Among the many puzzling things introduced by Pope Francis, his teaching (magisterium) is perhaps the level that was most impacted by the Argentinian Pontiff.
Many Roman Catholics (and also many non-Catholic observers), accustomed to associating the papal magisterium with an authoritative, coherent and stable form of doctrinal teaching, are perplexed if not dismayed by a Pope who seems both to say and not say, to argue for something and to undermine it, to state one position and then contradict it the next breath.
Officially, the Pope’s teaching is set in the context of the historical traditions of the church. In this sense, nothing changes. In reality, however, Francis is accentuating the developmental and inclusive dynamic of Roman Catholicism as it emerged from Vatican II (1962–1965). According to this trend, while there is a sense in which nothing changes, everything is nonetheless re-thought, re-expressed, and updated.
A recent book by the Sicilian Roman Catholic theologian Massimo Naro, Protagonista è l’abbraccio. Temi teologici nel magistero di Francesco (The Protagonist is the Hug: Theological Themes in Francis’ Magisterium) 2021, is a helpful guide in the theological universe of Pope Francis. From the outset, Naro readily acknowledges that the theology of Pope Francis is ‘an innovative proposal’ even when compared with the updating trends of the Second Vatican Council.
There are certain words that lie at the centre of the Pope’s vocabulary, e.g. ‘mother church’, ‘faithful people of God’, ‘popular spirituality’, ‘mercy’, ‘synodality’, ‘polyedric ecclesiology’, ‘existential peripheries’, ‘humanism of solidarity’, ‘ecological conversion’, ‘dialogue’, ‘fraternity and brotherhood’ (p.19).
Naro further suggests that there are two theological frameworks that give meaning to his words, i.e. the ‘theology of the people’ and the ‘theology of mercy’. For Francis, theology does not begin with Biblical revelation nor from the abstract principles of the official teaching of the Church, but from the common and daily stories of men and women who must be welcomed and affirmed in their particular contexts and life journeys.
According to Francis, the ‘people’ are not the passive and obedient recipients of a top-down ecclesiastical magisterium, but active subjects whose religious experiences are true and real (even though not squared with traditional patterns) and therefore need to be part of the teaching itself.
The ‘theology of the people’ is far from the evangelical belief that Scripture – as the inspired word of God – is the source by which God teaches, rebukes, corrects, and trains. From a Biblical perspective, Francis’ ‘theology of the people’ does not have the external criterion of the word of God.
Mercy is another key word in the Pope’s magisterium. In his way of putting it, mercy is ‘the bridge that connects God and man, opening our hearts to the hope of being loved forever despite the limits of our sins’ (Bull of Indiction of the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy Misericordiae Vultus, n.2, 2015). As Cardinal Matteo Zuppi writes in the Introduction, the Pope means that ‘at the center of the Biblical message is not sin, but mercy’ (p.16). Pope Francis has replaced sin with mercy at the centre of his message.
In the Pope’s theology, sin is at most ‘the human limit’ (p.91), but not the breaking of the covenant, the rebellion against God, the disobedience to His commandments, or the subversion of divine authority that results in the righteous and holy judgment of God. If everything is mercy and sin is only a limit, the resulting message is fundamentally different from the Biblical gospel.
The traditional Roman Catholic teaching (from the Council of Trent to the 1992 Catechism of the Catholic Church) conflicts at crucial points with the evangelical faith summarised in the Reformation slogans ‘Christ Alone’, ‘Scripture Alone’, and ‘Faith Alone’. The ‘popular’ and ‘merciful’ account of the gospel taught by Pope Francis is another ‘catholic’ variant of the deviation on which the church of Rome was established and on which, sadly, it continues to move forward.
