It is splendid indeed that
Time
magazine has made Pope Francis its
“Person of the Year” for 2013. The
Pope has captured the imagination
of the world and has breathed a new
life into the Catholic Church. The
authors of the
Time
piece are right in
saying that his choice of name has
set the tone for his papacy so far: he
has resolved to be, like his name-
sake of old, a friend of the poor and
the forgotten. He has determined to
be a person of compassion, leading with the merciful
face of Christ.
Details matter in this regard: his choice to live in
the Casa Santa Marta rather than in the Apostolic Pal-
ace, being driven around in an old clunker rather than
a Vatican limousine, paying his own bill at the cleri-
cal residence where he stayed prior to his election, fly-
ing coach class, embracing the man with the severely
deformed face (How like St. Francis who famously
embraced a leper). The controversial interviews that
he granted just a few months ago also speak of this
change in focus. The Pope does not want priests and
other Catholic ministers to lead with the “hot button”
issues largely centering around sexual morality; rather,
he wants the Church to present itself as a “field hos-
pital” after a battle, a place of comfort and mercy. His
insistence that Holy Communion is “not a prize for the
perfect but a powerful medicine and nourishment for
the weak” is also perfectly congruent with this shift in
emphasis. As I say, all of this is remarkable and worth
celebrating, and I’m glad the popular secular press has
caught on.
However, there is something that has been bothering
me ever since Francis became Pope, and its on rather
massive display in the
Time
article, namely, a tendency
to distinguish radically between this lovely Franciscan
emphasis on mercy and love for the poor and the ap-
parently far less than lovely emphasis on doctrine so
“The Person of the Year”
Word on
Fire
Fr. Barron
2013 V
atican
H
ighlights
From page 3
>
Sept. 19: Jesuit Father Antonio Spadaro publishes
a wide-ranging interview with the pope, in which Pope
Francis lays out his missionary vision and says the
church “cannot insist only on issues related to abortion,
gay marriage and the use of contraceptive methods.”
>
Oct. 1: Italian journalist Eugenio Scalfari pub-
lishes an article based on a private meeting with Pope
Francis, whom he quotes saying that the church should
be less “Vatican-centric.” The Vatican later announces
that the article is not based on a transcript of the con-
versation and should not be considered a record of the
pope’s exact words.
>
Oct. 1-3: Pope Francis meets with the Council of
Cardinals for the first time, and the Vatican announces
the body will work toward an overhaul of the Vatican
characteristic of the Papacies of John Paul II and Bene-
dict XVI. There is actually a good deal of dangerous
silliness in this way of characterizing things. If I might
cite the much-maligned Benedict, the Church does es-
sentially three things: it cares for the poor; it worships
God; and it evangelizes. Isolate any of the three from
the other two, and distortions set in. Indeed, without
deep care for the poor and for social justice, the wor-
ship of God can become lifeless (“liturgical fussiness”)
and evangelizing can devolve into cultural criticism or
mere intellectual debating.
But isolate care for the poor from the other two
and equally problematic distortions ensue. Without the
worship of God and evangelization, the Church dete-
riorates in short order into one more social service in-
stitution among many, a mere “NGO” in Francis’s own
language. Now listen to the authors of the
Time
article:
“In a matter of months, Francis has elevated the healing
mission of the church -- the church as servant and com-
forter of hurting people in an often harsh world -- above
the doctrinal police work so important to his recent pre-
decessors.” And “his vision is of a pastoral -- and not
doctrinaire -- church.” This is so much nonsense.
The source of a good deal of this mischief is the 18th
century philosopher Immanuel Kant, whose influence
on the modern sensibility can scarcely be overstated.
Kant famously held that religion is reducible to ethics.
By the Enlightenment period, the doctrinal claims of the
great religions had come to seem incredible to many,
and worship a pathetic holdover from a more primitive
time. For Kant, therefore, authentic, grown-up, enlight-
ened religious people would see that morality is the
heart of the matter, both doctrine and worship serving,
at best, to bolster ethics. It is always a source of amaze-
ment to me how thoroughly modern people have gone
down the Kantian autobahn in regard to this issue. How
we take the following for granted: it doesn’t really mat-
ter what you believe, as long as you are a good person.
But the Kantian construal is simply repugnant to
classical Christianity. In point of fact, Christians have
been, from the beginning, massively interested in
both worship and doctrine. How could you read any
of the Gospels or any of the letters of Paul and think
otherwise? Moreover, the great figures of the Church
-- Irenaeus, Chrysostom, Jerome, Augustine, Thomas
Aquinas, Newman, etc., etc. have taken doctrine with
utmost seriousness. No one doubts that Francis of As-
sisi himself loved the poor and marginalized, but how
many realize that one of his principal concerns was for
liturgical propriety?
Toward the end of the Time piece, the authors men-
tion two features of Francis’s life which effectively
undermine their central argument. The “Person of the
Year” spends huge swaths of his day at prayer. Rising
at five, he prays until seven and then celebrates Mass.
And after dinner, he spends several more hours before
the Blessed Sacrament. As has been the case with so
many of the Church’s saints, his love for the poor flows
from an intense worship of God. The article closes with
a look at one of the Pope’s Wednesday general audi-
ences. The topic of Francis’s remarks that day was the
resurrection of Jesus. After declaring the Church’s age-
old doctrine, the Pope looked up from his text and asked
the crowd, “do you believe it?” When they responded,
“yes!” he said again, “do you believe it?” This is not a
man who is unconcerned with clarity of dogma.
I’m delighted that
Time
Magazine has made the
Pope the “Person of the Year,” but I would caution all
of the commentariat: don’t drive a wedge between the
three dimensions of Francis’s life and of the Church’s
life!
Father Robert Barron is the founder of the glob-
al ministry, Word on Fire, and the Francis Cardinal
George Professor of Faith
and Culture at University
of St. Mary of the Lake
in Mundelein. He is the
creator of a new ten epi-
sode documentary series
called “Catholicism” air-
ing on PBS stations and
EWTN. Learn more about
the series at
cismSeries.com
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