Pope Francis Enters His Third Year of Scolding Introverts

[bardegaulois]

Greetings. I hope you don't mind my coming by with a few thoughts that have been vexing me of late.

This article (http://www.nationalreview.com/article/415346/pope-francis-enters-his-third-year-scolding-introverts-nicholas-frankovich) cuts to the real matter that, short of any disputes over liturgy or theology, was bound to rend the Church. Even without particular issues, there seems to be among the more dutiful clergy and faithful a fundamental incompatibility in personalities, approaches to things, and styles of life. This can be strongly seen in the contrasts between Popes Benedict and Francis.

It is troubling, though, that while Pope who took the name of the father of Western monasticism, whose absence I greatly regret, gave much support to the Church’s more active or missionary endeavours, Pope Francis seems to think that those who do not share his happy and cheerful temperament are sinning. One must even wonder if he is aware of the Church’s long and rich tradition of contemplative or monastic life, for he’s never really addressed it in any letters or statements.

We know, however, that the Church is much more in need of a contemplative mindset now, as those living it acknowledge more readily not only their own psychological needs and problems, but also, insofar as they think with the mind of the Church, those of the Church. I’ve dealt with clergy who place a much higher value on extraversion all my life, and in their focus on the outer world—Francis’s focus on “peripheries,” except those that don’t agree with him (Africa, Eastern Europe, Western traditionalists)—they become oblivious of these needs and problems, and go on to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic. Thus, the terminal decline we are seeing in my home diocese and those similar to it.

That's what came to mind while I read this. Any thoughts you'd like to contribute?

[Era Might]

The oft-quoted St. Teresa of Avila comes to mind: "Lord, save us from gloomy saints."

Contemplatives retire to monasteries and mountains for a reason. They need a silence that most of the world cannot bear. The contemplative personality is hardly the model of Catholicism (and that's no knock on the contemplative personality). A retreat inward is not necessarily a good thing. This happened to Spain in the 16th century, one of its great ages of mysticism, but the country also began a long and sharp decline until one day it woke up and wondered how the rest of Europe had left it behind when it had once been a great empire. This isn't a perfect analogy, because it's about an entire country, but it's true about the church too. Most people are not introverts, much less contemplatives, and Pope Francis represents a more earthy personality. It's probably no coincidence that the bookish Benedict XVI became the only Pope in centuries to retire.

[bardegaulois]

This is all very true, Era Might, and all admit that most persons are not of a more interior temperament. What troubles me, though, is the great lack of balance I've been starting to see in the Church, both filtering down from the Holy See as well as based upon pre-existing conditions. I've had a heck of a time, as have a great many others around me, trying to find a niche in the Church in the area in which I live, which seems to have bypassed the era of Pope Benedict as well as most of that of St John Paul. It's seemed like a perpetual 1984 here, until some colleagues and I banded together with some sympathetic priests, mostly younger curates, for the purpose of having the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite celebrated regularly. We've all skirted the animosity of many parish pastors and even our bishop for doing so, yet we're still fighting for it. For obvious reasons, I won't go into too many details on this.

But all the clerics who have been giving us a hard time on this seem to fit a certain model, one I've been trying to understand from my youth. It's not that type of priest who is with you as you attempt to deepen your relationship with the Divine, the type pleased to hear your confession and give you absolution and spiritual counsel, like St. John Paul. Nor is it the scholarly teacher type like Pope Benedict. I've known priests of both of these types, and I've benefited from their counsel, instruction, and spiritual direction immensely. Most of the priests whom I've had to deal with have been men more like Francis. As much as I try to be charitable in assessing them, I always fall back on my difficult experiences, finding them uninviting and what they say to be of so little importance that I find it requires a great deal of endurance to attend to them at all--homilies completely without substance, teaching producing no effect, that I'm often wondering if they had intended to indicate anything at all.

As I noted, I'm in league with a number of others to do our own thing (the Traditional Latin Mass) in an effort to forestall the plummeting Mass attendance and parish closures and mergers in my diocese. However, we can scarcely call this a Mass for introverts. As a good number of non-Catholics show up regularly, it's a profound vehicle of the New Evangelization. So one would think pastors, bishop, and even Pope would be supportive?

