Some appreciation for Pope Francis

Today's feast day has inspired some thoughts of gratitude for the Holy Father.

The Catholic church is so hierarchical that even the days of the year are given different ranks.  There exists an official chart, the Table of Liturgical Days, which lists the 13 degrees of holy days, each with their own subdivisions.  (Ash Wednesday outranks All Souls Day, in case that is something you need to know). 

Feast days rate relatively highly in the Table, higher than most of the saints' days throughout the year, which tend to be Memorials (of which there are several degrees).  Today, February 22nd, was one of those feast days: the Feast of the Chair of Peter.  It is, if I am not mistaken, the only feast day that honors a home furnishing.  But of course, the Chair of Peter isn't just any chair: it's the seat of the Holy Father in Rome.   And it stands for much more than an object to sit upon.

Over the course of the liturgical year, various popes, from Saint Peter to Saint John Paul II, are on the universal Roman Calendar.  Today's feast, the Feast of the Chair of Peter, is a way to honor, not an individual saint or pope, but the papacy itself.  Over the course of two millenia, nearly all the popes have been Italian, but even so, they have varied tremendously: former slaves and scions of powerful families; peacemakers and warriors; reformers and defenders of prerogatives.  Today's feast, in invoking Peter, ties the office of pope to the earliest church, to scripture, to the first followers of Jesus.

I suppose people's feelings about the papacy are as varied as the popes themselves.  Certainly, there are Catholics who find the papacy fascinating, in somewhat the same way that some people find the British royals fascinating.  They love the occasions, the ceremonies, the vestments, the various offices of the Holy See, and all the other trappings of one of the last functioning monarchies in Europe.  On the other hand, there are people (and they, too, have their counterparts regarding the British royals) who think the papacy is an anachronism and an embarrassment; some of them them think we'd be much better off if the church simply jettisoned the papacy and adopted some form of participative democracy to choose church leaders.

Pope Francis has sat upon the Chair of Peter, figuratively and on occasion literally, for nearly 11 years now.  And I just want to take a moment to mention what a blessing he has been.  I was ordained about 20 years ago (my anniversary comes up in May), which perhaps isn't a very long time, but looking back on it, it feels like a different era of the church.  In 2004, John Paul II was still pope, but he would die within the year, and he was largely incapacitated, with various Holy See officials running the church.  Locally here in Chicago, Cardinal George, whose management style was rather old-school, was still very much in charge.  It was he who ordained me.  And throughout the American church, the conservatives were trying to assert themselves.  EWTN was engaged in what was, in retrospect, an early form of cancel culture, encouraging viewers to "out" priests and others who engaged in liturgical experimentations and other exercises of frowned-upon human creativity.

In some ways, even under Cardinal George, the Chicago Archdiocese was a bit of an oasis: most of the priests were pretty moderate in outlook, if not outright liberal; and by and large the laity were, and still are, a rather practical lot with little or no interest in being doctrinal police.  But even so, there was, in the air, a feeling and an expectation that the way to go along and get along was by conforming and obeying.  I'm not much of a rebel, but I didn't feel free to say or write everything I thought about.  

In the last decade, this has changed.  And I attribute much of it to Pope Francis.  I suppose one could point to various formal reform efforts he has initiated, and perhaps that accounts for at least some of the new spirit that prevails in the church. But it is more than documents and initiatives; it is the person of Francis himself.  He talks about things that previous popes didn't really talk about.  On long plane rides, he talks with reporters in an unscripted, uncontrolled way that probably gives his flunkies and would-be handlers fits.  He has reopened topics for discussion which his predecessors tried to close down. 

All of this, and other things besides, has in a real sense changed the culture of the church.  It's like we're able to breathe new, fresher air now.  It's hard to explain, but I feel freer and more relaxed than I did 20 years ago.

If the church wants to accelerate decline and drive people away in droves, it's very simple: it can elect, as Francis's successor, someone who wants to reimpose the top-down control and restrictions from the era of John Paul II and Benedict (and George in Chicago).  I don't think the people and the clergy will stand for something like that anymore.  Francis has opened windows that can't be closed, and let in fresh air that can't be blown back out.  The church has changed.  God bless this man that the electors and the Holy Spirit saw fit to seat upon the Chair of Peter during our lifetimes.