US Church divided on how to ‘read’ Pope Francis

Divisions are emerging in public among the American bishops over how to interpret Pope Francis – a split which is likely to be apparent as the US bishops gather in New Orleans this week for their annual spring meeting.

Archbishop Joseph Tobin, of Indianapolis, speaking at St Francis University in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, warned against a “Balkanisation” within the US Church as rival ideological camps try to enforce their points of view.  He blamed the divisive nature of US politics for this trend but suggested Pope Francis’ leadership style was contributing to these divisions. “What I’ve seen is how disruptive Pope Francis has been within the hierarchy of the United States,” Archbishop Tobin told the annual assembly of the College Theology Society.

“I was talking to a couple of brother bishops a while back and they were saying that bishops and priests were very discouraged by Pope Francis because he was challenging them.” He added: “I think there was a particular image, perhaps, of what it means to be a pastoral leader in this country, and Francis is disturbing it. I think there is some resistance to a different way of doing the gospel mission of the Church.” The archbishop smiled, adding, “So, pray for Francis’ health.”

Archbishop Tobin is widely perceived as one of the more pro-Francis bishops in the US.

The divisions in the US Church were also apparent in the response of several prominent theologians to an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal by New York’s Cardinal Timothy Dolan. Commenting on the Pope’s meeting with UN officials on 9 May, Cardinal Dolan wrote: “From media reports, one might think that the only thing on the Pope’s mind was government redistribution of property, as if he were denouncing capitalism and endorsing some form of socialism.” Cardinal Dolan claimed the Pope was advocating for “virtuous capitalism” and that concerns about the free market should not cause Catholics “to reject economic liberty in favour of government control”. He suggested the Pope’s critique of today’s economic arrangements had more to do with crony capit­alism in developing countries.

However, leading US Catholics took issue with Cardinal Dolan. “It wasn’t Argentinian populist economics, Eastern European crony capitalism, or African kleptocracy that threatened the world economy with the worst recession since the 1930s,” responded Fr Drew Christiansen SJ, of Georgetown University. “It was no-holds-barred American capitalism that did that.”

Boston College’s Fr David Hollenbach SJ said that Cardinal Dolan did not give sufficient  attention to the structural causes of poverty.