UNITED STATES
The Week
By Damon Linker | January 15, 2014
A few months ago, I wrote a cover story for The New Republic about Pope Francis, assessing what reforms, if any, we could expect from the Roman Catholic Church under his leadership. I was impressed with the new pontiff’s gestures of modesty and expressions of loving acceptance for all — for gays (“Who am I to judge?”), for Muslims, for atheists, and especially for the poor. I also took note of early signs that Francis would attempt significant reform of the Vatican bureaucracy (the Curia).
I was far more skeptical that the new pope would attempt to reform or revise church doctrine in a liberal direction — permitting married priests, easing restrictions on abortion or gay marriage, ordaining women. While it was conceivable that Francis might push to strike down the celibacy requirement for priests, it wasn’t likely. And as for the other doctrinal reforms, they just weren’t going to happen. There are simply too many institutional obstacles to that kind of fundamental change in the church.
Liberals would therefore have to settle for a moderation of papal rhetoric, and little else. I concluded by noting that although rhetoric matters in religion, this was far less than most liberal Catholics were hoping for.
But now I’m not so sure. Not about the pope’s focus on reforming the Curia. Not about the importance of his rhetorical shift away from policing sexuality and toward economic injustice. And not about the unlikelihood of him pursuing liberal reform of Catholic doctrine. Nothing in the past few months, including the New York Times’ splashy front page story this week, has led me to change my mind or revise my analysis — except in one respect.
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