Rolling Stoned on Pope Francis: Part IV.

Ahead of the papal visit later this month, Mark Binelli is back with another effusive column in Rolling Stoned. I have picked apart his errors thrice before (here, here, and here), but the poor man keeps on rolling. Like a stone! Give him credit for it; this time, he has sought answers from the very renowned Michael Sean Winters and Austin Ruse and Rod Dreher! That’s effort.

Like a Rolling Stone

Still, Mr. Binelli will insist on his portrayal of Pope Francis as a “disruptor” of some sort. I don’t mind that; I even agree with it; but it is the kind of disruption that he sees lurking in the pope that worries me: not about Mr. Binelli’s sanity, for that can’t be helped, but his perspicuity. Watch what he says:

During the two and a half years of his papacy, the unscripted, often radical words and actions of the pope have thrilled believers and non-believers alike, on a scale no contemporary religious leader other than the Dalai Lama has approached.

Well, alright. I get “unscripted”; I even get “radical.” But if the pope’s words have been radical they have only been so in the same way Christianity has always been radical, even scandalous. (I’ll go Mr. Binelli one better on adjectives.) The Cross is scandal. Love of even one’s enemies is scandal. To be meek, as this world goes, is to be one man marked out for scandal. Pope Francis tells us nothing so much as he tells us things that we have forgotten. I concede that that is “radical,” but not quite in the way I suspect Mr. Binelli means.

“Many conservative American Catholics,” he goes on, “have found themselves unmoored by Pope Francis’ profound tonal shift.” Well, yes; and I have been wery busy, on this wery blog, trying to keep those folks’ heads from erupting in a Vesuvian fit of lava. But watch where Mr. Binelli goes with this:

In April, two years earlier than expected, Francis unceremoniously ended an investigation of U.S. nuns that started under his predecessor, Pope Benedict. [Here’s that Good Pope Francis vs. Bad Pope Benedict mythology rearing its head again.]

The nuns had been accused of trafficking in ‘radical feminist themes’ [and so they were] and of straying from Catholic teaching by not focusing enough of their attention on issues like abortion [Well, no. It’s not that they focused too little attention on it; it’s that they were dissidents.] but Francis personally summoned four members of the group under investigation to the Vatican and expressed his appreciation for their work in a nearly hourlong meeting.

Except that’s not quite what happened. One month after being elected, Pope Francis confirmed the original Doctrinal Assessment of the LCWR, aka the Wyrd Sisters, aka Pope Joan and the Magical Mystery Tour. (I wrote about that here and here. Remember? The leftists were outraged! Outraged!) Then, a year later, the Vatican rebuked the Wyrd Sisters again. (I wrote about that here. Remember? The leftists were outraged! Outraged! Even Amanda Marcote and Maureen Dowd joined in on the shock and chagrin. Remember?)

So what happened? Does Mr. Binelli expect us to believe that Pope Francis the Disruptor gave a great shrug and said, “Oh, never mind”? Come now. What happened—pay attention, Mr. Binelli—is that the LCWR accepted the reform demands of the Vatican. Got that? Let me repeat it: The LCWR accepted the reform demands of the Vatican. Pope Francis did not say, “Never mind”; the Wyrd Sisters said, “We cave.” (Read about it here, Mr. Binelli. Get your facts right, if you be able.)

Threw the Bums a Dime

Unabashed by truth, Mr. Binelli goes on:

For his part, the pope has maintained a relentless focus on his own obsessions [which is what popes generally do, after they have done routing out heresy among those who claim to speak for nuns]: the poor and the dispossessed of the world, and how their lives are ravaged by unbridled capitalism, a grotesque and insatiable consumer culture, climate change, globalization.

