POPE FRANCIS AND HIS EVALUATION OF THE TWO EXTREMES IN THE CHURCH TODAY: THE TRENDIES AND TRADIES

Each Wednesday, we have a church supper (inculturation, since our Protestant brothers and sisters have done this for generations). It begins with Evening Prayer (abbreviated) and Benediction of the Most Blessed Sacrament at 5:30 followed by dinner at 5:45 and then adult formation at 6:30 (there is also a youth program) and everything concluding by 7:30 PM, my bedtime.

I've begun a five week series on Pope Francis' recent Apostolic Exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel). I had my second session on Chapter II last night. Presenting this has helped me to enter into what the Pope is saying as I try to explain it to those present and elicit questions and discussion.

Thus I was happy to see that Father Dwight Longenecker has a very good article,"Trendies and Tradies" in the National Catholic Register (a newspaper that deserves to have Catholic in its title). For what he describes in the article is certainly true in terms of Pope Francis challenging the Church to authentic renewal that brings unity to the Church and not division. You can read the complete article by pressing these sentences. I will present a few cogent excerpts below:

[Pope Francis] scolding, but his comments are also scalding. If we listen carefully, we’ll realize that the smiling "peoples’ pope" has some harsh criticism for a whole range of people — including Catholics. His words are blunt, and we’re beginning to realize that they don’t call him "Pope Frank" for nothing!

...Then he goes on to assess problems in the Church. He says "No" to spiritual sloth and "Yes" to a vibrant missionary mentality. He says "No" to a sterile pessimism and "Yes" to new relationships in Christ. Then, in the midst of a rich exhortation that bears detailed study, the Pope makes a very astute analysis of what he calls "spiritual worldliness" — a religion that looks perfectly fine on the outside but is rotten on the inside.

He says, "This worldliness can be fueled in two deeply interrelated ways. One is the attraction of gnosticism, a purely subjective faith whose only interest is a certain experience or a set of ideologies and bits of information which are meant to console and enlighten, but which ultimately keep one imprisoned in his or her own thoughts and feelings."

Gnosticism was a heresy in the early Church that was free-ranging, amorphous and difficult to define. This was because it was based in subjective feelings, personal revelation and individualistic interpretations of the truth. Gnosticism was notoriously shaky on an orthodox understanding of the Incarnation. Some gnostics got caught up in what we would recognize as New Age-type beliefs, while others turned the faith into a bland, humanistic self-help religion. 

This sounds like the "trendies" to me — Catholics who are caught up in subjective New Age spiritualities combined with politicized agendas. These modern Catholics are only concerned about worldly power, and they believe the mission of the Church is no more than to make the world a better place.

The Pope describes them saying, "This spiritual worldliness lurks behind a fascination with social and political gain or pride in their ability to manage practical affairs or an obsession with programs of self-help and self-realization. It can also translate into a concern to be seen, into a social life full of appearances, meetings, dinners and receptions." 

If Pope Francis criticizes the "trendies" for their subjective worldliness, he also criticizes the "traddies" with some astoundingly erudite nomenclature. He says, "The other [form of spiritual worldliness] is the self-absorbed promethean neo-pelagianism of those who ultimately trust only in their own powers and feel superior to others because they observe certain rules or remain intransigently faithful to a particular Catholic style from the past. A supposed soundness of doctrine or discipline leads instead to a narcissistic and authoritarian elitism, whereby, instead of evangelizing, one analyzes and classifies others, and instead of opening the door to grace, one exhausts his or her energies in inspecting and verifying."

What on earth is "promethean neo-pelagianism"? Prometheus was the Greek god who, by individual genius and effort, raised humanity by stealing fire. The translators have chosen this word to express the Pope’s vision of self-absorbed Catholics who thinks they know it all and have it all worked out. And Pelagius was the heretic who taught that humans could earn their own salvation.

We can’t help but see radical traditionalists as the Pope’s target. He pinpoints their "supposed soundness of doctrine or discipline" and their intransigent allegiance to traditional worship. He also dashes their judgmental attitudes that end up as a "narcissistic and authoritarian elitism" and assesses their self-defined and determined form of Catholicism as neo-pelagianism.

Pope Francis quite rightly sees that neither the "trendies" nor the "traddies" will be able to evangelize effectively. In harsh and blunt criticism rarely seen in papal documents, he says, "In neither case is one really concerned about Jesus Christ or others. These are manifestations of an anthropocentric immanentism." By "anthropocentric immanentism," he means the idea of God being centered in human activity and ideas that mimic true religion. He goes on to state, "It is impossible to think that a genuine evangelizing thrust could emerge from these adulterated forms of Christianity."

As Jesus turned over the tables in the Temple, so Francis turns over those who have set places, established agendas and organized power structures in the Church. As Jesus undermined the Zealots and the Sadducees — who turned the Jewish religion into a humanistic political campaign or a social club, so Francis criticizes Catholics for their shallow spirituality, political agenda and social maneuverings. As Jesus condemned the Pharisees for their narrow-minded legalistic traditionalism, so Francis pulls the rug from under the Catholics who fall into narcissistic and authoritarian elitism.

...His fresh approach cuts through all our expectations and categories. He shifts paradigms, moves us from our comfort zone and demands that we consider our faith from a new perspective — a perspective that is also as ancient, disturbing and table-turning as the Gospel itself.

MY FINAL COMMENTS: Thus far in this papacy, the ones who seem to be the most discomforted by what Pope Francis is teaching and doing are the radical traditionalists, the "Tradies." Pope Francis is moving them from their "comfort zones." And they are not going without a fight and a lot of screaming. They get it and don't like it. Time will tell just how Catholic this group is or isn't.

But the "Trendies" don't seem to get what Pope Francis is saying and doing and that his challenging words are also directed to them. They are in denial. They are the ones who have made the priesthood and religious life so worldly and secular. They try to spin the pope in their worldly ways by thinking he will ordain women, change the definition of marriage in terms of gender and permanence, allow for artificial contraception and other technical advances in terms of creating life and devolve the liturgy into the happy clappy status it developed in the 1970's. He would never say Mass ad orientem or entirely in Latin. And certainly he wouldn't maintain the pre-Vatican II altar arrangement.  

Somewhere in the middle are the good folks of Christ who get it and try to live their Catholic faith at Church, home, work and play and where they find themselves. They are NOT culture warriors against the Church and her Magisterium as though they have an inside knowledge about what the Church should become disconnected or in discontinuity with what preceded the Second Vatican Council. They are faithful to Christ and His Church and the Holy Father!