Breaking News! The Cyprus Mail knows more than The Holy See!

A Pope can never say anything right for non-Catholics, can he? 

If I'm not being clear, just ask Ian

Too hard-line and he’ll get labelled a “Rottweiler”, out of touch with the world.  

Too down to earth and he’s called a namby-pamby liberal, laicised in reductive terms such as “like a normal human being”, as Professor Ian Buruma writes in his syndicated piece in The Cyprus Mail today (print edition 11/10/13, p.13).

Our trendy Enlightenment thinkers of the 21^st century have a knack for taking a clergyman's words out of context and twisting them into something different. 

It’s not my usual style to go for Christian Apologetics, nor is it my job to interpret or explain the teachings of the Catholic Church or the pronouncements of our Pope – I am not a priest or a theologian.  All I can do is paraphrase or repeat what's already been said.  However, if the secular press is going to focus on the Catholic Church, then I expect it to at least get it right, in terms of journalistic truth and accuracy.  

The letter Buruma refers to from Pope Francis to Dr. Eugenio Scalfari, one of the co-founders of the Italian newspaper, La Repubblica, is not that recent, it was published one month ago on 11^th September 2013.  Pedantic, I know, but it’s hardly today's news.   The Cyprus Mail needs to catch up with VaticanNews.   

The Cyprus Mail:  we don't check everything

If the CM’s editors had bothered to check Pope Francis's words (preferably in the original Italian, but if not, at least in a reliable translation), they would have seen that nowhere does it say “non-believers are safe from the fires of Hell”, as Buruma claims.  In fact, Pope Francis never mentions Hell once in 2,745 words.  That’s Buruma’s fantasy, and it’s been copied mistakenly by The Cyprus Mail.  Shoddy. 

Francis’s words on conscience, in context, refer to a specific answer to a specific question put to him previously by Dr. Scalfari.  The Holy Father’s exact response was:

First of all, you ask me if the God of Christians forgives one who doesn’t believe and doesn’t seek the faith. Premise that – and it’s the fundamental thing – the mercy of God has no limits if one turns to him with a sincere and contrite heart; the question for one who doesn’t believe in God lies in obeying one’s conscience. Sin, also for those who don’t have faith, exists when one goes against one’s conscience. To listen to and to obey it means, in fact, to decide in face of what is perceived as good or evil. And on this decision pivots the goodness or malice of our action.[paragraph 19 of letter 11/9/13]

Even an alien sun-worshipper raised in the jungle by she-wolves would be hard-pressed to conclude from this that the Pope meant neither God nor The Church are needed for our salvation.  If Buruma or the CM’s editors had bothered to read the previous 18 paragraphs and the following 3, it is quite clear that Pope Francis is pointing to faith in Jesus Christ as the key to a non-believer's issues.  He is also pointing to man’s relationship with Him through the teachings of the Catholic Church.  He is also talking about the duty of every Catholic to engage in a dialogue with unbelievers because “the truth is a relationship”. 

Pope Francis begins with reference to his Encyclical Lumen Fidei, which he acknowledges was conceived and written mostly by his predecessor, Benedict XVI, as the springboard instructions for the relationship, or dialogue between believers and non-believers.  He also refers to this “precious and necessary” dialogue as one of the intended aims of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65).  He speaks personally and humbly of his own faith, a personal encounter with Jesus, made possible “by the community of faith in which I lived” [i.e. The Church] “thanks to which I found access to the intelligence of Sacred Scriptures [and]... to the Sacraments.”  [my emphasis]  Nowhere in the letter does he say or imply that “sacred texts can no longer [tell] us the difference between good and evil”, as Buruma claims.  On the contrary, Pope Francis is saying that access to the true meaning of Holy Scripture and the Sacraments only comes about through the Sacramental Church.   

Pope Francis also says that it is only because of the faith “experienced in Church” that he (and by extension all believers) are capable of dealing with non-believers. 

Buruma claims, ridiculously, that “Francis’s words suggest that it might be a legitimate option to cut out God Himself”.  There is no such suggestion at all.  

Ian Buruma:
thinks he knows more about 
The Church than The Pope

Nor is the Pope condoning “the extreme individualism of our age” – this is Buruma’s self-projection.  Buruma is a proponent of Classical Liberalism, which emphasises the supposed freedom of the individual, which leads to moral relativism, otherwise known as “anything goes”.  Pope Francis clearly rejects moral relativism:

“... each of us sees the truth and expresses it, starting from oneself: from one's history and culture, from the situation in which one lives, etc.  This does not mean that the truth is variable and subjective. It means that it is given to us only as a way and a life.  Was it not Jesus himself who said:  "I am the way, the truth, the life"? [paragraph 20 of letter, 11/9/13]

It’s actually a very simple teaching for anyone who seeks the truth.  The Pope is actively ‘talking’ in a very humble and direct way to what sounds like a rather irritating former newspaper editor and to all those who don’t get the meaning of DIALOGUE either.  

Greek 101 for the day:  διάλογος – dialogos, dia = inter, through, logos = speech, discourse.  Primarily the dialogue between man and God through The Sacraments, and The Magisterium, but also the dialogue between believers and non-believers, in which we are all called upon to engage with in the path towards Truth.  

If Buruma practises what he preaches, i.e. everyone is free to make up their own mind, then readers are free to read the Pope's words themselves before reaching a conclusion. 

Read the full letter here.  

Read the Encyclical here.  

Then if you still have questions, go and ask a Catholic priest.  Dialogue.  

Lord Jesus, shelter our Holy Father, the Pope, under the protection of your Sacred Heart.  Be his light, his strength, and his consolation.  Amen.