No, those I've encountered simply lecture us at length often in a critical and (passive-)aggressive manner. They have complaints, especially trivial complaints, against us, and they often get on us to stop being as we are, without thinking thinking carefully about the needs of Catholics who give true and constant support for the Church, perceive the significance of their faith, live their faith, and love the Church.  And this is not just my Traditional Latin Mass group; I hear this sort of thing from so many other Catholics in the area that I know. We often give up greatly valued things for the sake of the faith we regard as more important, and this is how our lawful superiors repay us. We teach the young their catechism and preach the Gospel to non-Catholics, so much so that we have many who will soon convert. And yet our pastors frustrate us and belittle us. We still pray for them, however, and we trust in God that when we suffer at their hands, we are suffering for the sake of His name and that of His Holy Church.

Now we have a Pope who does much the same thing. A new man to Roman circles, he evidently wanted to do a very good job at first to prove how competent he was, but risks the completely avoidable error of eliminating something good while trying to get rid of something bad. Like the pastors of my native area, he is causing many of the Church's most fervent supporters to feel unsympathetic and isolated all because of certain subjects he speaks of too often. Like the pastors of my native area, he gives the impression of one with a limited outlook, with a lack of willingness to appreciate alternative views, with an obsessive attachment to certain things he doesn't like, but with a strange ignorance, whether real or feigned, that the Catholic Church is, well, catholic, and thus not limited to those few types of persons about whom they like to talk a lot. Yes, I've known this type of cleric before, and I'm still not any closer to understanding them than I was when I was a young man.

It's very difficult, as I said, after having known so many priests who impressed me by giving me and so many others such intense attention with everything in their being, to go back to those who, despite their outwardly hearty, friendly, and congenial behaviour, don't exhibit any serious thought, and want very much to talk, but not so much to listen. It makes me rather sad, actually; all the loquacious clergy in a direct line of authority over me have failed to fulfill my hopes, so much so that I'm tempted to adopt their dismissive attitude toward my colleagues and me and conclude that even taking notice of them is not worth my time. I really just can't do that, though. Until then, it's surreptitious Low Mass until such time as one of my priest-friends is awarded with a pastorate of his own and we therefore have a home.

Sorry if that was lengthy. Obedience regarding this issue is problematic for me, which is likely why I'm not a religious. And my diocese obviously has no use for a man like me.

[Era Might]

Have you ever read "Diary of a Country Priest" by Georges Bernanos? I highly recommend it. It's about a priest who himself feels completely inadequate in the church, not just among other priests (he's not smart enough, or worldly enough, or savvy enough like other priests), but he also feels isolated from his parishioners (he's just a naive young priest, with no worldly practicality like the peasants he serves). An older, wiser priest takes him under his wings, and gives him some deep advice about what it means to be simple, to bear with others as they are, and still bring Christ to them. He encounters various laypeople of different temperaments, an agnostic doctor, a cynical but sharp young soldier, a wife with a very difficult family situation, a fellow priest who left the priesthood and took up with a woman. And with all these, he is dealing with his own physical suffering, trying to find his place in a brief, painful, but divine world.

[bardegaulois]

I saw the Bresson film a few years ago, but haven't had a chance to read the novel yet. It's going to the top of my reading list. Your last suggestions to me (Chuang-tzu and Rilke) were outstanding, so I trust you as a man of great literary taste.

[AccountDeleted]

This is all very true, Era Might, and all admit that most persons are not of a more interior temperament. What troubles me, though, is the great lack of balance I've been starting to see in the Church, both filtering down from the Holy See as well as based upon pre-existing conditions. I've had a heck of a time, as have a great many others around me, trying to find a niche in the Church in the area in which I live, which seems to have bypassed the era of Pope Benedict as well as most of that of St John Paul. It's seemed like a perpetual 1984 here, until some colleagues and I banded together with some sympathetic priests, mostly younger curates, for the purpose of having the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite celebrated regularly. We've all skirted the animosity of many parish pastors and even our bishop for doing so, yet we're still fighting for it. For obvious reasons, I won't go into too many details on this.

