A reader writes:<\/p>\n
Mark, any chance for a little compassion for people who are feeling nervous? Could you maybe come alongside us and walk with us a bit and maybe share your faith and optimism? Any chance that instead of yelling and shaming people who are feeling uneasy, you could maybe instead show us the reasons for your hope? Maybe be a big brother here. I know I could use one. I\u2019ll be spending time with my evangelical family this week. The family that still thinks I\u2019m a flake for abandoning the sound teachings of AW Tozier, Max Lucado, Josh McDowell, and Rick Warren for the curious barque of Saint Peter. I\u2019ve spent six years trying to explain to them that the Catholic Church is the unbroken line back to Jesus, the repository of faith for once and all time. For months I\u2019ve been trying to parse Pope Francis for them. For months I\u2019ve been trying to explain why what the Pope is saying doesn\u2019t represent a rupture in the faith. But I know they\u2019re starting to think that maybe I\u2019m parsing a little too much. Maybe I sound a bit too much like a guy who bought a pig in a poke and wants to save face. Any chance I could get a, \u201cI understand the source of your nervousness. I can see that you are suffering a bit for the faith right now. But here, let me give you the reasons for hope\u2026\u201d Instead of, \u201cYou guys need to get with program here! You need to suck it up and put some points on that scoreboard!\u201d Because honestly, it isn\u2019t working for me. I hate, hate, hate that I\u2019ve been nodding along while reading Rod Dreher lately as he trumpets his relief about jumping from the Church of Rome to the Church of the East. But I have been. And I\u2019ve lost sleep and felt sick to my stomach over it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Tom\u2019s a much better man than me, since I don\u2019t think \u201cNot instantly accepting the claim that Francis is a Catastrophe\u201d is \u201cputting points on a scoreboard\u201d but \u201ccommon decency and common sense\u201d and pretty much say that (and I also don\u2019t think that Rod Dreher, God bless him, has said anything coherent about the Church since he bailed so I\u2019m puzzled why Catholics find him persuasive, much less devastating<\/a>).\u00a0 And I would have thought \u201cFantastic!\u00a0 Francis is articulating the heart of the Tradition\u201d would be a very big reason for hope.\u00a0 But what this reader needed was a more sympathetic approach than mine.\u00a0 So I\u2019m grateful that Tom writes<\/a>:<\/p>\n
Maybe you *are* parsing a little too much. Maybe your stomachache is a sign you should just say to your evangelical family, \u201cYeah, Argentinian Jesuit popes, amiright? Pass the butter, please.\u201d<\/p>\n
Me, I look at Pope Francis this way:<\/p>\n
Within the Church, he is making his office a pastoral one, not a kingly one. A pastor smells like his sheep, he is out among them. People don\u2019t follow pastors around, writing down their every word in gold ink. You don\u2019t parse your pastor\u2019s words, you listen to them and see how they apply in your own life. Maybe a king, up in his castle, only rarely lets fall a word heard by his subjects; a pastor talks to people every day \u2014 and yes, if you don\u2019t like the sound of his voice, that can get old quick.<\/p>\n
Stepping back, I\u2019d say the big-picture message all of this has for Catholics is this: It\u2019s okay if a pope emphasizes the pastoral. Bigger picture: It\u2019s even okay if the pope over-emphasizes the pastoral, or if he spends all of his waking hours solving crossword puzzles in the gardens of Castel Gandolfo. It\u2019s good for the Church, and good for the world, to have a good pope. But the Church is not the pope\u2019s property, nor are Catholics his chattel. There is no \u201cX\u201d for which \u201cThe pope has done X, therefore the Church will collapse,\u201d is true.<\/p>\n
I\u2019d guess you\u2019re most concerned with the reports of the Pope\u2019s words to the world beyond the Church (which, I\u2019d say, includes most reporters on airplanes). Here, I see Pope Francis as acting on his prudential judgment (which, the Church teaches, may be wrong) that the way he should relate to the world is, first, to establish a relationship \u2014 in particular, a relationship of loving service. If what we have to give to the world is Jesus Christ \u2014 if you read his homilies and audiences, you know Pope Francis believes this \u2014 then the way he sees us being able to give the world Jesus, such that they accept Him, is the way of mercy.<\/p>\n
I happen to think he\u2019s pretty much right about all that. But let\u2019s say he\u2019s not. Suppose he is naive, or reckless, or a disaster, or even a heretic. So then maybe I picked the wrong papacy to stop sniffing glue (probably don\u2019t want to use that line with your evangelical family unless they\u2019re big fans of the Zuckers), but none of that would touch what the Church herself teaches about the papacy itself, much less what she teaches about the Church as a whole.<\/p>\n
