How evangelical is the Pope?

Leonardo De Chirico uncovers the particular brand of Catholicism that Pope Francis advocates and gives a biblical assessment

Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected as Pope Francis on 13 March, 2013.

The first question that many Vatican experts asked was: What did he write? What books did he publish? The answer was simple and straightforward: none. In contrast to his predecessor, Benedict XIV, who had been a major theologian in the post-Vatican II Roman Catholic Church, Bergoglio was not a scholar. So, are we left completely without open windows onto his thought prior to the beginning of his papacy? Not necessarily.

Jesuit anti-protestantism?

Francis is the first Jesuit Pope in history. It is ironic to think that a Pope who appears to be close to Evangelicals actually belongs to the religious order that was founded to fight Protestantism. The former soldier Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1566) gathered a group of friends who called themselves ‘The Society of Jesus’ (Societas Jesu) and eventually they were commissioned by the Pope to stop the spread of Protestantism. Their task was to imitate the strengths of Protestantism, i.e. spiritual depth and intellectual brightness, but to use them as Catholic weapons against it. The Jesuit order provided the ‘alternative’ Catholic way to the Protestant faith. It comes as no surprise then that the first saint that Pope Francis proclaimed in 2013 was Pierre Favre (1506–1546), a French first-generation Jesuit with a ‘smiling face’ who, more than others, tried to look like a Protestant in order to attract people back to the Roman Church.

Furthermore, the Jesuit side of Pope Francis is clear enough, given his published (and never retracted) opinion that Luther and Calvin destroyed man, poisoned society, and ruined the church! In his 1985 lecture on the history of the Jesuit order, he gave severe evaluations of Luther (a ‘heretic’) and especially of Calvin (a ‘heretic’ and ‘schismatic’) bringing about the ‘Calvinist squalor’ in society, in the church and in man’s heart. According to that lecture, Protestantism lies at the root of all evils in the modern West. The fact that this lecture was republished unchanged in 2013 in Spanish and translated in 2014 into Italian with his permission, but without a mitigating word of explanation, indicates that this assessment still lingers in the Pope’s heart and mind. He recently added a harsh comment on the Puritans, falsely accusing them of a bigoted and merciless form of Christianity. This Pope, ‘friendly to Evangelicals’, is a Jesuit: the entire mission of this order is to defend the Roman Church against Protestantism. Certainly Francis is a smiling Jesuit, but the anti-Protestant still beats in his heart.

What about mission?

Mission is a defining word of Pope Francis. He wrote the apostolic letter titled Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel), the second magisterial document of his pontificate, the previous being the encyclical Lumen Fidei (Light of Faith) and the most recent one being Laudato Si’ (Praise be to you) – On care for our common home, on ecological concerns. The vision of Pope Francis is an outward one and ‘mission’ (whatever it may mean) is at the centre of it. His Church will not be on the defensive but will be engaged proactively in promoting its vision.

The word ‘joy’, the common theme of the document, is repeated 59 times. The Pope wants to give a joyful flavour to mission. What is missing is the tragedy of being lost without Christ. Nowhere in the document are unrepentant unbelievers called to repent and believe in Jesus Christ. Non-Catholic Christians are already united in baptism (p.244), Jews don’t need to convert (p.247) and with believing Muslims the way is ‘dialogue’ because ‘together with us they adore the one and merciful God’ (p.252, a quotation from Lumen Gentium). Other non-Christians are also ‘justified by the grace of God’ and are associated with ‘the paschal mystery of Jesus Christ’ (p.254). The gospel appears not to be a message of salvation from God’s judgment, but instead is a vehicle to access a fuller measure of a salvation that is already given to all mankind. According to Francis, therefore, mission is the joyful willingness to extend the fullness of grace to a world that is already under grace. Is this the mission that the Bible calls us to?

The catholicity of Pope Francis

The Catholic mindset is characterised by an attitude of overall openness without losing touch with its Roman centre. Catholicity allows doctrinal development without a radical breach from the past and also allows different kinds of catholicity to coexist. Each Pope had his own catholicity project. John Paul II (the former Archbishop of Krakow, Poland, Karol Józef Wojtyła) pushed for the Church to become a global player, thus expanding geographical catholicity and its profile with the media. Benedict XVI (the former Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Joseph Ratzinger) tried to define catholicity in terms of its adherence to universal ‘reason’, thus trying to reconnect the chasm between faith and reason that the Western Enlightenment had introduced. These catholicity projects are not mutually exclusive, but they all contribute to the overall dynamic catholicity of the Church.

After more than three years of his pontificate, it is becoming apparent what kind of catholicity Francis has in mind. He wants to build on John Paul II’s global catholicity while shifting emphases from Wojtyła’s doctrinal rigidity to more inclusive patterns. He pays lip service to Ratzinger’s rational catholicity, but wants to move the agenda from Western ideological battles to ‘human’ issues that find appeal across the global spectrum. If Ratzinger wanted to mark the difference between the Church and the world, Francis tries to make them overlap. In shaping the new catholicity, he seems closer to the pastoral tone of John XXIII, who was canonised (i.e., declared a saint) in 2014. So there is continuity and development. This is the gist of catholicity.

Francis has little time for non-negotiable truths and gives more attention to the variety of people’s consciences. He is more interested in warmth than light, in empathy than judgment. He focuses on attitude rather than identity and on embracing rather than teaching. He underlines the relational over the doctrinal. For him, proximity is more important than integrity. Belonging together has priority over believing differently.

Francis may use similar language, be a nice person and be passionate about unity. But he is still the Pope of the Roman Catholic Church. The Roman Church, while not being static, nor a monolithic reality, does not really change in its fundamental commitments. It expands itself, but does not purify itself. It embraces new trends and practices, but does not expel unbiblical ones. It grows, but it does not reform itself according to gospel standards.

Evangelicals seem to be the target of Pope Francis’s efforts towards friendship, reconciliation and unity. Befriending Evangelicals by talking and behaving like them may be a Jesuit way to convert influential Evangelicals and absorb the whole Evangelical movement, the fastest growing portion of the Christian world. This is why it is vitally important for Evangelicals to know who Pope Francis really is.

Leonardo De Chirico, PhD, is lecturer of historical theology at Istituto di Formazione Evangelica e Documentazione, Padua, Italy, editor of the theological journal ‘Studi di teologia’, and director of the Reformanda Initiative and the Rome Scholars Network. His latest book is A Christian Pocket Guide to Papacy (Christian Focus). He blogs at www. vaticanfiles.org where he writes, reports on and provides analysis of Roman Catholic theology.