A Church in Turmoil?

Washington, DC. An enthusiastic America on lockdown has found the son of a family of migrants, the accessible hero who arrives at the White House in a Fiat 500 and has a caress and a selfie for everyone. But what did Francis find in America? A church “in turmoil”, says the New York Times. On the eve of the visit, they gave an overview, though guided by a preconceived thesis, of the fault lines of a church divided between conservatives and progressive, North and South, white and Hispanics, Catholic-LGBT activists and cultural warriors, enthusiastic innovators who work on the great compromise with secularization and tireless defenders of the doctrine hit by reality. It was this last faction, the one of Chaput, Cordileone, Burke and DiNardo, that the Pope has fraternally scolded in his meeting with the bishops in the St. Matthew’s Cathedral. The Pope urged a clear warning for those who hath ears to hear: “Woe to us if we make of the cross a banner of worldly struggles.” The church that embraces and soothes, staying away from public demonstrations and battles that go in the wrong direction, was replaced by the “Francis Effect”, a phenomenon that is tangible in the newspapers of the excited establishment, though a bit less pronounced among the herd. Even the New York Times, that checks everything against big data but takes Francis on faith, had to admit that the figures are not sky-high: under Francis’ papacy, 13% of American Catholics attend church more often, but 12% attend less. And for 74% of them, nothing changed. The game is drawn.

A church in turmoil? Maybe, simply put, in America, Francis found the American church, in its accommodating and up-to-date version, the Kennedy church, essentially liberal, celebrity-studded and with aviator glasses, Joe Biden-style. A church for which faith and politics are two parallels that may meet in heaven, maybe. On Vanity Fair, Paul Elie draws an intriguing parallel between Francis and the Catholic John Fitzgerald Kennedy, using the symbols of the Washington Cathedral where the President’s funerals took place, and where Francis gave the bishops the fraternal scolding so appreciated by Kennedy Catholics. More than the parallel between the two figures, it is interesting to note what this says about the dominant nature of the Catholicism that the Pope found in America.

[**Video_box_2**]A sensibility that inevitably goes hand in hand with the supremacy of the pastoral over doctrine, with the opening of dialogues on climate change, the economy, family issues and other topics that are in direct competition with the strict tone of the Episcopal conference, that of the “tragic error” of gay marriage. Francis has found a Catholic establishment with its arms wide open.

Traduzione a cura di Chiara Salce