You know, there are plenty of Catholics alive today who have thought one or more of the previous popes they\u2019ve lived through were naive, or reckless, or a disaster, or even a heretic. The response is not despair (much less paying any attention to what a professional anti-Catholic like Rod Dreher says). The response is to recognize that, while the Church was founded *on* the Rock of Peter, it was founded *by* Jesus Christ, Whose Bride and Body it is, and will forever be.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Tom, a fan of Sherry Weddell\u2019s\u00a0Forming Intentional Disciples<\/em><\/a>\u00a0(which you badly need to read), also remarks elseswhere<\/a>:<\/p>\n
\u00a0There\u2019s a model (which comes from work done by Evangelicals, but Sherry Weddell & Co, have found it to be very useful in Catholic settings) of the \u201cfive thresholds\u201d in the spiritual journey, from no faith to a full embrace of Jesus Christ. The evangelist figures out which threshold the other person is standing before, and then helps them to cross (all with God\u2019s grace).<\/p>\n
The five thresholds are: Initial Trust; Spiritual Curiosity; Spiritual Openness; Spiritual Seeking; and Intentional Discipleship.<\/p>\n
You will fail (according to the model) if you try to get someone to cross a later threshold when they\u2019re still standing at an earlier one. (Sherry\u2019s major message, by the way, is that so so much of what the Catholic Church does assumes Catholics are across the \u201cIntentional Discipleship\u201d threshold, when empirically huge numbers of baptized and even Mass-going Catholics are back at trust or curiosity.)<\/p>\n
What I think the Pope has done, in terms of this model. is to bring many people \u2014 who used to, and probably for the most part still kind of do, hate the Church \u2014 to the threshold of trust. They trust that he, at least, doesn\u2019t want to stand over their graves gloating at the thought that they are burning in hell.<\/p>\n
If so, then yes, they\u2019re still at a point where disillusionment would follow an attempt to explain what \u201cI am a son of the Church\u201d means in terms of the hot-button issues.<\/p>\n
But if they ask questions, they are curious. The Church can handle the curious. If they aren\u2019t yet open though, we won\u2019t accomplish much by forcing them to digest Catholic moral doctrines.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A reader writes: Mark, any chance for a little compassion for people who are feeling nervous? Could you maybe come alongside us and walk with us a bit and maybe share your faith and optimism? Any chance that instead of yelling and shaming people who are feeling uneasy, you could maybe instead show us the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":92,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[301,249,374],"class_list":["post-47750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-combox-wars","tag-forming-intentional-disciples","tag-pope-francis"],"yoast_head":"\n
A really fine exchange between Tom Kreitzberg and a reader upset by Pope Francis<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A reader writes: Mark, any chance for a little compassion for people who are feeling nervous? Could you maybe come alongside us and walk with us a bit and\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2013\/10\/a-really-fine-exchange-between-tom-kreitzberg-and-a-reader-upset-by-pope-francis.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A really fine exchange between Tom Kreitzberg and a reader upset by Pope Francis\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A reader writes: Mark, any chance for a little compassion for people who are feeling nervous? Could you maybe come alongside us and walk with us a bit and\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2013\/10\/a-really-fine-exchange-between-tom-kreitzberg-and-a-reader-upset-by-pope-francis.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Catholic and Enjoying It!\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-10-04T07:20:28+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-12-30T03:59:47+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Mark Shea\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Mark Shea\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2013\/10\/a-really-fine-exchange-between-tom-kreitzberg-and-a-reader-upset-by-pope-francis.