Well, here we go again with “unbridled capitalism.” I will be doomed to say this until doomsday, I guess, but the pope has never—not once, nowhere—said a word about “unbridled capitalism.” The word you are looking for, Mr. Binelli, is “consumerism” (Evangelii Gaudium 60), which is not at all the same. And yet this myth persists in the popular media, possibly because they don’t know how to read. Or they don’t care about the truth so much as they do their own narrative. I’ll leave it to you, dear reader, to decide that one.

But poor Pope Benedict XVI! Pope emeritus gets no credit at all for having spoke at great length on these wery topics!

Here he is on capitalism, on January 1, 2013:

[T]he world is sadly marked by hotbeds of tension and conflict caused by growing instances of inequality between rich and poor, by the prevalence of a selfish and individualistic mindset which also finds expression in an unregulated financial capitalism.

Hmm. Pope Francis has not mentioned capitalism, but Pope Benedict did. Interesting. (Of course, I told Mr. Binelli all this before, but it is clear he does not listen. Or he does not read this blog, which may be worse.)

And here the last pope is on climate change, on September 1, 2007, in a letter to the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople:

Preservation of the environment, promotion of sustainable development and particular attention to climate change are matters of grave concern for the entire human family. No nation or business sector can ignore the ethical implications present in all economic and social development. With increasing clarity scientific research demonstrates that the impact of human actions in any one place or region can have worldwide effects. The consequences of disregard for the environment cannot be limited to an immediate area or populus because they always harm human coexistence, and thus betray human dignity and violate the rights of citizens who desire to live in a safe environment.

Hmm. Pope Francis says the same thing about climate change that Pope Benedict did. Interesting. But you know that Frank, he’s a radical! He’s a disruptor! He says things that none of us have heard from a pope before!

Exchanging All Precious Gifts

These peculiar obsessions of Frank’s, which no pope before him ever dreamed of in his wildest dreams of changing Church teaching, even mean he might be (dare we hope?) a Marxist! Oh joy!

“On a trip to Bolivia in July,” Mr. Binelli tells us,

Francis … prayed at the site where a Marxist priest had been murdered by a right wing Bolivian death squad in 1980 and accepted a crucifix from Bolivian president Evo Morales carved in the shape of a Communist hammer and sickle. When pressed about the gift by reporters, he shrugged. ‘For me, it was not an offense,’ he said, adding that he’d be taking it back to the Vatican.

Except that the pope did not take it back to the Vatican. He left it behind in Bolivia. Nor is Mr. Binelli straight with us about the reason the crucifix was “not an offense” to the pope. It did not offend him, the pope said, because he viewed it as “protest art.” The pope tells us what he means by that:

It was protest art, and I recall one, it was a crucified Christ on a bomber [plane] that was falling down, no? It’s Christianity, but a criticism that let’s say Christianity allied with imperialism which is the bomber.

So the pope compares the crucifix given to him by Mr. Morales with one on which Christ is crucified to a bomber, which is a symbol of imperialism. So too is the hammer and sickle a symbol of imperialism, to which Christ has been crucified. It is not that the crucifix was in the shape of a hammer and sickle but that Christ has been crucified upon a hammer and sickle. With these symbols of imperialism—the bomber, the hammer and sickle—we crucify the Son of God afresh (cf. Heb. 6:6). That is how the pope understood it. If that is an “offense,” even the Cross itself is an offense and a scandal and a stumblingblock (cf. Gal. 5:11, 1 Cor. 1:23).

Scrounging Your Next Meal

Unabated by any of these facts, Mr. Binelli continues with his theme that Francis is a disruptor of some sort to the “right wing.”

Perhaps even more disorienting to the right wing,” Mr. Binelli continues breathlessly, “Francis also directly addressed man-made global warming”—so did Pope Benedict—“in an astounding 180-page encyclical entitled Laudato Si … largely a broadside against the myopic, power-driven environmental policies threatening our planet.”

