Courtesy photo
By Earl Ofari Hutchinson
Contributing Columnist
I came back to the Catholic Church after a 30-plus year lapse a decade ago. I came back to the church because of Pope Francis.
The instant I heard him say in every way possible that the church would and must do more to aid the poor, downtrodden and exploited I knew that this was a pope that captured not the rhetoric of the Catholic Church about social justice, but actually intended to put the ideal into practice.
Pope Francis, nee Jorge Mario Bergoglio, previously the archbishop of Buenos Aires, clearly had drawn a hard line. He was a pontiff who intended to push, prod, shove and cajole the church toward being a major player in the global battle against poverty and wealth inequality.
The more I read about Francis’s work in the trenches with the poor and dispossessed in Buenos Aires before assuming the Vatican top position, convinced me that this was a prelate who meant business. It was not easy going for him.
He received high accolades for focusing his ministry on Argentina’s hungry, needy and impoverished slum dwellers. But Francis also received subtle and not so subtle criticism.
He was the constant target of conservative pundits, news outlets, and even some naysayers within the Catholic Church and its hierarchy about his words and works. Put bluntly, he was pilloried and vilified continually as a leftist, radical, even wrecker of the church’s ancient traditions and way of doing business. Francis drew even more howls from the critics when he had the temerity to extend a guarded olive branch to gays. I say guarded because he was careful to reiterate the official Catholic position that “homosexual behavior was sin” but in the next breath he sent the mixed message that it was not a crime.
This was viewed by many as the ultimate heresy and sacrilege. It went squarely against centuries of church dogma that condemned same sex relations as “the abomination.”
Pope Francis stoked the ire and grumbles of conservatives within the church with his advocacy of a more expansive role for women in the church hierarchy. He appointed a woman as head Vatican administrator. He opened the 70-member group that designated bishops and the council that handles Vatican finances to women.
The major hit on Francis, though, stemmed from the deep fear of church conservatives that his reforms, though far from remaking the church’s official position on gays and women and avowing sack cloth and ashes for all, could open the door wide to permanent changes in church traditions and thereby threaten their power, influence and position. That meant full equality and tolerance throughout the Catholic food chain for gays and women within the church.
For his part, Pope Francis ignored the harsh, drumbeat attacks. He issued statement after statement and performed deed after deed on fighting poverty. He did not back down from his demand that the Catholic Church come at least part way kicking and screaming into the 21st century, and change many of its ways.
With the death of Pope Francis, the question is what next for the church. Even a cursory glance at the dozen or so top designated candidates the church conclave will consider as Francis’ successor do not leave me hopeful.
Several of them have been vehement in their denunciation as “heresy” any talk let alone action toward bestowing church sanction on gay marriage and relations within the church. They have been silent on elevating women to high church positions, starting with the admission of women as fully ordained priests.
These are positions that Pope Francis did not take. However, again, given his progressive bent, the potential in the future for those changes was there. That poses a mortal threat to some in the hierarchy.
Francis was truly a pope who spoke and acted truth to justice. He irked many for that. However, he must and should be remembered for that advocacy.
Millions of Catholics globally who suffer impoverishment and the pangs of wealth inequality, and hunger, deeply appreciated, benefited from and embraced Francis’s social justice advocacy. I was one of them.
He left big shoes for the church to fill. Will it?
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His latest book is “A Tale of Two Los Angeles Wildfires — Separate and Unequal” (Middle Passage Press). He also is the host of the weekly The Hutchinson Report on Facebook Livestreamed.