But all the clerics who have been giving us a hard time on this seem to fit a certain model, one I've been trying to understand from my youth. It's not that type of priest who is with you as you attempt to deepen your relationship with the Divine, the type pleased to hear your confession and give you absolution and spiritual counsel, like St. John Paul. Nor is it the scholarly teacher type like Pope Benedict. I've known priests of both of these types, and I've benefited from their counsel, instruction, and spiritual direction immensely. Most of the priests whom I've had to deal with have been men more like Francis. As much as I try to be charitable in assessing them, I always fall back on my difficult experiences, finding them uninviting and what they say to be of so little importance that I find it requires a great deal of endurance to attend to them at all--homilies completely without substance, teaching producing no effect, that I'm often wondering if they had intended to indicate anything at all.

As I noted, I'm in league with a number of others to do our own thing (the Traditional Latin Mass) in an effort to forestall the plummeting Mass attendance and parish closures and mergers in my diocese. However, we can scarcely call this a Mass for introverts. As a good number of non-Catholics show up regularly, it's a profound vehicle of the New Evangelization. So one would think pastors, bishop, and even Pope would be supportive?

No, those I've encountered simply lecture us at length often in a critical and (passive-)aggressive manner. They have complaints, especially trivial complaints, against us, and they often get on us to stop being as we are, without thinking thinking carefully about the needs of Catholics who give true and constant support for the Church, perceive the significance of their faith, live their faith, and love the Church.  And this is not just my Traditional Latin Mass group; I hear this sort of thing from so many other Catholics in the area that I know. We often give up greatly valued things for the sake of the faith we regard as more important, and this is how our lawful superiors repay us. We teach the young their catechism and preach the Gospel to non-Catholics, so much so that we have many who will soon convert. And yet our pastors frustrate us and belittle us. We still pray for them, however, and we trust in God that when we suffer at their hands, we are suffering for the sake of His name and that of His Holy Church.

Now we have a Pope who does much the same thing. A new man to Roman circles, he evidently wanted to do a very good job at first to prove how competent he was, but risks the completely avoidable error of eliminating something good while trying to get rid of something bad. Like the pastors of my native area, he is causing many of the Church's most fervent supporters to feel unsympathetic and isolated all because of certain subjects he speaks of too often. Like the pastors of my native area, he gives the impression of one with a limited outlook, with a lack of willingness to appreciate alternative views, with an obsessive attachment to certain things he doesn't like, but with a strange ignorance, whether real or feigned, that the Catholic Church is, well, catholic, and thus not limited to those few types of persons about whom they like to talk a lot. Yes, I've known this type of cleric before, and I'm still not any closer to understanding them than I was when I was a young man.

It's very difficult, as I said, after having known so many priests who impressed me by giving me and so many others such intense attention with everything in their being, to go back to those who, despite their outwardly hearty, friendly, and congenial behaviour, don't exhibit any serious thought, and want very much to talk, but not so much to listen. It makes me rather sad, actually; all the loquacious clergy in a direct line of authority over me have failed to fulfill my hopes, so much so that I'm tempted to adopt their dismissive attitude toward my colleagues and me and conclude that even taking notice of them is not worth my time. I really just can't do that, though. Until then, it's surreptitious Low Mass until such time as one of my priest-friends is awarded with a pastorate of his own and we therefore have a home.

Sorry if that was lengthy. Obedience regarding this issue is problematic for me, which is likely why I'm not a religious. And my diocese obviously has no use for a man like me.

