FATHER FRANK’S RANTS - Rebel Pope
Pope Francis and Revolt
Rant Number 568 8 January 2014
Pope of Rebellion
‘Do not wait passively for the Church’s demise. Put yourself at the head of the opposition. Take the Church back to her origins. Back to revolt!’ So poet and film director Pier Paolo Pasolini urged Pope Paul VI. 40 years on, has the time of Pasolini’s Pope come? Is Francis the visionary, rebel Pontiff the Church and oppressed humanity hope for?
Pasolini was no friend of religion. A Marxist, atheist and homosexual, his works and personal life provoked scandal. He was, however, a fine artist, a man of profound intelligence and above all a furious enemy of the bourgeoisie. Consumerism, secularism and hedonism he indicted as the chief evils responsible for the sickness, the degeneration of traditional society and culture. Finding ways of combating these insidious forms of exploitation had become the poet’s obsession.
For years Catholicism served the capitalist establishment as a useful prop and ally but by 1974 Paul VI had recognised that for the people of power the Church had become superfluous. Further, with astonishing sincerity the Pope lamented that the Church had lost her historical prestige, her role and her influence. By seducing the masses into dancing around the Golden Calf, capitalism had kicked God upstairs. Result: collapse in vocations to the priesthood, dwindling congregations and widespread flouting of Catholic moral teachings on divorce, abortion and contraception – all symptoms of a terminal disease. Not just the crisis but the very death of the Church was on this apocalyptic horizon.
Is Francis the avatar of Pasolini’s Pope? Radical but also deeply rooted in the Gospels? Self-named after the Poverello, the Christian dervish St Francis of Assisi? Take his emphasis on a church of the poor and for the poor. That echoes the teaching of Christ in the stern parable of the sheep and the goats. St Matthew, chapter 25: ‘I was hungry and you gave me food…I was a stranger and you took me in…I was naked and you clothed me…I was sick and you visited me…I was in prison and you came to me. As you did it to the least of these my brethren, you did to me.’ A haunting imagery, both revolutionary and spiritual: the Saviour is hidden amongst the poor, longing to be recognised by his true followers. (I like to think that many mystics, Christians, Sufis and so on are looking for that ineffable, elusive person.)
There is a flipside: what happens to those who shy away from reaching out to the poor? Unlike puny wimps like, say, Archbishop Justin Welby, the voice of Christ is sombre. Christ the Liberator is also Christ the Judge: ‘Go away from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the Devil and his angels!’ Francis does not bang on about that, wisely, but Scripture is Scripture. You can’t doctor judgment out of the text.
It has to be said: the New Testament’s position on the rich is different from that of the Old Dispensation. The patriarch Abraham had combined personal holiness with wealth. Obedience to God’s commands, generosity, hospitality and defence of the weak are amongst his virtues. His wealth was simply a sign of divine favour. But that is very much Judaism’s point of view, as stress on the world to come was non-existent at that stage of revelation. Christianity takes an entirely different, more radical and more counter-cultural approach. This world is a preparation for the next. Hence riches cannot function as supreme marker of God’s favour.
Amazingly, Pasolini invoked eschatology, the theological doctrine of the End Time, to spice up his wake-up call to Paul VI. ‘Millenarian’ is the actual word he used. It means a time of persecutions, tests and tribulation, including the appearance of an Anti-Christ, before the Second Coming of Jesus to earth. You can’t get more revolutionary, more utopian than that! Throughout history it has been the extreme heretics, the incendiary agitators like John of Leyden and Thomas Munzer who rated the millenarian label. Would Pasolini’s rebel Pope be in the footsteps of such characters? He’d be crazy to say that. So the poet also referred to the Papacy’s long and successful medieval struggle against the Empire. Today that empire means Western materialism, the domination of consumerism, the world empire of globalisation – voila’ l’ennemi!
Cardinal Ratzinger, later Benedict XVI, in an interview did not dismiss the idea. Prophetic contradiction, courage for the truth and martyrdom – pretty rebellious virtues, eh? But the old Rottweiler also cautioned against seeing the Church’s role only as opposition. It is hard to see how the Church could deny sacraments like Holy Communion to a financier or a banker, for example – though, come to think of it…
‘Bruised, hurting and dirty’. Words Francis has used to describe the kind of Church he likes. A militant Christianity out there in the streets, fighting for the poor but also being with one the poor, like Christ himself was. A Bolshevik Church? Dangerous yet thrilling. But…who are the poor exactly? The not-rich? The unwealthy? Or only the destitute, the indigent and the marginalised? When Christ walked the earth the poor were not just the indigent but also the pious. Hence Francis’ message cannot be merely a social one. Christianity is more than that.
Finally, the matter of violence. Francis is no Che Guevara (a fellow Argentinean) and the Vatican, though immensely wealthy, does not dispose of armies, bombs and missiles. How to make a revolution without those? A question Stalin famously made: How many divisions has the Pope?’ the ghastly tyrant mocked.
Less well-known is Pope Pius XII’s witty rejoinder in 1953, when he learnt of the dictator’s death: ‘So Joseph Stalin is no more. Now he will see how many divisions God had in Heaven!’
Pius was right. God’s divisions are real because spiritual. Spiritual power is the real McCoy. The Spirit of God moves and shapes the world right now through his votaries on earth. A power more powerful than a million nuclear devices. Make no mistake about it: the revolution will be spiritual.
