Is Pope Francis Fighting 'Popular' Battles Only?

Bishop Kieran Conry: 'Fight battles you can win...'

In October of 2012, the anarchic Catholic blogosphere digested the news that the Bishop of Arundel and Brighton had suggested that the Church concentrate fighting on 'those battles that the Church can win'.

At the time, Bishop Kieran Conry was speaking with specific reference to the closure of Catholic adoption agencies in the wake of 'equalities' legislation. Is there, I wonder, a similar kind of thinking emanating from the very summit of the Catholic Church? Catholic bloggers will have read the widely distributed words of Cardinal Bergoglio on same-sex marriage, decrying it as the machinations of the Father of Lies, the Devil, to destroy God's plan for the family and society. Even this letter, however, was sent in private to a congregation of Carmelite Sisters. I don't know whether it was intended for wider publication. While nation after nation, including our own, has tied itself into the global 'gay-marriage' accord, no doubt helped along by the globalist elite so often suspected of handing policies down to Governments to the detriment of their citizens, there has come very little from the Successor of St Peter in terms of outspoken 'fighting' for marriage, the family and the welfare of the child in the specific context of the homosexual marriage movement that has engulfed particularly the West.

Christus vincit, Christus regnat, Christus imperat

I'm hoping, like so many Catholics must be hoping, that the Holy Father will say something soon to confront the great evils of our age that create the 'culture of death' lamented by Blessed Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI. The strange silence on the 'hot' issues of the day, like abortion, its evil twin, artificial contraception and 'same-sex marriage' is bound to have certain sections of the Church seeing themselves in a strong position to spin the Pope's silence into indifferenc or even acceptance and complicity.

Unless the Holy Father makes some form of biting statement condemning the evils of the age, of which poverty and injustice form indeed one part, Catholics who hold fast to that which the Church has taught 'always and everywhere' will find it more and more difficult to present the enemies of Christ inside the Church with refutations as to the truth of the Papal teaching, relying instead on things said by Cardinal Bergoglio before he ascended to the Throne of St Peter, or, worse, previous Popes.

It is a risky strategy, for Francis the man, and for souls in his paternal care, but it may well be that Pope Francis is concentrating on those battles that he believes that he can 'win'. Yet Christ made it clear that 'the poor you will have with you always', so eradicating poverty and injustice is not a battle the Church can win either. Does that mean we should be indifferent to poverty and injustice? It may be that he is adopting the 'Conry Strategy', a strategy adopted seemingly in Bishops Conferences around the World, including Brazil, in terms of confronting the evils that assail humanity and the Church is the way this papacy is heading. It is striking that during His Holiness's speech to the political leaders of Brazil that there was much content discussing the 'culture of encounter' which His Holiness referred to today once more, but little in terms of confronting these same leaders with the harder teachings of the Church that defend life from conception to natural death. Just days after His Holiness left Rio the Brazillian political class took a leaf out of David Cameron's book and thanked His Holiness for 'making us sit up and think' on his visit by introducing laws liberalising abortion.

Francis at the March for Life in Rome, attended by 40,000 campaigners

If the Church wins friends in its campaign to see the poor treated with dignity and their rights upheld in a new 'humanistic' vision of the poor and of the Church, then it has to be said that while the Church will have won new friends in this battle to combat poverty and injustice, poverty and injustice will continue nonetheless, and doubtless at an accelerating rate in the 'age of cuts'.

Few battles can actually be won - not, at least, by us. If a battle has ever been won for the Church, God and the Court of Heaven are duly given credit - one example being Our Lady of Victories centuries ago. We believe that evil does not have the last word on humanity and that Christ has conquered and will conquer. Christ conquers, Christ rules, Christ commands.

Unpopular with vocal atheists: Bl. Teresa

In terms of what is achieved in 'winning the battle', the battle 'for the poor' can never be truly won and all the Church will have done is to have won new friends and mollified Her enemies. It cannot be won, it is just a more popular battle to fight, attractive even to atheists and heretics. If this is the battle the Pope has chosen, then is it not rather the case that the Church will simply be fighting those battles that are popular and will resonate with people outside the Church, even with the Church's enemies, instead of fighting those battles that She can 'win'? If Pope Francis cannot win the war against poverty and injustice, while consistently focusing of the poor, why neglect to be outspoken on the other fronts of the spiritual war in which we are all engaged which cannot be won by us either, at least, in the eyes of our wise shepherds?

Blessed Mother Teresa said that we were not called to be successful but to be faithful, which suggests that 'winning the battles' was less important than fighting them in the first place. This Blessed attracted the ire of atheists for her words on artificial contraception and abortion, calling the latter the 'greatest destroyer of peace' in the World.

Pope St Sixtus II, Martyr for the Faith

Pope Francis has praised this Blessed woman but, while reaching out to the poor, the outcasts, disabled and outcasts, is yet to say what she said. Blessed Teresa of Calcutta was despised and hated by many atheists for her implacability in the face of calls for changes in Church doctrine and openly defended them in deed and word. While Pope Francis attended the March for Life in Rome, attended by 40,000 campaigners, the story of his attendance did not reach the mainstream media and outside of Catholic blogs was left ignored. Words are important.

The Pope, even in his role as the Bishop of Rome is still a 'Teacher' of the Catholic Faith. As Successor of St Peter, he is the Supreme Teacher of the Faith. While the world still speaks well of Pope Francis he will continue to cause concern among those who take to heart the Lord's words that we should be concerned when people speak well of us, since that is how 'they treated the false prophets'.

Today is the Feast of St Sixtus II. May the intercession of this Pope and Martyr give Pope Francis and all of us the courage to preach the Gospel without fear of what people may think of us, to be generous to the poor and to know that God gives victory to those who trust in Him. Let us not be put to confounded, or put to shame.