Pope Francis isn’t a regular Pope. He’s a cool Pope.
The liberal Argentinian leader’s social attitudes, progressive in comparison to those of his predecessors, first came to light in July when he said, “If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?”.
His thoughts on where the Catholic Church should be heading have become even more apparent today after he gave his first extensive interview to Father Antonio Spadaro, manager of the Italian Jesuit publication, La Civiltà Cattolica. Among the many things addressed in the interview were the church’s attitudes towards abortion and homosexuality, the role of women in the Catholic Church, and the need for the church, its policies and its cohort to become flexible enough to fit current times.
Here are some of the most promising things he said.
He has a pragmatic approach to social issues: “When it comes to social issues, it is one thing to have a meeting to study the problem of drugs in a slum neighborhood and quite another thing to go there, live there and understand the problem from the inside and study it.”
He can accept – and wants – change: “Tradition and memory of the past must help us to have the courage to open up new areas to God. Those who today always look for disciplinarian solutions, those who long for an exaggerated doctrinal ‘security,’ those who stubbornly try to recover a past that no longer exists—they have a static and inward-directed view of things.”
He knows that when it comes to governance of morality, context is essential: “There are ecclesiastical rules and precepts that were once effective, but now they have lost value or meaning. The view of the church’s teaching as a monolith to defend without nuance or different understandings is wrong.”
He admits that the church can be narrow-minded: “The church sometimes has locked itself up in small things, in small-minded rules. The most important thing is the first proclamation: Jesus Christ has saved you.”
On the role of women: “Women are asking deep questions that must be addressed. The church
cannot be herself without the woman and her role. The woman is essential
for the church.” (Though he is still opposed to the idea of women priests…for now.)
He acknowledges that the church’s obsession with gay marriage and abortion is not commensurate to the severity and threat of other issues: “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. But when
we speak about these issues, we have to talk about them in a context.”
Read the full interview, translated and syndicated by US Catholic magazine, America, here.
