Now that the white smoke has dissipated, some are wondering just how much difference the new pope will make in the lives of the average Catholic. A few weeks ago, New York Times columnist, Frank Bruni, put it this way: ”In the American news media it’s all pope all the time, a tsunami of papal coverage, and until a new pope is named, the tide won’t quit. You’d be forgiven for concluding that he’ll actually have significant sway over Catholics in this country. He won’t, not over the majority of them, not in any immediate sense. And it’s worth pausing, amid this hoopla, to remember that. In large parts of the Roman Catholic world, certainly in North America and Western Europe, most Catholics don’t feel any particular debt or duty to the self-appointed caretakers of their church. They don’t feel bound by the pope’s interpretation of doctrine or moral commands . . .”
He continues: “We in the media love the clear-cut drama of transitions. They’re easy to grasp and frame. And in the case of the Vatican, they come with majestic visual backdrops, colorfully costumed characters: a pageant extraordinaire. It looks splendid on the front page and even better on the nightly news. We traffic in celebrities, and the pope qualifies as one. We also relish the narrative of any winner-take-all contest in which there are multiple hopefuls, murky dynamics and a familiar brand of suspense. This informs the way we approach presidential elections, focusing on the horse race. It explains all the cook-offs, the sing-offs, the analyses of the face-off between “Argo” and “Lincoln” for Best Picture. The papal selection process is in one sense “Top Chef” without the cooking. It’s the ecclesiastical Oscars.”
In other words, one shouldn’t make the mistake of equating media airtime and front-page headlines with personal devotion. Polls indicate a significant lack of papal allegiance within the Catholic church, confirmed by the results of a study I found in the National Catholic Reporter from November, 2011. It revealed that only 19% of those surveyed categorized themselves as “highly committed Catholics,” meaning that on a scale of 1 to 7—with 1 representing the highest level of commitment—the “highly committed” Catholics were those who said that (a) the church was the most important or one of the most important parts of their life; and (b) they attended church once a week or more often.
In addition:
-- Close to a majority of those who call themselves “highly committed” say that a person can be a good Catholic without going to weekly Mass (48 percent), without their marriage being approved by the church (48 percent), and without obeying the church’s teaching on divorce and remarriage (46 percent).
-- 60 percent of the “highly committed” say that one can be a good Catholic without obeying the church’s teaching on artificial contraception.
-- Only 57 percent of “highly committed” Catholics said that the teaching authority claimed by the Vatican is very important to them personally.
So while their leaders may have strong positions about moral issues, those positions are not shared by the great majority of the “highly committed.” How else would you explain that the country the new pope hails from—Argentina, 75% Catholic—recently passed a law allowing same-sex marriage?
The disconnect is obvious. In scriptural terms, it’s a “my will vs. Thy will” attitude, where most members do their own thing. I heard a great example of this several months ago as a Catholic woman from Mexico was interviewed about her church’s attitude toward birth control. She proudly declared herself “a faithful Catholic,” and then she stated that even if God Himself told her it's wrong to practice birth control, she would do it anyway, because she knows what’s best for her own life.
Bruni's article concluded with this thought: “Does the pope fully appreciate this drift? Every Sunday, he looks from his window onto St. Peter’s Square and sees adoring, rapt masses. Everywhere he goes, traffic parts and cameras follow him. But here in America, the Catholics watching closely are fewer and fewer. They’re Christian. They’re caring. They’re moral. But they have minds and wills of their own, and no conclave will change that.“ (Frank Bruni, “The Pope’s Muffled Voice,” New York Times, 18 Feb. 2013).
There is a lesson in this for Latter-day Saints. Where are our loyalties? When it comes to those we sustain as prophets, seers and revelators, where is our allegiance? Hopefully we are not like those described in this little verse quoted by President Boyd K. Packer::
The sermon was ended.
The priest had descended.
Much delighted were they,
But preferred the old way.
(Boyd K. Packer, “Follow the Brethren,” Speeches of the Year, BYU, 23 March 1965, pp.; 1-10.)
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