Michael Kelly
‘The Pope’s ability to present the Church’s teaching in a way that is accessible is very impressive’, writes Michael Kelly
Pope Francis’ inflight press conferences have become the stuff of legend. After an uncertain start – on his first papal trip there were initial indications he would discontinue the practice of papal meetings with journalists – Francis has taken to the encounters like a duck to water. The reporters who travel with the Pope – the so-called vaticanisti – lap it up and the Pope’s freewheeling communications style means there’s always a choice quote to grab the media headlines.
On his trip from Sri Lanka to the Philippines, for example, Francis jokingly gestured towards one of his aides Alberto Gasparri indicating that if Dr Gasparri mocked Francis’ mother, the Pope would give him a punch.
The more po-faced elements in the media immediately began to howl that the Pope was justifying violence in the wake of the terrorist attacks in Paris. The Pope went on to explain, rather elementarily, that if people are provoked they sometimes respond with violence. Francis was clear that such violence was always wrong. He was emphatic in asserting that violence can never be used in the name of religion, regardless how egregious the offence.
A few days later, after the Pope had reaffirmed traditional Catholic teaching rejecting same-sex marriage and contraception, the Pope again took the microphone aboard the papal plane. The backdrop is, the Pontiff had also blasted what he had described as the “ideological colonisation” of the developing world. That’s shorthand for the deeply cynical approach adopted by many western development agencies that links financial aid to the developing world to ideas around gay marriage and population control.
The Pope’s remarks caused a bit of a tailspin among those in the media who are determined to ignore the fact that Francis is a Catholic and those within the Church who want to use Francis to project their own views and conveniently ignore the Pope every time he says something that makes them uncomfortable.
Francis returned to the theme aboard the papal plane from Manila to Rome insisting that his reaffirmation of the Church’s ban on artificial birth control doesn’t mean that Catholics have to breed “like rabbits” and should instead practice “responsible parenting”.
Cue the headlines insisting that Francis is ‘softening’ the Church’s line on contraception. What the Pope is doing, of course, is stating the basic Catholic principle that parents have an absolute right – and indeed a responsibility – to regulate the size of their families. This involves a realistic assessment for parents of what is a responsible number of children to have. This has practical implications, of course, like looking at how many children a family can reasonably afford to have.
Where the Church draws the distinction on birth control, is on the means. Francis is clear in his opposition to artificial means of contraception.
He has described Pope Paul VI’s controversial 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae as “prophetic” saying Paul “had the courage to stand against the majority, to defend moral discipline”.
The Pope’s ability to present the Church’s teaching in a way that is accessible is very impressive. What we have in Pope Francis is a man who is not, as some on the extreme left and extreme right of the Church would have it, who wants to radically repudiate Church teaching – quite the opposite, as he has constantly pointed out. But, he is a man after the heart of Christ who loves people more than he loves rules and he is determined to ensure that people first and foremost experience the Church as a place of healing and mercy.