The CatholiCity Message

Volume XVII, Number 8 – October 1, 2013

Dear CatholiCity Citizen,

The bulk of this CatholiCity Message will address the tempest over Pope Francis' recent interviews. As it happens, I composed this on my fifty-first birthday and the Feast of Saint Therese of Lisieux, no less. She's my girl, and I asked her to be your girl when I received Communion today. Instead of saving our group prayer for later, let us, tens of thousands together, now take a moment to ask her for something important, something impossible, something miraculous:

"Dear Little Flower, please ask Jesus to grant my request and the intentions of every CatholiCity Citizen. We choose all! Thanks! Amen!"

FEAST OF MOM AND DAD
Earlier today I received a palpable sense of gratitude for my mother and father during Mass. In cooperation with God, they gave me life, love, baptismal faith, intellect, devotion to Immaculate Mary, Italian meals surpassing all your imaginings, and no fewer than nine sisters and two brothers while being models of frequent Confession and daily reception of Communion. Birthdays are essentially our own personal Feastdays of Mom and Dad. If God has ever used me as an instrument to strengthen your love for Jesus and the Catholic faith, directly or indirectly, then please share in my thankfulness that William Noble "Bud" Macfarlane fell in love with Patricia Irene "Pat" Mack while both were employed by the Prudential Insurance Company in Newark, New Jersey, in 1957.

POPE FRANCIS: EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE ALL RIGHT
So what should we make of the Pope Francis interviews? Let us begin with a quotation from my previous CatholiCity Message:

"That the Mystical Body of Christ and the Catholic Church in communion with Rome are one and the same thing is a doctrine based on revealed truth."
Pope Pius XII

Devout Catholics have been in parts puzzled, inspired, challenged, miffed, and even hurt by some of the pope's statements in his interview in America magazine and now his interview with the Italian magazine La Repubblica, which reportedly took place on September 24. This was just four days after the America Magazine interview was published on September 20. The publication dates are close enough to suppose that Francis barely had time to digest the worldwide reaction to the America interview. Reports quickly surfaced that the English translation of the Repubblica interview is grossly misleading. Both interviews are posted on the CatholiCity.com homepage, along with several commentaries.

RENO NAILS IT
My own initial evaluation of Francis' America interview was echoed almost perfectly by R.R. Reno, editor of First Things magazine. I love everything Reno writes and consider him a brilliant, trustworthy, and insightful teacher. With charitable tone Reno shows how Francis, doubtlessly influenced by his Jesuit background, was "a bit naive" and made "undisciplined mistakes" while predicting we could expect more of the same in the future. Reno explains how the secular media and Church leftists, although mistaken, were not necessarily insincere in their interpretations of Pope Francis' statements. Reno seemingly proves the prophet when Francis apparently gave us more oddness in the Repubblica interview. Here is the Reno article:

http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2013/09/francis-our-jesuit-pope

Although rare, the CatholiCity Message will not hesitate to respectfully evaluate and even take issue with the approaches, non-infallible statements, or actions of any pope. My long-time readers will recall I have characterized certain medieval papacies as pornocracies. Still, for all of our lives we have basked in the lack of ambiguity when our popes communicate with the world, usually in formats (such as encyclicals) and mediums (such as the papal newspaper and website) established and modified over the centuries. This clarity of message and wisdom in dissemination is a wonderful benefit of the disciplined Thomistic theological inheritance which has permeated the mind of the Church for centuries. "Popespeak," as it has been called, can be many things, even dull, but it is rarely unclear.

