Cardinal Scola calls out Pope Francis’ critics: ‘The pope is the pope’

 

Gerard O’ConnellJuly 21, 2020

Cardinal Angelo Scola, the runner-up in the last papal conclave, has twice in recent weeks come out strongly against those, especially within the church, who frequently and increasingly attack Pope Francis. “It’s a very strong sign of contradiction and denotes a certain weakening of the people of God, above all of the intellectual class,” he said. “It is a profoundly wrong attitude because it forgets that ‘the pope is the pope.’”

“It is not by affinity of temperament, of culture, of sensibility, or for friendship, or because one shares or does not share his affirmations that one acknowledges the meaning of the pope in the church,” the cardinal said in an interview published on the Archdiocese of Milan’s website on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of his priestly ordination on July 18.

“[The pope] is the ultimate, radical and formal guarantor—certainly, through a synodal exercise of the Petrine ministry—of the unity of the church,” the cardinal, theologian and former rector of the Pontifical Lateran University stated.

Cardinal Angelo Scola, the runner-up in the last papal conclave, has come out strongly against those who frequently and increasingly attack Pope Francis.

Then, referring to the countless ways in which attacks have been launched against Pope Francis in these years, the former cardinal-patriarch of Venice and archbishop of Milan declared, “I consider these forms of pronouncements, letters, writings, pretenses of judgments on his action, above all when they establish irritating comparisons with previous papacies, a decisively negative phenomenon that is to be eradicated as soon as possible.”
Both in the interview and in a new introduction to the second edition of his autobiography, Ho scommesso sulla libertà (“I Bet on Freedom”), written with the Italian journalist Luigi Geninazzi and released on June 13, the Italian cardinal emphasized that one has “to learn the Pope” (“imparare il papa”), an expression he said he got from St. John Paul II.
“It means to have the humility and the patience to empathize with his personal history, the way he expresses his faith, addresses us, and makes choices of leadership and governance,” Cardinal Scola said. He added that this is “even more necessary in relation to a Latin-American pope, who has a mentality and a different kind of approach than we Europeans.” He recalled that “something similar also happened with John Paul II.”
Cardinal Scola declared, “I truly consider admirable and moving the extraordinary capacity of Pope Francis to make himself close to everyone, and especially to the excluded, to those who are subjected to ‘the throw-away culture’ as he so often reminds [us] in his keenness to communicate the Gospel to the world.”
Cardinal Scola: “Ever since I was a child, I learned that ‘the pope is the pope,’ to whom the Catholic believer owes affection, respect and obedience.”

Moreover, he said, “some gestures of Pope Francis strike me very much and are certainly very significant for everyone, even for nonbelievers. Given my temperament, I would not be able to do them; but then each one has his own personality.”
In the introduction to his autobiography, the 78-year-old cardinal, who enjoyed a very close relationship with John Paul II and Benedict XVI, wrote, “Pope Francis seeks to shake up consciences by calling into question consolidated habits and customs in the church, each time raising the bar, so to speak.”
“This can cause some bewilderment and upset,” he said, “but the ever harder and more insolent attacks against his person, especially those that come from within the church, are wrong.”
Cardinal Scola added, “Ever since I was a child, I learned that ‘the pope is the pope,’ to whom the Catholic believer owes affection, respect and obedience, since he is the visible sign and secure guarantor of the unity of the church in the following of Christ.” Moreover, he said, “communion with the successor of Peter is not a question of cultural affinity, or human sympathy, or a sentimental feeling; rather it relates to the very nature of the church.”
Concluding his strong critique of attacks against Pope Francis, the cardinal went on to express concern over “the polemics and divisions that are becoming ever more bitter, also at the expense of truth and of charity.” But, he stated, “I do not see the risk of a schism; I fear instead a journey backward” to “the postconciliar debate between conservatives and progressives” over the legacy of Vatican II.
He sees the return of this in “the re-emergence in agitated tones” of “the sterile contraposition” between “the guardians of Tradition rigidly understood” and “the proponents of what is intended to be the adaptation of practice and doctrine to worldly demands.” But like Pope Francis, Cardinal Scola believes the way to overcome these tensions is to entrust oneself to the Holy Spirit, “who does not allow himself to be harnessed by the logic of the opposing camps.”

https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2020/07/21/cardinal-scola-calls-out-pope-francis-critics-pope-pope

From Bad News to Good News

By James Hanink | April 17th 2019 5:04 PM

My wife and I were sitting in Pann’s, a local eatery. Filmmakers use it to get “real life” footage. Service at Pann’s is also real life, as in slow. Rena, in her mid-90’s, stopped by our table, sequins shining, to schmooze. With her husband, decades ago she’d started the place. We were leafing through the L.A. Times, and she raised a pointed question: “Any good news yet?”

We laughed. It’s better, after all, to laugh than to cry. And there’s plenty to cry about, so much that lots of us are asking just how bad things are.

St. John Paul II, the philosopher-pope, was no Pollyanna. In his encyclical Fides et Ratio, he notes that today “the possibility of discovering the real meaning of life is cast into doubt,” and so “many people stumble through life to the very edge of abyss without knowing where they are going.” In a like vein, Jacques Maritain observed that “Nowadays the devil has made such a mess of everything…that the world will presently become uninhabitable for anybody but Saints.”

Such comments, an old teacher of mine liked to say, “lead us by way of easy and natural transition to”… politics, politicians, and statesmen and stateswomen. How so?

I’m thinking of politics as the sphere of life in which what needs to be done requires that we come together to get it done. But can we come together when we’re in doubt about the meaning of life and don’t know where we are going? Not unless there are saints among us.

I’m thinking, too, of politicians as operatives and opportunists. They are long on technique and short on vision. For them “appearance” is reality enough, and “seeming to be” is being enough.

Now come the statesmen and stateswomen. They’re the saints of the political order, and they are struggling with what is an established disorder. The struggle leads to a daily puzzling over three tough questions.

First, what’s the difference between political action and giving witness? Political action has governance and legislation as its immediate object. Consider Thomas Jefferson. Witness has the public proclamation of the truth as its immediate object. Consider Dorothy Day. That’s answer enough, for now.

Second, how can political action and giving witness come together? We’d do well to look closely at people who forged a unity of the two in their lives. Martin Luther King, Jr., is someone who did so. We are in grave need of more such people. That’s an answer, in the sense of telling us where to look for an answer.

Third, given that the times are evil and saints are few, is it possible to build a political party ordered to the common good? Such a party would be pro-life for the whole of life. Rather than fashioning golden calves from material goods, it would put material goods at the service of people. In doing so, it would honor God’s creation. That leaves us not with an answer but with a question that stubbornly remains a question.

And yet, with God, all things are possible. That’s the Good News of Easter!

Jim Hanink is an independent scholar, albeit more independent than scholarly!