of woman would be different from the theology of man, and I am suspicious of that.  I know that men and women are different, but the emphasis on those differences, as opposed to the emphasis on their common humanity, has seldom worked to women's advantage.  And in the long history of the Church the almost exclusive focus on difference has been disastrous.
You also said that you seek a greater role for women in the Church.  But no matter what else you allow them, as long as women are barred from ordination they will continue to be second-class citizens.

One step forward, two steps back--but this is no time for dancing, Francisco.   It's time to march directly towards what is right.

Dear Pope Francis, It's Me Again

I thought you might like to know my opinion of your papacy so far.

It's terrific that you've given up wearing those specially-made red shoes and living in the papal palace, and that you sometimes ride around in an old Fiat.  I like it that you talk about the poor a lot and are not afraid to tell the rich what you think of some of their tactics.  My mother would be happy that you agree with her that wasting food is immoral
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But why you canonized John Paul II is beyond me.  He may have been instrumental in the downfall of Communism, but despite his cuddly media image he was cruelly conservative, preaching against birth control to women in third-world countries and condemning the use of condoms in the midst of the AIDS epidemic.

On the other hand, I approve of your making good Pope John XXIII a saint, and dispensing with the miracle requirement.  His revolutionary papacy was miracle enough for me.  He's beaming down on you from heaven and whispering advice in your ear.  Listen to him.

So on the whole it's been an encouraging beginning, a B-, I would say.

But now you have to do something for women.

You could put some nuns in charge of something in the Vatican--and not just of making sausages, as John Paul II did.  Despite how much they scared us in grammar school, nuns are about the only sector of the Church that still commands respect.  Give them some big, visible jobs to do.  They'll be terrific.

You could remove the penis as a prerequisite for the priesthood.  It doesn't seem to help make priests more Christ-like, does it?  And the seminaries are almost empty.

You say you have compassion for the poor, but who are most of the world's poor, if not women?  And what, more than too-large families, keeps women poor?  You could transform the lives of millions--and do a big favor for the planet, which you also say you care about--by lifting the Church's proscription on birth control.

 Francisco, haz algo para las mujeres!  We've been waiting for two thousand years.

Dear Pope Francis...

I had not held out much hope for the election results, but for about five minutes after the announcement that you would be the new pope I felt a surge of optimism.  I liked it that you had named yourself after everybody's favorite saint, who despised the trappings of wealth and authority and got down to bare essentials.  I liked hearing about the small Buenos Aires apartment which you chose over the episcopal palace and where you cooked your own meals.  I could just see you riding the bus to work so you could give to the poor the money you saved by leaving the limo in the garage.  And I liked it that you are a Jesuit, which supposedly means that you know how to use your mind.

But with the second wave of news reports, my optimism faded.  I am willing to suspend judgment on your supposed silence during the military dictatorship in your country.  It can take a long time after such periods to decipher who did or did not do what to whom.  But I cannot get past your opposition to the legalization of gay marriage, nor your opposition to Argentina's president, Cristina Fernandez Kirchner, on the grounds that ”women are naturally helpless to exercise political positions....The natural order and the facts show us that man is the being for politics by excellence; the Scriptures show us that the woman is always the support of the thoughtful man and doer, but nothing more than that.”  http://nbclatino.com/2013/03/14/pope-francis-and-argentinas-kirchner-have-battled-in-past

Above all, I cannot stomach your supposed compassion for the poor on the one hand and your opposition to birth control on the other.  The poor have a lot of needs:  for food, housing, education, honorable work.  But one thing they do not need more of is children.

Can you not see that the Church's traditional prohibition against contraception is a remnant from a time when the survival of the species necessitated every woman to give birth as many times as her body could bear?  How can you not realize that in this century the very reverse is true, that the welfare of humanity and of the planet hinges on people having fewer babies?  What do you suppose Christ would say to the desperate mothers and their starving infants if He were walking around the slums of Lima and Port Au Prince these days?

The birth control prohibition, back when it had very personal implications for me, caused me to leave the Church.  I had been brought up too strictly to embrace cafeteria Catholicism, the kind that says "I'll use contraceptives but still go to Communion when I feel like it."

I've been trying to find a way back ever since.  I've been looking for a chink, no matter how small, that would let me squeeze back into the cloister.  But from what I can see so far, Francis, the stone wall is thicker than ever, and all the chinks freshly mortared.