Well, sure. But as I explained here, global warming is not the subject or theme of Laudato Si, and there is plenty in it to disorient the left. The pope’s subject is man’s pretension that he is God (cf. LS 67). The pope not only speaks about climate change, but he also attacks population control (par. 50), abortion (par. 126), embryonic stem cell research (par. 136), transgenderism (par. 155), and carbon credits (par. 171). (If Al Gore, as Mr. Binelli tells us, is tempted to become Catholic because of the pope, he might want to read paragraph 171 of the encyclical and think that one through.)

“It’s a far cry,” Mr. Binelli cries,

from the recent past, when conservative U.S. bishops have effectively worked as dirty-tricks operatives for the GOP, denying Communion or issuing warnings to pro-choice Catholics like John Kerry, Joe Biden[,] and Nancy Pelosi.

(In my view, Communion should also be denied to anyone who fails to use the Oxford comma.)

“There have yet to be any reported incidents,” Mr. Binelli cries, “of lefty bishops withholding the Eucharist from prominent climate-change deniers.”

Does Mr. Binelli understand anything at all, or does he just pretend to? Let me help the man out. This has nothing to do with politics. (I know. I know it’s hard to get that, but do try.) It has to do with the fact that abortion is an objective mortal sin. This is a point of Church teaching, but more than that it is a point of divine revelation. The Church has no power to change that any more than she has the power to command the sun to rise in the west or the press to speak the truth.

And it is also a point of divine revelation that to be in a state of mortal sin means you must not receive the Eucharist until you have been absolved. Here is why; St. Paul tells us in 1 Cor. 11:26-29:

For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord’s death till he come. Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body.

Imagine that! To receive the Eucharist “unworthily”—i.e., guilty of mortal sin—is to be guilty of the Crucifixion itself! (I wonder if St. Paul was a dirty tricks operative for the GOP. Maybe for the Pharisees!)

But the Eucharist is not a door prize; it is not owed to us. One must “discern the Lord’s body.” It is the body and blood, soul and divinity, of Jesus Christ. The bishops are not trying to advance some GOP agenda or candidate through dirty tricks; that’s just absurd. You know better than that, Mr. Binelli. (I think.) They are trying to protect the integrity of Christ in the sacrament, which is the charge of every priest.

And yet how does this contrast with climate change denial? It is important to note here that in the pope’s very encyclical itself, Laudato Si, he says that the Church does not pronounce on scientific disputes. Here is § 61:

On many con­crete ques­tions, the Church has no rea­son to offer a defin­i­tive opin­ion; she knows that hon­est debate must be encour­aged among experts, while respect­ing diver­gent views.

And here is §188:

There are cer­tain envi­ron­men­tal issues where it is not easy to achieve a broad con­sen­sus. Here I would state once more that the Church does not pre­sume to set­tle sci­en­tific ques­tions or to replace pol­i­tics.

Now, what this means is that Catholics have every right to disagree about climate change. It is not a mortal sin to do so; there is no divine revelation about climate change. There is a divine revelation about our duty to be good stewards of the creation, but that’s different. To deny man-made climate change is not the same as to deny the right of an innocent baby to breathe. The idea that abortion and climate change are anywhere near the same level is so absurd I would hardly think that anyone serious could suggest it, except that Mr. Binelli did. (Or maybe he’s not “anyone serious.” I am not sure. This is Rolling Stoned we’re talking about.)

Like a Complete Unknown

But now Mr. Binelli quotes Austin Ruse in order to illustrate the vast turmoil into which the pope has thrown the “right wing.” Says Mr. Ruse:

I now know how politically liberal Catholics felt all those years during John Paul II and Benedict, waking up in the morning and wondering what statement of the pope they’re going to have to deal with. I think a lot of orthodox Catholics really tried, in the beginning, to rush out and explain what Francis was saying, to put his statements in context. And now they’ve given up.

They have? Well, okay, maybe some have. I mean, the secular media goes on being obtuse, and what’s the point, you know? But I’ve not given up at all. I’m still going on this blog—and I will continue going for as long as Francis is pope and as long as Pope Francis Derangement Syndrome lives. (Which may be as long as the Spirit of Vatican II lives.)

