Stop the Papal Politicking

“We need a pope that is more in touch with the modern world.”  So proclaimed some average-Joe-Catholic in an interview on NPR the other morning.  The moment Pope Benedict XVI announced his plan to resign, the rumor mill began churning.  Many Catholics stepped forth to share their individual visions for the Church going forward.  Many expressed a desire for a pope who will “modernize” and “make relevant” the Catholic Church in modern society.  But how exactly?

The typical suggestion goes a little like this:  Make an about-face on contraception, kick the anti-abortion rhetoric down a notch, and focus on climate change as a larger moral priority.  Oh yeah, and pump out more of that social justice message that really jives with young modern liberals.  Surely these measures would prevent the modern masses from apostatizing!

One particularly dire papal-politicker put things this way:

Catholicism is dying in the modern day, and will soon join Latin as a mere memento of the Old World.  One of the biggest challenges that awaits the Pope’s successor is how to advertise Catholicism as a faith of acceptance.  Benedict XVI, stuck in the cement of tradition, did nothing to help the church progress into an age of equal rights and technology…  The shortage of up-and-coming priests in the Western world is just the beginning of a decline for the Catholic Church unless it takes a few steps forward in the next couple years.  Now is the time to pick a new face and a new outlook. [emphases mine] (Natalie Beaulieu, Seattle Times)

That’s interesting.  Since when did Catholicism become something to be “advertised” not by evangelism but by concessions to a socially liberal world?  As of when did “acceptance” (of abortion, contraception, in vitro fertilization, homosexuality, moral relativism, etc.) become the ultimate virtue of the faith?  When did a firm grounding in Tradition become a bad thing?  I thought that was, uh – you know – like, a pillar of Revelation, along with Scripture and Natural Revelation and all that good stuff.  Did I miss a new encyclical or something?

Oh, and as for keeping up with technology, try following @pontifex on Twitter.

But I digress.

The Church does not exist to make people feel good about themselves, nor to reaffirm “modernity.” Nor is Morality democratic; Truth and Revelation don’t bend to majoritarian will.  Furthermore, it is not the mission of the Church to institutionalize material wealth for everyone on earth; that has been tried.  It’s called Socialism, and it doesn’t work very well.  No, the Catholic Church has higher aims.  You know, like, the communion of the faithful with Christ in Heaven.

Asking for a pope that is “in touch with the modern world” has become a euphemism for asking the Church to cave to modern social liberalism.   We need the next pope to be in touch with the Holy Spirit and the roots of Revelation as per the past two millennia.  Though a bit of charisma never hurts.