In the year since his surprise election, Pope Francis has raised so many hopes of imminent changes in Church teaching that managing all those expectations is going to be a challenge.
The Argentine-born Pontiff has caught world attention by suggesting he might ease the Catholic Church’s strict rules on divorce, birth control, married or women priests and gay unions.
Off-the-cuff comments such as “who am I to judge?” about gays has contrasted with the more distant style of his predecessors Pope John Paul and Pope Benedict.
But while his words and public appearances have struck a chord with many Catholics, anyone hoping for a quick turnaround on those headline-grabbers is likely to be disappointed, said Boston College theologian Richard Gaillardetz.
“There is a critical mass of Catholics who want change,” said Gaillardetz, president of the Catholic Theological Society of America. “In the minds of many people, substantial change has to mean change on what I call the hot button troika – birth control, women’s ordination and same-sex marriage.
In this global Church, there are different expectations in different places
“This Pope has undertaken very substantial change, but it is not necessarily going to focus on specific doctrines,” he added.
Instead, say Gaillardetz and others, Francis seeks a deeper shift in the Church to become what he calls a “field hospital” serving the needs of the faithful rather than an inward-looking institution more concerned with its own rules and procedures. Either way, he seems to be facing the religious version of what political scientists call a ‘revolution of rising expectations’, the moment when people think their distant leaders are listening to them and start to ratchet up their demands for change.
Older Catholics remember when expectations of a Vatican approval for contraception soared in the 1960s, only to be dashed in 1968 when Pope Paul VI’s encyclical Humanae Vitae surprised many churchgoers by upholding the traditional ban.
Many believers deserted the pews and priests quit the clergy. Large numbers of those who stayed began simply to ignore Vatican teaching on sex.
Pope Francis gently pushed back last week at expectations of rapid change, telling an interviewer he was not “a kind of superman or a star” but just “a normal person”.
“It’s not a question of changing the doctrine but going deeper so that pastoral concern takes into account situations and what can be done for people,” he added.
The international reform group We Are Church has said it is worried reforms were being held up by “strong resistance in the power structure”. It also asked Rome to rehabilitateliberal priests and theologians disciplined in recent decades.
These demands are coming to the fore now because Francis has encouraged Catholics to discuss sensitive issues more openly and even sent out an unprecedented survey to hear their views.
“He has basically reopened a debate that was shut down during the previous two pontificates,” said Italian theologian Massimo Faggioli, a historian of the 1962-1965 Second Vatican Council that launched reforms Pope Francis wants to revive.
Survey results published in Europe showed how large a gap exists between Church teaching and Catholics’ lives. “Church statements on premarital sexual relations, homosexuality, on those divorced and remarried, and on birth control are virtually never accepted, or are expressly rejected in the vast majority of cases,” the German bishops conference said in its blunt report to the Vatican.
It said many do not understand the rule that divorced Catholics cannot remarry in church and must be denied the sacraments if they opt for a civil ceremony. Many churchgoers see this as “unjustified discrimination and ... merciless.”
But it also said most Catholics upheld the ideal of lifelong faithful heterosexual marriage and opposed abortion.
A poll from the Pew Research Centre in Washington last week showed Francis was “immensely popular among American Catholics” but many still differed with some Vatican teachings.
“Large majorities of Catholics say the Church should allow Catholics to use birth control (77 per cent), allow priests to get married (72 per cent) and ordain women as priests (68 per cent),” the Pew report said.
But the concerns recorded in Washington are not universal. Roman Catholicism, by far the world’s largest Christian church, has everyone from Western professionals to African peasants among its 1.2 billion members.
“In this global Church, there are different expectations in different places,” noted Faggioli, who teaches at the University of St Thomas in Minnesota. Catholics in Africa, where the Church is growing rapidly, have more traditional views about women’s roles.
Many priests there are concerned that looser divorce rules would undercut their decades-long preaching against polygamy.
Homosexual sex is illegal in 37 countries in Africa and Catholic and Protestant clergy say the new acceptance of gays in Western Churches makes them less credible than Muslim preachers who say their whole faith condemns homosexuality.
Gaillardetz said the big change Pope Francis wants is to spread a new interpretation of the Second Vatican Council, which set out to turn the tightly hierarchical Church into a more horizontal structure sharing responsibility and power between Rome and national churches and between clergy and laity.