​I can relate to what you're saying but I have had experiences from both ends of the spectrum. I am a contemplative and I switched to the Latin Mass because I thought it would be more in tune with my own nature and I did enjoy so much of the ritual and pagentry. I asked one of the priests to be my spiritual director and he agreed but told me he would not be directive, that he would be there for advice and I was to make my own choices and decisions. All good until it came to crunch time when I asked him for a reference because I had been in contact with a Carmelite convent I wanted to visit. I had been serving as church cleaner and after Mass coffee/tea server, had keys to the parish hall, etc so I envisioned no problems. The priest became arrogant and angry and told me he hadn't given me 'his permission' to contact the convent and therefore he was not only not giving me a reference but that he would no longer be my spiritual director. I was in shock at his reaction to my simple request. I then asked my Confessor at the Latin Mass church if he would write a reference but he refused because he said that the other priest wouldn't like it. So after all my hard work and efforts and being a good parishioner, I was left without any priestly support.  My SD priest then made my life so miserable with his critical and autocratic ways that I stopped attending the EF altogether. As I was saying goodbye to some of the other parish people, I found out that the sacristan was also leaving because of this autocratic priest, as was the other 'church lady' like myself. I was turned off the EF for ages after that, all because of the abuse of power.

On the opposite extreme I have been to NOs where the rubrics were not followed in the Mass and liturgical abuses were prevalent. I was in one parish where the priests let us help ourselves to the chalice, which was sitting on the altar, and I even spent time at one monastery where we were allowed to help ourselves to Communion from the ciborium placed on the altar!

All I am trying to say is that both sides of the fence are difficult. From too much power and arrogance to too little respect and reverence for the liturgy through all manner of other scenarios. But it is never going to be perfect on this earth - at least not in our lifetime. With Pope Francis, I go through ups and downs. There are things I like about him, his openness and honesty, good intentions etc. But I also get frustrated with him when I hear about some of the things he has said or done. So he isn't going to be perfect (in my eyes) either. But he is the Pope. 

So I remain my contemplative self but try to avoid becoming like my EF priests who completely lacked any semblance of humanity or like the NO ones who believe that 'anything goes'. There are happier experiences along the way, and we can be grateful when we come across parishes that do feed us spiritually. As Era Might pointed out, The Diary of a Country Priest is a good read for those who don't feel like they fit in. We have to find our own peace and just pray for occasions of grace.

[bardegaulois]

My, Nunsense, that sounds almost like the pastors and chancery-folk I've been dealing with split into two. Yes, those that I've been dealing with have both the exaggerated sense of their own importance because of their title as well as the lack of deep and solemn respect for the liturgy. And their own arrogance makes me worry especially for the priests in our retinue, who should have long and fruitful careers ahead of them. There have already been some undesirable repercussions against one very respectful and holy man--for winning the love and goodwill of the parish to which he was assigned, leading many young men to start serving the Mass and to consider priestly vocations. The last I checked, that wasn't a bad thing by any stretch, except perhaps to a narrow-minded chancery official whose diocesan pastoral plan is threatened by this priest's success.

[Pia Jesu]

Bard...to say that your "diocese has no need for a man like me" is surely (hopefully) just a passing thought!  To twist the words of Shakespeare, methinks you don't protest enough! The crisis in the Church does, indeed, extend from the papacy to the pews--but what is being done? Where is the dialectic tension?  As an academic, Pope Emeritus Benedict (at least) examined and discussed opposing ideas with logical argumentation.  Anyone receptive to the process, deepened their understanding.  The "lack of balance"
you now see in today's Church is a painfully astute observation.  Liberal modernism is wrecking havoc in the most subtle, systemic
 way.  Yet, over fifty years ago, St. Padre Pio asked a simple priest to dedicate his life in defense of the Catholic Church--against ecclesiastical Freemasonry.  Also under a papal mandate, Fr. Luigi Villa exposed a level of corruption and infiltration that parallels the current state of affairs.  See Paul VI Beatified (2009) for a heavily footnoted, documented and most interesting read.  We need more unsung heroes like Fr. Villa.  Paraphrasing Shakespeare again (with a ton of literary license), there is "much ado about many things" in the Church.

Note:  Having experienced a SD who was unenthusiastic--and ultimately unwilling--to write a recommendation letter for me (needed to join a secular order), I sympathize with you, Nunsense! 
 