We love our beleaguered and supernatural Church, because to love her is to love Jesus in his Mystical Body, sustained by his gift of faith received at Baptism. We enthusiastically embrace every Catholic teaching, great and small, as She herself authentically teaches it. Nothing our pope has done changes any of that. Perhaps we should consider these interviews, an infinitesimal sliver in the eternal timeline of the Church, an opportunity for all of us to bolster our understanding of the papacy, its limitations, and its history. Did you know, for instance, that one pope, after his reign, was officially listed by the Church as a heretic for embracing heresy while pope (although he did not teach it infallibly)? The following article by Brantly Millegan is a clear summary of what and when popes teach infallibly, and should make you feel a whole lot better about any of Pope Francis' actual, imagined, or superfluous shortcomings:

http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2013/09/the-danger-of-good-popes

SUPERSMART GENIUS LADY
You cannot imagine how excited I am to refer you to a third and final commentary on the papal interviews by Dr. Janet Smith. I have known Miss Smith going all the way back to when I was a student at Notre Dame, and on a personal note, I consider her one of the funniest people I have ever met. She is the most important scholar in the history of the planet on the subject of contraception, and her loving and moving talk, "Contraception, Why Not?" (janetesmith.org) has helped countless married folks. There are lots of young folks walking around in the U.S. and Canada who otherwise would never have been born if not for Janet Smith's tireless work. She currently teaches seminarians in Detroit. Her experiences as a Catholic in America, and probably your own, do not jibe with what the pope described in his America interview:

http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2013/09/are-we-obsessed

PAPAL PUZZLES
Please note how Reno, Millegan, and Smith all make clear in one fashion or another that Pope Francis has not shown himself to be doctrinally unsound. Liberal fantasies of the Catholic Church altering teaching on contraception, abortion, and gay "marriage" are groundless to the point of absurdity.

Yet there is no doubt: Pope Francis is a bit of a wild card. We might read fifty more strange interviews or none at all. It is also possible to have a pope who remains naive about the media and unable to avoid confusing (that is, un-Thomistic) linguistic formulations while otherwise making his mark as a seminal reformer of the Vatican bureaucracy while improving the Church in countless other unseen ways precisely because he is a risk taker and cares little for human respect. Unknown to most nominally practicing Catholics, the consensus agrees that Pope John Paul II fell short of addressing and even ignored festering curia-related problems while obviously mastering the media in an unprecedented fashion. John Paul is being canonized nonetheless, so too could Francis be. His namesake was a wild card too.

It is okay that Francis is turning out to be a bit of a puzzle. It is not possible to see now what image the puzzle forms until it is finished, and even then, perhaps not for many years after his papacy ends, or even beyond our lifetimes. I still love the guy. Please join me in praying for him:

"Dear Popes, Saints and Martyrs Peter, Linus, Cletus, Clement, Sixtus, Cornelius, along with Saint Francis of Assisi and Saint Ignatius of Loyola, all popes in heaven, and all the guardian angels of all popes in heaven, please intercede now and never cease to intercede on behalf of Pope Francis. Let all his words, in public or private, be the words of Christ, and bring the greatest number of souls to heaven, especially those in most need of His mercy. Amen."

SOME UPCOMING FEASTDAYS
Wednesday, October 2, Guardian Angels
Friday, October 4, Saint Francis of Assisi!
Monday, October 7, Our Lady of the Rosary
Tuesday, October 15, Saint Teresa of Avila, All-Time Great Supersmart Genius Lady
Saturday, October 19, Saint John de Brebeuf and Isaac Jogues, the Triple Play: Priest, Saint, and Martyr. If you live anywhere near or pass through Auriesville in eastern New York state off the I-90, make sure you visit the amazing Shrine of Our Lady of Martyrs and birthplace of Saint Kateri Tekawitha. I have prayed for you there several times.
Monday, October 28, Saints Simon and Jude, Apostles

JUST A COUPLE QUOTES

"There are two kinds of people in this world, and Pope Francis is not one of them."
Me

"The rock of Saint Peter on its summit enjoys a pure and serene atmosphere, but there is a great deal of Roman malaria at the foot of it."
Cardinal Newman

"Where Peter is, there is the Church."
Saint Ambrose

"The heart is free which is held by no love other than the love of God."
Saint Bonaventure

"Oh Love! How can I be afraid of foolishness if through it I possess and am possessed by Thee?"
Saint Francis of Assisi

Still with me? Remember: my next message will announce an amazing new line of Free Catholic Booklets. Thank you for being such a faithful part of our work. We remain yours...

With Immaculate Mary,

Bud Macfarlane
Founder