Glad you cited St. Vincent of Lérins Commonitory--such a great Patristic work. This is a good-faith effort to challenge respectfully those who are not yet in communion with the Catholic Church. Especially for Dr. Cooper, who would make a wonderful Catholic. Those God-given charisms he does have--close reading of Scripture, erudition, and a glorious beard--would be best served to rebuilding the Catholic Chruch from the inside out. I pray for the conversion of Protestants because the Catholic Church desperately needs them.
I’d be interested in your opinion of the current pope. He does not seem, to me, to be particularly aligned with Catholic doctrine, given his willingness to bless homosexual marriage, albeit in a backhanded way.
Will need to give a fuller reply when I have longer to write, since this is very important. It may even turn into a follow-up post. But my short response is that it strikes me as odd to affirm the following three statements together:
1. The whole array of Catholic claims are reasonable and could well be true.
2. Through 2023 A.D., the Catholic Church did not doctrinally err on matters of faith or morals.
3. The Catholic Church has erred on matters of faith and morals now (or with Fiducia Supplicans, say, at the end of 2023).
It seems to me that once you've got (1) and (2), you're going to have a very, very strong presumption against (3). Particularly if you buy my Argument from Marvel Movies, that the only explanation for the coherence of the first nearly 2000 years is divine intervention. If we were capable of blowing it, we would have done it long ago. For this reason, I would encourage prospective Catholics to focus on (1) and (2).
It is, of course, entirely permissible to think that the current pope is falling down on the job and letting heresies flourish that he ought to be handling. This has happened before; Rome was far too lenient with the Montanists, for example, since they were less aggressively heretical in the West. Or again, Pope St. Marcellus I (elected 308 A.D.) was a very severe rigorist, and the heavy penances he imposed against those who lapsed during the persecutions caused much pain and consternation. If he had taken a gentler hand, perhaps many more souls would have been gathered back into the Church. One can think that Pope Francis is not living up to his call without thinking that this is an argument against his office. Famously, Paul rebuked Peter for his moral failing. Likewise, Jesus rebuked the Pharisees for being hypocrites, yet still commanded even His own disciples to diligently observe everything the Pharisees taught, because they sat "on the chair of Moses" (Matt 23).
I should add that as a matter of fact I'm not convinced that Pope Francis is as horrible as some would say. That said, as long as we're observing proper filial piety, Catholics are free to adopt a wide range of views about how well he's doing in his pontificate.
My question was not meant to question the papacy as a whole, or to seek confirmation of my criticism, but rather to understand how you view him. I agree with Carl Trueman’s assessment of Pope Francis: “…the present pope seems to be nothing more than a liberal Protestant in a white papal robe.” The church appears leaderless at the moment, and I believe that is one of the many reasons parishioners are moving away from Catholicism.
In that case, I think the most important thing to know about Pope Francis is that different strains of the media are interested in depicting him as either the arch-conservative homophobe or the liberal sell-out. The former I hear more from secular folks, the latter from religious ones. And I *have* heard both. I find that people only get fed one set of soundbites. Few conservative Protestants, for example, recall when he took a lot of flack for comparing gender ideology to an atomic bomb. He gets no credit for insisting that we call abortion murder. He seems to have deftly taken the wind out of the sails of the German bishops who were angling for a schism that would paint them as the enlightened progressives and Rome as the backward old guard.
I understand where Trueman is coming from, because I know there is also the stream of soundbites that make him sound like a flaming liberal. But I confess that it just doesn't land with me, and I think the reason is that I'm paying attention to ecclesial politics outside of the secular news cycle and conservative circles.
The best criticisms of the Holy Father have little to do with theology. If I were going to launch a scathing critique, I'd talk about Rupnik, the Principi case, Cardinal Burke's treatment, his seeming dislike for the U.S., his cardinal choices, and other matters pertaining to the temporal administration of the Church.
I got to have dinner with the papal theologian this summer, and his description of Francis after serving three different popes was, "He always sees the person in front of him." He's always pastorally concerned for their individual walk with the Lord. In many ways, that makes him well-suited to speak to those wounded by the Church, and those who feel they have no place in society. But it also means that he doesn't treat every sentence like it's going to be blasted across every media platform on the planet, which of course it will be.
The Holy Father has many strengths, some blind spots, and some weaknesses that make him unlikely to be the pope that draws the Protestants home en masse. But he doesn't rank among the infamous by any means, and anyone who says otherwise has clearly not read much Church history. He seems like a man who loves Jesus very much and happens to make a so-so pope.
Thank you for taking the time to provide such a detailed response. It gives me a better sense of the man and a reminder to be more skeptical about how media reports on people, especially a pope. I need to keep in mind both their bias, and my own. As a Catholic, I’ve felt as if the church has moved away from its core tenets and is drifting away from traditional dogma. But perhaps that comes from my desire to find a more conservative and traditional parish. I will spend some time looking inward. Thank you.
Glad you cited St. Vincent of Lérins Commonitory--such a great Patristic work. This is a good-faith effort to challenge respectfully those who are not yet in communion with the Catholic Church. Especially for Dr. Cooper, who would make a wonderful Catholic. Those God-given charisms he does have--close reading of Scripture, erudition, and a glorious beard--would be best served to rebuilding the Catholic Chruch from the inside out. I pray for the conversion of Protestants because the Catholic Church desperately needs them.
