Cardinal George has some questions for Pope Francis

Last updated on: December 28, 2014 at 7:46 pm by Mark Shea

Cardinal George has some questions for Pope Francis 2014-12-28T19:46:38-07:00 Mark Shea

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Very reasonable ones, it seems to me, and I’d love to be a fly on the wall at that conversation.

One reader informs me that I divide the whole discussion of this papacy into Francis-hating Reactionaries vs. All is Well.

Nope. There are perfectly legitimate things to wonder about with this pope as with any pope. The problem is that, in St. Blog’s, most people are wondering. They are convinced they Know. The “questions” they ask are typically veiled accusations, not requests for information. They ask questions, not to find things out, but to keep from finding things out: “Why does Francis keep assisting the enemies of the faith in the destruction of the Church? I think we know why!” Heck not a few of them no longer bother couch things as pseudo-question. As one of the many lunatics freaking out about Francis remarked the other day, “We have five years before we lose the Mass.”

George demonstrates what it looks like to ask questions in order to find things out. He does not proceed from the assumption that the mission is to gather evidence in a heresy trial or, worse still, from the conviction that a guilty verdict has now been obtained and that we are merely in the process of gather firewood for the auto-de-fe. He talks as though Francis might actually have something to teach us.

Speaking of which, Ramesh Ponnuru asks a very reasonable question:

Ramesh PonnuruVerified account‏@RameshPonnuru

Tell me again why traditionalists are supposed to oppose this guy? http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2014/11/17/full-text-pope-franciss-opening-address-to-humanum-conference/ …

It’s a question that only gets more pointed when we discover that it turns out Francis is not just about to make abortion and gay “marriage” the eighth and ninth sacraments but that he is, (duh!) Catholic.

If your response to this is joy, you are on the right track. If your response is relief, may I suggest that you need to ask God, “Increase my faith” since there has never been any actual, real question of Francis’ fidelity to the Church and all such fears are located, not in any objective reality but are *entirely* within the hearts and minds of people who fear Francis is heterodox. If your response is “Francis is saying stuff to deceive faithful Catholics while he secretly labors to destroy the Church” then consider the wisdom of C.S. Lewis:

Suppose one reads a story of filthy atrocities in the paper. Then suppose that something turns up suggesting that the story might not be quite true, or not quite so bad as it was made out. Is one’s first feeling, ‘Thank God, even they aren’t quite so bad as that,’ or is it a feeling of disappointment, and even a determination to cling to the first story for the sheer pleasure of thinking your enemies are as bad as possible? If it is the second then it is, I am afraid, the first step in a process which, if followed to the end, will make us into devils. You see, one is beginning to wish that black was a little blacker. If we give that wish its head, later on we shall wish to see grey as black, and then to see white itself as black. Finally we shall insist on seeing everything — God and our friends and ourselves included — as bad, and not be able to stop doing it: we shall be fixed for ever in a universe of pure hatred.

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