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2013\/10\/a-really-fine-exchange-between-tom-kreitzberg-and-a-reader-upset-by-pope-francis.html\",\"name\":\"A really fine exchange between Tom Kreitzberg and a reader upset by Pope Francis\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2013-10-04T07:20:28+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2014-12-30T03:59:47+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/#\/schema\/person\/c1a9ac1e557d3c626974fd6692818ad5\"},\"description\":\"A reader writes: Mark, any chance for a little compassion for people who are feeling nervous? Could you maybe come alongside us and walk with us a bit and\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2013\/10\/a-really-fine-exchange-between-tom-kreitzberg-and-a-reader-upset-by-pope-francis.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2013\/10\/a-really-fine-exchange-between-tom-kreitzberg-and-a-reader-upset-by-pope-francis.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2013\/10\/a-really-fine-exchange-between-tom-kreitzberg-and-a-reader-upset-by-pope-francis.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"A really fine exchange between Tom Kreitzberg and a reader upset by Pope Francis\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/\",\"name\":\"Catholic and Enjoying It!\",\"description\":\"Mark Shea's Blog: So That No Thought of Mine, No Matter How Stupid, Should Ever Go Unpublished Again!\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/#\/schema\/person\/c1a9ac1e557d3c626974fd6692818ad5\",\"name\":\"Mark Shea\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f287911f45adc932ad24ddbae3597ed5?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f287911f45adc932ad24ddbae3597ed5?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Mark Shea\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/author\/markshea\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"A really fine exchange between Tom Kreitzberg and a reader upset by Pope Francis","description":"A reader writes: Mark, any chance for a little compassion for people who are feeling nervous? Could you maybe come alongside us and walk with us a bit and","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2013\/10\/a-really-fine-exchange-between-tom-kreitzberg-and-a-reader-upset-by-pope-francis.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"A really fine exchange between Tom Kreitzberg and a reader upset by Pope Francis","og_description":"A reader writes: Mark, any chance for a little compassion for people who are feeling nervous? Could you maybe come alongside us and walk with us a bit and","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2013\/10\/a-really-fine-exchange-between-tom-kreitzberg-and-a-reader-upset-by-pope-francis.html","og_site_name":"Catholic and Enjoying It!","article_published_time":"2013-10-04T07:20:28+00:00","article_modified_time":"2014-12-30T03:59:47+00:00","author":"Mark Shea","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Mark Shea","Est. reading time":"6 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2013\/10\/a-really-fine-exchange-between-tom-kreitzberg-and-a-reader-upset-by-pope-francis.html","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2013\/10\/a-really-fine-exchange-between-tom-kreitzberg-and-a-reader-upset-by-pope-francis.html","name":"A really fine exchange between Tom Kreitzberg and a reader upset by Pope Francis","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/#website"},"datePublished":"2013-10-04T07:20:28+00:00","dateModified":"2014-12-30T03:59:47+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/#\/schema\/person\/c1a9ac1e557d3c626974fd6692818ad5"},"description":"A reader writes: Mark, any chance for a little compassion for people who are feeling nervous? Could you maybe come alongside us and walk with us a bit and","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2013\/10\/a-really-fine-exchange-between-tom-kreitzberg-and-a-reader-upset-by-pope-francis.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2013\/10\/a-really-fine-exchange-between-tom-kreitzberg-and-a-reader-upset-by-pope-francis.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2013\/10\/a-really-fine-exchange-between-tom-kreitzberg-and-a-reader-upset-by-pope-francis.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"A really fine exchange between Tom Kreitzberg and a reader upset by Pope Francis"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/","name":"Catholic and Enjoying It!","description":"Mark Shea's Blog: So That No Thought of Mine, No Matter How Stupid, Should Ever Go Unpublished Again!","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/#\/schema\/person\/c1a9ac1e557d3c626974fd6692818ad5","name":"Mark Shea","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f287911f45adc932ad24ddbae3597ed5?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f287911f45adc932ad24ddbae3597ed5?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Mark Shea"},"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/author\/markshea"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/92"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47750"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47750\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}