I’d be interested in your opinion of the current pope. He does not seem, to me, to be particularly aligned with Catholic doctrine, given his willingness to bless homosexual marriage, albeit in a backhanded way.
Yeah, here's another case of a Protestant intellectual being put off of Rome by that:
https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2024/12/why-i-am-not-catholic
I have come to be intrigued by this genre, as it followed Cooper's (which I read, as well) and Sanders' (which I kind of inspired her to write. lol) https://inparticular.substack.com/p/why-i-am-a-protestant
Saving this one to return to.
Will need to give a fuller reply when I have longer to write, since this is very important. It may even turn into a follow-up post. But my short response is that it strikes me as odd to affirm the following three statements together:
1. The whole array of Catholic claims are reasonable and could well be true.
2. Through 2023 A.D., the Catholic Church did not doctrinally err on matters of faith or morals.
3. The Catholic Church has erred on matters of faith and morals now (or with Fiducia Supplicans, say, at the end of 2023).
It seems to me that once you've got (1) and (2), you're going to have a very, very strong presumption against (3). Particularly if you buy my Argument from Marvel Movies, that the only explanation for the coherence of the first nearly 2000 years is divine intervention. If we were capable of blowing it, we would have done it long ago. For this reason, I would encourage prospective Catholics to focus on (1) and (2).
It is, of course, entirely permissible to think that the current pope is falling down on the job and letting heresies flourish that he ought to be handling. This has happened before; Rome was far too lenient with the Montanists, for example, since they were less aggressively heretical in the West. Or again, Pope St. Marcellus I (elected 308 A.D.) was a very severe rigorist, and the heavy penances he imposed against those who lapsed during the persecutions caused much pain and consternation. If he had taken a gentler hand, perhaps many more souls would have been gathered back into the Church. One can think that Pope Francis is not living up to his call without thinking that this is an argument against his office. Famously, Paul rebuked Peter for his moral failing. Likewise, Jesus rebuked the Pharisees for being hypocrites, yet still commanded even His own disciples to diligently observe everything the Pharisees taught, because they sat "on the chair of Moses" (Matt 23).
I should add that as a matter of fact I'm not convinced that Pope Francis is as horrible as some would say. That said, as long as we're observing proper filial piety, Catholics are free to adopt a wide range of views about how well he's doing in his pontificate.
My question was not meant to question the papacy as a whole, or to seek confirmation of my criticism, but rather to understand how you view him. I agree with Carl Trueman’s assessment of Pope Francis: “…the present pope seems to be nothing more than a liberal Protestant in a white papal robe.” The church appears leaderless at the moment, and I believe that is one of the many reasons parishioners are moving away from Catholicism.
In that case, I think the most important thing to know about Pope Francis is that different strains of the media are interested in depicting him as either the arch-conservative homophobe or the liberal sell-out. The former I hear more from secular folks, the latter from religious ones. And I *have* heard both. I find that people only get fed one set of soundbites. Few conservative Protestants, for example, recall when he took a lot of flack for comparing gender ideology to an atomic bomb. He gets no credit for insisting that we call abortion murder. He seems to have deftly taken the wind out of the sails of the German bishops who were angling for a schism that would paint them as the enlightened progressives and Rome as the backward old guard.
I understand where Trueman is coming from, because I know there is also the stream of soundbites that make him sound like a flaming liberal. But I confess that it just doesn't land with me, and I think the reason is that I'm paying attention to ecclesial politics outside of the secular news cycle and conservative circles.
The best criticisms of the Holy Father have little to do with theology. If I were going to launch a scathing critique, I'd talk about Rupnik, the Principi case, Cardinal Burke's treatment, his seeming dislike for the U.S., his cardinal choices, and other matters pertaining to the temporal administration of the Church.
I got to have dinner with the papal theologian this summer, and his description of Francis after serving three different popes was, "He always sees the person in front of him." He's always pastorally concerned for their individual walk with the Lord. In many ways, that makes him well-suited to speak to those wounded by the Church, and those who feel they have no place in society. But it also means that he doesn't treat every sentence like it's going to be blasted across every media platform on the planet, which of course it will be.
The Holy Father has many strengths, some blind spots, and some weaknesses that make him unlikely to be the pope that draws the Protestants home en masse. But he doesn't rank among the infamous by any means, and anyone who says otherwise has clearly not read much Church history. He seems like a man who loves Jesus very much and happens to make a so-so pope.
Thank you for taking the time to provide such a detailed response. It gives me a better sense of the man and a reminder to be more skeptical about how media reports on people, especially a pope. I need to keep in mind both their bias, and my own. As a Catholic, I’ve felt as if the church has moved away from its core tenets and is drifting away from traditional dogma. But perhaps that comes from my desire to find a more conservative and traditional parish. I will spend some time looking inward. Thank you.
Incredible response. The bod to Emo Philips’s legendary “Golden Gate Bridge” bit was the cherry on top.
*nod 💀