This past Sunday Pope Francis spoke about the Paris attacks and said unequivocally that anyone who uses God’s name to justify violence and hatred is guilty of blasphemy.
He made a similar statement a year ago during his historic visit to Albania. Speaking to government leaders there he said: “Let no one consider themselves to be the ‘armor’ of God while planning and carrying out acts of violence and oppression! May no one use religion as a pretext for actions against human dignity and against the fundamental rights of every man and woman, above all, the right to life and the right of everyone to religious freedom!”
Public statements like these are one of the reasons I admire Pope Francis. He talks straight about the challenges facing the church and all religions. Recently he boldly criticized “religious fundamentalism” that he says exists in all religions, calling it “idolatrous,” a warning I think Catholics and Protestants and members of all faiths should take quite seriously.
Yet, as inspiring as Francis is, the credibility of his words has the potential of being damaged by the fact that he is the head of a church that is itself guilty of the things he often criticizes.
Consider human dignity and human rights. The Catholic Church is unbowed in using religion against women of the church in its perpetuation and defense of an all male priesthood.
In the 21st century arguments against women priests simply ring hollow.
Male hegemony is in and of itself an indictment of the Catholic Church’s own disregard for human dignity and rights. While Pope Francis is not responsible for this hegemony, he is responsible for confronting it strongly enough to at least plant the seeds of its demise.
The same can be said of other issues the Pope faces, not least what the Church teaches about homosexuality.
But the larger point here is the fact that the Catholic Church and Protestant congregations alike continue to live under the illusion that saying one thing and doing another has no lasting consequences for them.
They could not be more wrong.
One of the reasons for church decline in the 21st century is that people in general and many Christians in particular are done with a church that prefers tradition over justice and order over the dignity for all persons.
They are done with a church that refuses to confront the fundamentalism within its own ranks that requires intellectual dishonesty to remain in it.
What is most alarming is that many of “the Dones,” as they are now called, are not only done with church, they are done with formal Christianity itself. The church losing credibility is spreading to faith itself.
I recognize that Pope Francis faces an institution as resistant to change as any on earth. Many leaders and members of his church and all churches would rather see the church die than change.
They may be getting what they want.
For the moment it seems the Pope’s own personal credibility is all he needs to have an audience that truly listens to what he says, but in the long run it will take substantive changes in his church for large numbers to continue to pay attention.
That is a reality I think all churches and church leaders should take to heart with an urgency they have thus far failed to show.
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