POPE FRANCIS CONFUSES AND CONFOUNDS BECAUSE HIS AMBIGUITIES GO BEYOND CONSERVATIIVE/LIBERAL, ORTHODOX/HETERODOX CATEGORIES. JUST AS THERE IS A POST-CHRISTIAN THRUST TODAY, FRANCIS HAS A POST-VATICAN II THRUST!

Pope Francis visits the Aula with all the delegates, and posing with Pope Francis are Superior General Arturo Sosa, and Orlando Torres. [Credit: Image courtesy of the Society of Jesus.]

Crux has an interview with the closest collaborator of Pope Francis, Fr. Joseph Sparado. It is very telling and quite frankly captures the anxiety that both progressive and conservative Catholics have in Pope Francis post' Vatican II ethos. You can read the interview in its entirety HERE.

Below my comments here, I post snippets of that interview. On one hand Pope Francis appreciates what Pope Paul VI try to do with the Jesuits in the 1970's when they along with most male and female religious orders lost their identity, lost members, lost vocations and were on the road to extinction because of it. One would think this would resonate with more traditional Catholics that Pope Francis did not see the manner of renewal of religious orders and by extension, of the Church of the 1970's which led to a loss of identity of not only religious orders, but of the Church in general, which has seen an unimaginable decline in membership due to that loss of Catholic identity.

Yet, Pope Francis' "post Vatican II" emphasis (and I use post as one would understand "post-Christian") seems to many to be the same old that leads to the same old loss of Catholic identity. Just ask the four cardinals that have pushed Pope Francis against the wall and the bishops who support them, not to mention rank and file clergy and laity.

Pope Francis acknowledges the polarization in the Catholic Church as well as in the world of politics. I am not sure though, that His Holiness acknowledges that he is the source of this recovery of confusion in Catholicism which his two immediate predecessors worked so hard to remediate, one of whom is still living and surely must feel the sting of this movement backwards.

As I mention in my previous post, the greatest problem with those who are anxious about Pope Francis approach him with the logic of deductive reasoning whereas Pope Francis has abandoned those kind of reasoning for deductive reasoning. What strikes me about this is that inductive reasoning is more feminine than deductive reasoning which is masculine and ties into His Holiness' concern about legalism and rigidity which tend to be more masculine characteristics than feminine.

In fact the Vatican II Liturgy is more feminine in this regard (flexible, not regimented or prone to a scrupulosity of rubric fidelity) as is the Extraordinary Form of the Mass.

Here are the money quotes from Fr. Sparado who surely has inside knowledge of the mind of Pope Francis who is tenacious in bringing the Church into a post-Vatican II existence. He acknowledges though, that there is anxiety in the Jesuits about the next pope who can be as vicious as Pope Francis in breaking with his predecessor:

The Society of Jesus is right now called to take part in a reform of the Church that in some ways goes beyond what we are used to. We have long thought of ourselves as being out in front, in the trenches and at the crossroads. But now one of our own is pope, and the frontier has shifted in an unexpected direction, so that we are no longer “conservative” or “progressive,” liberal or traditional.

As an Argentine provincial, Bergoglio attended the historic GC-32 in 1974-75, and eight years later, when he was rector of the Colegio Máximo, he was present at GC-33.

The period between these two general congregations was the Society’s most turbulent in modern times: as you say, a time of a fall in vocations in the midst of deep disagreements over the way of understanding and living the issue of justice in the mission of the Society.

The most critical moment came with the intervention in the Society by St. John Paul II in 1981 after the then General, Father Pedro Arrupe, suffered a stroke. In his place the pope placed a vicar-general to govern the Society for a time prior to calling a General Congregation to elect his successor. Fr Paolo Dezza - later made a cardinal - governed the Society as a pontifical delegate for two years.

On December 3, 1974 Paul VI addressed GC-32 with a speech which Bergoglio deeply appreciated. The speech revealed both his love for the Society as well as his anxiety that it was diluting its identity and mission. The underlying risk he perceived was that of falling into ideology.

So it was no surprise, in a way, that Francis gave the delegates at this GC a book bringing together the texts of the speeches Paul VI addressed to the Society in 1974-5. In fact the book the pope gave us included a copy of a note in Francis’s handwriting, dated 8 December 2015, which reads: “We should be grateful to Paul VI who loved, did, prayed, and suffered so much for the Society of Jesus. Francis.”

In the light of this history, I’d say, in sum, that Francis has opened up a new space for fidelity between the papacy and the Society.

In his Q&A with the congregation delegates which you published yesterday at La Civiltà Cattolicà, Francis expressed his deep concern at casuistry and rigidity in a number of seminaries, contrasting these with discernment, at the heart of Ignatian spirituality but also, he says, of the “great scholasticism” of St. Thomas of Aquinas. And he repeated the invitation he made to the Jesuits in Poland to teach spiritual discernment in seminaries. Did you, in your discussions in Rome, discuss how that could be done? Will you be writing to seminary rectors to offer to teach St. Ignatius’s rules for discerning spirits? 

Certainly the congregation delegates reflected on the importance of discernment, both in the discussion about the governance of the Society and in the drawing-up of the document relating to it. But I think the Society, prodded by Francis,  is also recognizing that this is also a mission. Discernment is at the heart of Jesuit spirituality, but we need to realize that nowadays we are being called not only to live it but also to teach it, specially in places of formation such as seminaries.

The pope is asking us to form priests in the discernment of spirits, because this will help people in their concrete situations.  In life not everything is black and white; mostly the shades are gray. We are being called to teach how to discern within the gray. 

The reform of the Church for Francis rests on two pillars: discernment and mercy. The Society is called to take part in this process of reform putting their spiritual goods at the disposal of the Church. We haven’t yet discussed how to do this, but I’m sure that this will be discussed by the individual provinces and by the regional conferences.