“This will ultimately have widespread consequences, but they’re not the kind that happen one year in,” he said.
Impatient critics are looking ahead to a synod of bishops in Rome in October to discuss the survey results. But it will not take any decisions, leaving that for a second synod next year.
“He’s telling bishops and priests: you can speak out and we should listen. This is a big change,” Faggioli said. “Some are ready to do that, like the Germans. But others, like the US and Italy, aren’t ready yet.” Under Popes John Paul and Benedict, synods were scripted sessions with little debate. If the bishops don’t open up this time, t will be “a major blow” for Francis.
“The high expectations he has raised refocus everything that happens in the Church onto him,” the theologian said.
While many bishops seem cautious about following Pope Francis’s example, Faggioli said surprises could still come.
Some memorable quotes from the Pontiff
“You know that the duty of the conclave was to give a bishop to Rome. It seems that my brother cardinals went almost to the end of the world to get him. But here we are.” – March 13, 2013, in some of his first words to the world after his election.
“He who does not pray to the Lord prays to the devil. When we don’t proclaim Jesus Christ, we proclaim the worldliness of the devil, the worldliness of the demon.” – March 14, 2013, in his first Mass after his election.
“Oh, how I would like a poor Church, and for the poor.” – March 16, in an address to journalists.
“Let us look around: how many wounds are inflicted upon humanity by evil! Wars, violence, economic conflicts that hit the weakest, greed for money, power, corruption, divisions, crimes against human life and against creation.” – March 24, in a Palm Sunday homily.
“We need to go out, then, in order to experience our own anointing (as priests)... to the outskirts where there is suffering, bloodshed, blindness that longs for sight, and prisoners in thrall to many evil masters.” – March 28, in a homily to priests on their mission.
“Living on €38 a month – that was the pay of these people who died. That is called slave labour.” – May 1, in a homily reflecting on the victims of the Bangladesh factory collapse that killed more than 1,100 people.
“Men and women of the Church who are careerists, social climbers, who use the people, the Church, brothers and sisters – those they should serve – as a springboard for their own ambitions and personal interests do great damage to the Church.” – May 8, to a gathering of superiors general of orders of nuns from around the world.
“Young people at the moment are in crisis. We have all become accustomed to this disposable culture. We do the same thing with the elderly, but with all these people out of work even they are afflicted by a culture where everything is disposable. We have to stop this habit of throwing things away. We need a culture of inclusion.” – July 22, to journalists on the plane taking him to Brazil.
“We cannot keep ourselves shut up in parishes, in our communities, when so many people are waiting for the Gospel...It is not enough simply to open the door in welcome, but we must go out through that door and meet the people!” – July 27, in the sermon of a Mass in Rio de Janeiro.
“If a person is gay and seeks God and has good will, who am I to judge him?” – July 29, speaking to reporters while returning from Brazil.
“Violence and war lead only to death, they speak of death! Violence and war are the language of death!” – September 7, during an international prayer service for peace in Syria.
“We cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage and the use of contraceptive methods. This is not possible. I have not spoken much about these things, and I was reprimanded for that.” – September 19, in an interview with the Catholic periodical Civiltà Cattolica.
“How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses 2 points?” - Nov 26, in an apostolic exhortation called Evangelium Gaudi.
“We are in front of a global scandal of around one billion - one billion people who still suffer from hunger today. We cannot look the other way and pretend this does not exist. The food available in the world is enough to feed everyone.” – December 9, in a video message launching a campaign against hunger.
“The grave financial and economic crises of the present time... have pushed man to seek satisfaction, happiness and security in consumption and earnings out of all proportion to the principles of a sound economy.” – December 12, in his message for World Day of Peace.
“Marxist ideology is wrong. But in my life I have known many Marxists who are good people, so I don’t feel offended (in being called a Marxist).” –December 15, in an interview with an Italian newspaper.
“When professionalism is lacking, there is a slow drift downwards towards mediocrity.” – December 21, to Vatican administrators.
“If they are hungry, mothers, feed them, without thinking twice. Because they are the most important people here.” – January 12, 2014, telling mothers at a baptism in the Sistine Chapel they should feel free to breastfeed their babies there.
“To depict the Pope as a sort of superman, a sort of star, seems offensive to me. The Pope is a man who laughs, cries, sleeps tranquilly and has friends like everyone else, a normal person.” – March 5, in an interview with an Italian newspaper.