Some paragraphs later, Mr. Binelli muses on the term “cafeteria Catholic,” with the help of Michael Sean Winters. (Mr. Winters, if you don’t know, writes for the National So-Called Catholic Reporter.)

“Funnily enough,” Mr. Binelli says (and what a beastly phrase that is!),

the pejorative “cafeteria Catholic” is generally only applied to American Catholics who feel free to ignore teachings about sexual morality—prohibitions on, say, birth control in premarital sex. But the term is rarely thrown at Catholics who are pious when it comes to bedroom issues but take a pass on the Church’s clear social justice message.

Okay. So far so good. But now watch to what wilds Mr. Binelli wanders with this:

“The oppressed workers, above all, ought to be liberated from the savagery of greedy men, who inordinately use human beings as things for gain,” Pope Leo XIII wrote in his encyclical Rerum Novarum all the way back in 1891. “The core of the Gospels, as Francis himself reminds us, is mercy, kindness, caring for the poor, ‘judge not lest ye be judged,'” Winters says. “There’s nothing explicit about gays in the Gospel, but this stuff is very specific!”

Well, no, there’s “nothing explicit about gays in the Gospels,” if you mean Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. (Although, speaking of marriage, Jesus does say, in Matt. 19:24 and Mark 10:6, “In the beginning he made them male and female.”) But St. Paul’s epistles do have some pretty “explicit” things to say about homosexuality (e.g., Rom. 1:24-27, 1 Cor. 6:9-10).

I would also point out that, though Christ does talk about our duty to the poor, that is not the “core” of the Gospel. The “core” of the Gospel is that we are dead in our sins and need a savior (Eph. 2). The “core” of the Gospel is that Christ made a way for us if we repent (Acts 3:19).

But Mr. Binelli goes on to contrast this supposed “core” of the Gospel—concern for the poor and so on—with the papacy of St. John Paul II. For St. John Paul II opposed “liberation theology” (as though that were the “core” Gospel). And opposition to this “core,” in the words of Michael Lee, theology professor at the highly orthodox (cough) Fordham, “played nicely to the political objectives of the Republican party.”

Oh, I see. Never mind St. John Paul II’s clear discussion of Catholic social teaching in, to name but two texts, Laborem Exercens (1981) and Centesimus Annus (1991). None of that matters since he was an ally of the wicked Ronald Reagan! (Tell me again who’s obsessed with politics.)

But Mr. Ruse seems to be less than enamored with Pope Francis’s emphasis of the same theme:

The pope’s using the phrase “unfettered capitalism”—that’s the strawiest of straw men. I don’t know where that kind of capitalism exists. There is crony capitalism, which is big business teaming up with big government, and which I vehemently oppose. If he used phrases like that, it would make people happy.

And that’s the pope’s job, of course: to make people happy!

“But saying capitalism is filth,” Mr. Ruse continues, “makes it hard for people to join him in his fight. Because the language of his premise is false.”

Except, Mr. Ruse, that the pope didn’t say it in the first place. Show me where the pope used the phrase “unfettered capitalism.” I await a reply. The pope did not say that; the media said it. Mr. Limbaugh’s source was not the pope but Reuters. Search long and hard, Mr. Ruse. When you find the phrase “unfettered capitalism” in something Pope Francis said or wrote, let me know.

Nor did the pope say that capitalism was filth. (The exact phrase was “dung of the devil.”) He was quoting St. Basil of Caesarea, who could not have meant capitalism because there was no capitalism in the fourth century. St. Basil was describing greed, and the last I checked, greed has existed under all economic systems, at all times, everywhere. Whose premise is false again, Mr. Ruse?

With No Direction Home

Mr. Binelli goes on to describe the anti-Francis efforts of the Napa Institute and the Acton Institute, which is fair enough, except that he then decides to engage in a little unwitting irony:

The near-impossibility of combatting such well-funded disinformation campaigns is a depressing reality for progressives.

