Complete coverage
Sunday: Local Catholics are preparing to celebrate Pope Francis's trip to the United States.
Monday: Pope Francis is uniquely prepared about the divided political nature of Washington, D.C.
Today: The journey Pope Francis is leading the church.
As Pope Francis steps on U.S. soil today for the first time in his 78 years, it seems everyone has adopted him as an ideological ally.
Liberals, conservatives, progressives and traditionalists all point to statements and writings of Pope Francis as evidence of theological kinship.
But observers wonder if looking at Pope Francis through an ideological lens perhaps misses the point. People themselves are the message in the case of Pope Francis, the former Jorge Mario Bergoglio, an Argentine priest and prelate who was elected the 266th pope on March 13, 2013.
"I think that's one of the biggest surprises that Pope Francis is offering," said the Rev. Satish Joseph, associate pastor of Dayton's Immaculate Conception Catholic Church. "His starting point is always the person."
And some observers hear in his message an age-old resonance.
"I don't think the message is new at all," said Laura Leming, a University of Dayton associate professor of sociology who is working on a year-long sabbatical in San Antonio.
Leming pointed to an encyclical written by Pope Pius XI on social reconstruction, written decades ago. The 84-year-old letter talks of redistribution of wealth and social justice. On nearly every page, Lemming said she is reminded of themes that Francis himself has emphasized in the early 21st century.
“This is not a new message,” she said. “He’s putting it out there in a much more clear way.”
“Rattle some cages’
The pope's schedule calls for his plane to arrive from Cuba at Andrews Air Force Base at 4 p.m. today. Tomorrow morning, he is scheduled to meet with President Barack Obama and American bishops before Mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.
On Thursday morning, he will be the first pope to address a joint session of Congress before heading to New York City, where he will address the United Nations General Assembly and officiate Mass at Madison Square Garden on Friday.
He will spend his last two days in Philadelphia, attending the World Meeting of Families Congress and leading a Papal Mass on Sunday on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, which is expected to attract 1.5 million worshippers. He is scheduled to leave for Rome Sunday.
Along the way, the pontiff can be expected to “rattle some cages,” Lemming said.
“I anticipate that he will speak from the heart of what he has to say in the latest encyclical, which is a letter he wrote to the whole world,” said Lemming, a Marianist sister.
Pope Francis's recent encyclical, Laudato Si, raised eyebrows, and perhaps ire, by urging attention to climate change.
But little noticed in the encyclical was also a strong anti-abortion stance, telling readers that a “concern for the protection of nature is also incompatible with the justification of abortion.”
“The traditional media narrative is that none of this has been said before,” said Tony Stieritz, director of the Catholic Social Action office for the Cincinnati Catholic Archdiocese. “And Francis comes along and everything is brand new.”
But what Pope Francis says isn’t new at all, Stieritz said. “What might be new is maybe a lot of the traditional media is now paying attention to it.”
Upholding church teachings
Dennis Doyle, University of Dayton professor of religious studies, said Pope Francis offers the sense that he's "leading a church that's on a journey."
“At the same time, he’s very careful, I think, to not directly contradict things that are fundamental Catholic teaching or part of the tradition,” Doyle said.
“He’s really holding together a balance in a very serious way,” he added.
George Weigel, an internationally recognized Catholic columnist, says Pope Francis has borrowed liberally from predecessors who have been viewed as more conservative.
“It seems to me that a lot of the press treats things Francis does as ‘new’ that are in fact either settled Church teaching or practice,” Weigel said in an email. “John Paul II spoke endlessly about the divine mercy (not least in reference to women who had suffered from the trauma of abortion).”
Joseph Valenzano III, a UD associate professor of communication, said Pope Francis reminds him of John Paul II in his ability to connect with youth.
“He takes very seriously the role of being pope, but he takes it seriously in the form of he’s trying to speak for people on the margins. So everything he does is trying to underscore that.”
He doesn’t live in the apostolic palace, and he walks among crowds, Valenzano said. Pope Francis has been praised as well for declining to wear ermine capes, asking the people gathered on St. Peter’s Square at his papal election to bless him and more.
“He’s very down to earth, he’s very off the cuff,” Valenzano said. “But I also think that his tone is much more open and merciful. I think with him it’s a matter of emphasis.”
Needs of the poor
With Pope Francis, emphasis is no accident, observers said.
Joseph, of Dayton's Immaculate Conception Parish, sees Pope Francis as beginning with the person, not with church doctrine, but he doesn't shrug off doctrine. The pope has warned of the culture of "relativism," a favorite theme of his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, who has often been identified as conservative or dogmatic.
“He’s coming from a developing country,” Joseph said. “And I come from a developing country.”
Pope Francis centers himself on the needs of the poor, outsiders, those on the periphery, Joseph said. His “starting point” is people, not dogma. When a pastor begins with dogma, he evaluates the people to see if they “fit in” with dogma, he said.
“The other approach is, the starting point is the people,” Joseph said. “And when the people are the starting point, then the person gets the focus. And then we see how the rest will fit in.”
But he does so without abandoning long-held teachings.
“He’s really not made an attempt to change doctrine,” said Joseph, who works for about 800 active families in his parish. “He is really trying to address the need of the human person.”
People first
On a 12-hour plane ride returning from a seven-day trip to Brazil in July 2013, a reporter asked Pope Francis about the existence of a "gay lobby" within the Vatican.
In a response now famous, the pope answered, “If a gay person is a person of goodwill who seeks God, who am I to judge? The catechism of the church explains this very beautifully. It outlines that gays should not be marginalized.”
That’s an example of his distinctive approach, Joseph believes.
“The reason he makes comments like ‘Why should I judge’ is because it’s the person who comes first,” he said. “Let me engage the person. Let me talk to the person first. And then we’ll figure the rest out.”
The recent encyclical, Laudato Si, had an unmistakable message about restructuring the economy for the common good, Leming said. He calls for people to rethink ethical and social arrangements.
“We have been very reluctant to do that,” she said.
But even Pope Benedict XVI, Pope Francis’ predecessor, has spoken on the importance of caring for the environment, Stieritz and others noted.
“What’s really going on here, I think, is that a lot of the mainstream media has adopted a ‘narrative’ — ‘At last, we’ve got a pope who will accept the sexual revolution like liberal Protestantism has done,’” wrote Weigel, a distinguished senior fellow of the Washington, D.C.-based Ethics and Public Policy Center “And everything Francis says gets fitted into that framework.
“This not only mistakes for ‘new’ was is actually traditional, it leads reporters and commentators to miss things,” he added.
As all popes are, Pope Francis is watched by practitioners of many faiths. The Rev. Mark Emroll, pastor of Dayton's Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church, the spiritual home of about 400 families, sees in Pope Francis a fraternal friend to all Christians.
“It’s important to note things of common cause, things that are of concern to both churches,” Emroll said.
When Pope Francis recently opened to the door to simplifying and streamlining marriage annulments, Emroll identified that move a distinctly "pastoral" approach. Eastern Christian churches do not employ a comparable legal mechanism for exploring the validity of marriages that have ended, Emroll noted.
”I think addressing that situation in a more pastoral tone, I think really is something that is of note,” he said. “In my personal opinion, Pope Francis seems to be trying to be a pastor to his people. And the reality is, being a pastor means you will invoke love and appreciation as well as consternation and conflict sometimes.”
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