[Pia Jesu]

Robert J. Siscoe has an excellent (2013) review of Fr. Villa's book at http://www.cfnews.org/page10/page83/paul_vi_beatified.html

[beatitude]

 

It is troubling, though, that while Pope who took the name of the father of Western monasticism, whose absence I greatly regret, gave much support to the Church’s more active or missionary endeavours, Pope Francis seems to think that those who do not share his happy and cheerful temperament are sinning. One must even wonder if he is aware of the Church’s long and rich tradition of contemplative or monastic life, for he’s never really addressed it in any letters or statements.​

Occasionally I feel like the odd one out in Catholic circles, because I've genuinely liked all three of the popes that we've had in my lifetime. St John Paul II's death hit me very hard because I was just a teenager at the time and JPII had always been there in the background as I really began to practise my faith - it was difficult to imagine the Church without him at first, and I think a lot of teenagers/young adults who had powerful conversion experiences during his papacy felt the same. But I warmed to Pope Benedict. I attended a Papal Mass once and was struck by how gentle he seemed, and yes, how reverent in the liturgy. During his papacy I heard a lot of disapproving talk in certain quarters about how he had his priorities all wrong, how he was bad for ecumenical relations, how he should be focusing on this and not that - it went on and on. Now we have the same thing with Pope Francis.

I think this is our problem, not the Pope's. It's no use to expect Francis to be like Benedict, or Benedict to be a carbon copy of John Paul. They are different men. It's natural to have one pope you really like whose life and work have inspired you in a special way, but sometimes this can spill over into critical speculation about the successor that isn't helpful. It's a pretty serious thing to say that "Pope Francis seems to think that those who don't share his happy temperament are sinning" - we don't know the inner workings of his mind, it's unlikely that he's brimming over with happiness and the joys of spring all the time himself (probably not, given the weight of his office), and the judgment doesn't seem to be based on anything more substantial than "I miss Benedict". I can understand that but it's important not to let regret lead us into partisanship. The article seems to make several unfair leaps and extrapolations, such as interpreting "I want the Church to go out into the streets" as scolding introverts - Jesus commanded his disciples to hit the road, but that didn't mean he was saying contemplative prayer was no longer important, or that it's not OK to be shy. We know from other articles that Pope Francis has friends who are enclosed contemplatives and he's preached to Carmelite nuns on how essential their life is to the Church, so it's definitely unfair to take that one statement about "going into the streets" and use it to suggest that he doesn't appreciate contemplative prayer or naturally quiet people. 

I also think it is beneficial sometimes to have a pope who challenges the way we think. Catholics who didn't see liturgy as very important were able to learn a lot from Pope Benedict if only they were willing to get past their own discomfort and preconceptions about the topic - i.e. "That's just for holier-than-thou fuddy-duddies who don't know about the real world". The same applies here.

[bardegaulois]

Pia Jesu, I hope you understanding that self-pity is the furthest thing from my mind when I say that the diocese has no use for men like me. The diocesan VD told me that about six years ago, but I beg to differ--perhaps not me personally, but men like me, no doubt. Unsurprisingly, we all, whether cleric or lay, seem to be in league against all the trouble that's been caused around us. You mention dialectic--and yet here we are accurately assessing the situation and turning it to our advantage. What ecclesial life is lacking around me is just what it needs, and several minds working independently have come to that conclusion. If that's not a providential sign, I don't know what is. I'm actually rather lucky; in doing this, I'm not risking the bishop turning me out of my comfortable suburban parish to go live and work in the toughest part of the inner city or anything.

So in short, the diocese has a lot of need for men like me, even if they won't admit that for 10 or 20 more years, when the more traditional parishes they've so loathed for a long time are flourishing and the modernist problem is being resolved through the biological solution. And so, what can we do to continue to fight now? The end result, hopefully, will be that I'll be able to retire from it all and live as something of an anchorite for a while...

[Pia Jesu]

Well-said, Bard...!  I'm looking into life as an anchoress myself.

Pax.

[Archaeology cat]

@beatitude - I completely agree.

[Credo in Deum]

@beatitude; amesome post! 

 

[Cherie]

Most people are not introverts, 

Um, really? Isn't the world's population pretty evenly split between introverts and extroverts?

 

Also, @beatitude - beautiful comment!

Edited March 18, 2015 by Cherie