As though, search the wide world over, you’ll find no “disinformation campaigns” among the saintly progressives! The words of Stoned are true and righteous altogether.

But at this point, Mr. Binelli turns grave:

Now it’s important, here, to remind ourselves once again that Francis, for all the liberalism of his economic and environmental messages [No, Mr. Binelli, it’s not liberal; it’s Catholic] still heads up an organization [It’s a Church, Mr. Binelli] with a number of medieval positions regarding women and sexuality.

Medieval! Well, if you didn’t know that was coming, dear reader, I don’t know what I can tell you.

“Francis,” Mr. Binelli continues in a dirge,

has affirmed the Church’s opposition to same-sex marraige and female priests, and in his climate encyclical, he links abortion with the throwaway consumerist culture he decries.

Oh horrors! the pope really is Catholic!

“Most of us,” Rod Dreher says—for Mr. Binelli quotes him at this point—“try so hard to place Francis in an American framework, that right-left binary, and it just doesn’t work.”

Well, no, it doesn’t. Mr. Dreher is right, and Mr. Binelli should have paid better heed to him before he began his ill-advised article for Stoned. But Mr. Binelli will continue to delude himself:

“All that said, Francis has signaled he’s open to discussing more serious doctrinal changes.”

Uh—no. No. He has not. Where has he done this? Mr. Binelli is chasing chimeras. He has in mind the Synod on the Family from last October, but here is what the pope said in his closing remarks:

“This is the Church, the true bride of Christ, who seeks to be faithful to her spouse and to her doctrine.”

Hmm. Mr. Binelli does not mention this. How could he have missed it?

But now watch as he gets even more confused:

This month, Francis further startled conservatives by announcing that during the Church’s upcoming Holy Year of Mercy—a special yearlong jubilee focusing on themes of forgiveness—priests could absolve women who have had abortions.

As though priests have not had this power all along. As though abortion was not forgivable before now. Let me educate Mr. Binelli, who clearly has no idea what he is talking about. (For back in 1995, a full twenty years ago, John Paul II was at pains to point out in Evangelium Vitae 99 that abortion was forgivable.) The pope’s change does no more than to speed up a process, which already existed, of reconciling excommunicated Catholics who had procured an abortion. Under the 1973 Code of Canon Law, a bishop must first remove the excommunication before a priest can absolve the sin. That can take some time. All the pope has done is to remove this delay for the Year of Mercy and put the entire process into the hands of the priest in the Confessional. Not a single thing, apart from that, has changed.

But Fordham professor Michael Lee, to whom Mr. Binelli clings for a scrap of hope that surely some doctrine, somewhere, will change (for it has to!), says this:

[The pope] hasn’t changed doctrine, yes. But the Church has been around for 2,000 years. That change happens at a certain pace.

Well look, you see, the Church hasn’t changed a doctrine yet in all of 2000 years; but now, we know, change is slow, folks, and surely, maybe, 2000 years from now, perhaps, we might have a few more women running around pretending to be priests. So see: There’s hope!

As a sign of this hope, Mr. Binelli brings his article towards its end by citing the case of Margie Winters, a lesbian in a same-sex “marriage” who was fired by the Catholic school she worked at. She defends her lifestyle by misciting the “right of conscience.” (It is not the same as a right of dissent; conscience must be ordered toward truth.) She says that she “hopes to meet Pope Francis in Philadelphia,” where she wants to “ask him to put a moratorium on future firings of gay and lesbian teachers and work toward LGBT inclusion in the Church.”

I wish her luck.

At the last, Mr. Binelli ends his piece by quoting Wyrd Sr. Simone Campbell to the effect that we need to feel with the pain of a broken world, and when we do, it can no longer be business as usual.

And if you figure out what that means, dear reader, send me an e-mail.

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