Revd Frank Julian Gelli
Rant Number 568 8 January 2014
Pope of Rebellion
‘Do not wait passively for the Church’s demise. Put yourself at the head of the opposition. Take the Church back to her origins. Back to revolt!’ So poet and film director Pier Paolo Pasolini urged Pope Paul VI. 40 years on, has the time of Pasolini’s Pope come? Is Francis the visionary, rebel Pontiff the Church and oppressed humanity hope for?
Pasolini was no friend of religion. A Marxist, atheist and homosexual, his works and personal life provoked scandal. He was, however, a fine artist, a man of profound intelligence and above all a furious enemy of the bourgeoisie. Consumerism, secularism and hedonism he indicted as the chief evils responsible for the sickness, the degeneration of traditional society and culture. Finding ways of combating these insidious forms of exploitation had become the poet’s obsession.
For years Catholicism served the capitalist establishment as a useful prop and ally but by 1974 Paul VI had recognised that for the people of power the Church had become superfluous. Further, with astonishing sincerity the Pope lamented that the Church had lost her historical prestige, her role and her influence. By seducing the masses into dancing around the Golden Calf, capitalism had kicked God upstairs. Result: collapse in vocations to the priesthood, dwindling congregations and widespread flouting of Catholic moral teachings on divorce, abortion and contraception – all symptoms of a terminal disease. Not just the crisis but the very death of the Church was on this apocalyptic horizon.
Is Francis the avatar of Pasolini’s Pope? Radical but also deeply rooted in the Gospels? Self-named after the Poverello, the Christian dervish St Francis of Assisi? Take his emphasis on a church of the poor and for the poor. That echoes the teaching of Christ in the stern parable of the sheep and the goats. St Matthew, chapter 25: ‘I was hungry and you gave me food…I was a stranger and you took me in…I was naked and you clothed me…I was sick and you visited me…I was in prison and you came to me. As you did it to the least of these my brethren, you did to me.’ A haunting imagery, both revolutionary and spiritual: the Saviour is hidden amongst the poor, longing to be recognised by his true followers. (I like to think that many mystics, Christians, Sufis and so on are looking for that ineffable, elusive person.)
There is a flipside: what happens to those who shy away from reaching out to the poor? Unlike puny wimps like, say, Archbishop Justin Welby, the voice of Christ is sombre. Christ the Liberator is also Christ the Judge: ‘Go away from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the Devil and his angels!’ Francis does not bang on about that, wisely, but Scripture is Scripture. You can’t doctor judgment out of the text.
It has to be said: the New Testament’s position on the rich is different from that of the Old Dispensation. The patriarch Abraham had combined personal holiness with wealth. Obedience to God’s commands, generosity, hospitality and defence of the weak are amongst his virtues. His wealth was simply a sign of divine favour. But that is very much Judaism’s point of view, as stress on the world to come was non-existent at that stage of revelation. Christianity takes an entirely different, more radical and more counter-cultural approach. This world is a preparation for the next. Hence riches cannot function as supreme marker of God’s favour.
Amazingly, Pasolini invoked eschatology, the theological doctrine of the End Time, to spice up his wake-up call to Paul VI. ‘Millenarian’ is the actual word he used. It means a time of persecutions, tests and tribulation, including the appearance of an Anti-Christ, before the Second Coming of Jesus to earth. You can’t get more revolutionary, more utopian than that! Throughout history it has been the extreme heretics, the incendiary agitators like John of Leyden and Thomas Munzer who rated the millenarian label. Would Pasolini’s rebel Pope be in the footsteps of such characters? He’d be crazy to say that. So the poet also referred to the Papacy’s long and successful medieval struggle against the Empire. Today that empire means Western materialism, the domination of consumerism, the world empire of globalisation – voila’ l’ennemi!
Cardinal Ratzinger, later Benedict XVI, in an interview did not dismiss the idea. Prophetic contradiction, courage for the truth and martyrdom – pretty rebellious virtues, eh? But the old Rottweiler also cautioned against seeing the Church’s role only as opposition. It is hard to see how the Church could deny sacraments like Holy Communion to a financier or a banker, for example – though, come to think of it…
‘Bruised, hurting and dirty’. Words Francis has used to describe the kind of Church he likes. A militant Christianity out there in the streets, fighting for the poor but also being with one the poor, like Christ himself was. A Bolshevik Church? Dangerous yet thrilling. But…who are the poor exactly? The not-rich? The unwealthy? Or only the destitute, the indigent and the marginalised? When Christ walked the earth the poor were not just the indigent but also the pious. Hence Francis’ message cannot be merely a social one. Christianity is more than that.
Finally, the matter of violence. Francis is no Che Guevara (a fellow Argentinean) and the Vatican, though immensely wealthy, does not dispose of armies, bombs and missiles. How to make a revolution without those? A question Stalin famously made: How many divisions has the Pope?’ the ghastly tyrant mocked.
Less well-known is Pope Pius XII’s witty rejoinder in 1953, when he learnt of the dictator’s death: ‘So Joseph Stalin is no more. Now he will see how many divisions God had in Heaven!’
Pius was right. God’s divisions are real because spiritual. Spiritual power is the real McCoy. The Spirit of God moves and shapes the world right now through his votaries on earth. A power more powerful than a million nuclear devices. Make no mistake about it: the revolution will be spiritual.
Revd Frank Julian Gelli
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