“Who is Jorge Mario Bergoglio?” The pope stares at me in silence. I ask him if this is a question that I am allowed to ask.... He nods that it is, and he tells me: “I do not know what might be the most fitting description.... I am a sinner. This is the most accurate definition. It is not a figure of speech, a literary genre. I am a sinner.”
- From America - Their interview with Pope Francis.
What does it mean if we are all, equally, just sinners? If the human condition is to sin and the divine condition is to forgive?
Homosexuality, for example. The Pope has not, and I think will not, declare homosexuality non-sinful, as much as I wish he would. There's too much theological baggage here. Catholic homophobes, therefore, get to point out that sure, Francis suggests we don't judge, but that homosexuality is still a sin.
As I read more and more, though, I'm increasingly convinced that this reading misses the main point. Instead, I think the point is that we are all sinners, so that we don't get to judge people for their sins, we don't get to label homosexuality as somehow more wicked, an "intrinsic evil" (I talked about this here). The condition of humanity is one of sin, so stop judging.
It's a strange path to equality and not one I would take, but it enables Francis to make radical steps without changing theology. This isn't a weakness of his revolution, it's a strength.
That said, discrimination goes on. A lesbian was just fired from a Catholic School in Arkansas 45 minutes after getting married. They invoked Francis in a plea for equality, but so far, to no avail. It's going to be a long slog.
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Meanwhile, Francis is just beginning to put some action behind the rhetoric on poverty. I finished my CNN essay on the interview by writing:
In a recent interview with the New Catholic Reporter, Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York talked about the new pope. He said that in the wake of Francis, he found himself "examining my own conscience ... on style, on simplicity, on lots of things." The cardinal wondered whether his living arrangements, in the historical residence of the archbishops of New York, were appropriate. But the cardinal wasn't quite sure what to do about it, given that he can't sell the building.
St. Francis would have agreed. He carefully never argued for the church to sell of its property or divest itself of income. Of course, he was outside the church hierarchy and relied on papal protection for his safety.
Maybe the Pope isn't going to push Dolan on his residence, but he did recently draw a line by suspending the "Bishop of Bling," a German Bishop spending 42 million dollars on his home renovation, including a $20,000 bathtub and marble floors. It's a start, a small one, but a start.Pope Francis, on the other hand, might have a plan for an empty archbishop's residence if Cardinal Dolan wanted to downsize. After all, he did recently suggest that empty church property should be used to house refugees.
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Update - another example of the way the Pope's understanding of our fundamental equality stems from his position that we are all sinners. On why he is drawn to prisoners:
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Francis said his care, concern and prayers for those in prison flow from a recognition that he is human like they are, and it's a mystery they fell so far and he did not.
"Thinking about this is good for me: When we have the same weakness, why did they fall and I didn't? This is a mystery that makes me pray and draws me to prisoners," the pope said Oct. 23 during a brief audience with about 200 Italian prison chaplains.
