Three Surprising Papal Moves

By Robert Royal 

AAmong the many new notes introduced by Pope Francis, we now have evidence of his willingness to correct his own errors or imprecise statements – and quite openly, too – something not always seen in Rome’s handling of PR problems. That’s the contention, anyway, of noted Vaticanologist Sandro Magister, who’spointed out three recent cases. Two relate to Catholic self-understanding, the third to Francis’s global view of the contemporary world.

The first two corrections dealt with the two interviews the pope gave this year, which raised questions about what, precisely, he meant to say.

Speaking with Italian journalist Eugenio Scalfari of the newspaperLa Repubblica, Francis expressed what seemed a muddle about each person needing to follow his or her own vision of the Good. A very few of us in the Catholic commentariat maintained that he had indeed said such a thing, but couldn’t have meant it quite that way. That now seems to be the case. The Vatican took down the interview from its website, and both Scalfari and Vatican officials say it was a reconstruction with words that may not have been Francis’s own – and might be misleading.

Similarly – and of greater import – Francis corrected another “imprecision” in a widely distributed interview with La Civiltà Cattolica. He said that Vatican II had performed “a reinterpretation of the Gospel in the light of contemporary culture.” This phrase is often used by proponents of a “rupture” with the past at the Council. Francis has removed any ambiguity by publicly commending a scholar of the Council’s “continuity” with the past as the best interpreter, which is to say he’s in line with John Paul II and Benedict XVI.

This doesn’t fit the secular media’s narrative about Francis, so it’s barely been noticed outside Catholic outlets. But it should lay to rest earlier agitation over what seemed a casualness bordering, at times, on almost inconceivable concessions to current secular culture.

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