Pope Francis Wrestles With the Rocks of Reality
Saint John Paul II, in his letter "Fides et Ratio," described faith and reason as two wings lifting the human spirit toward truth.
Edward Wilson (or alternately, Edward O. Wilson or E. O. Wilson) a founding father of secular humanism, was very active and influential within the movement of same.
He stumbled upon the “real problem of humanity,” ignoring how faith and reason combine to reconcile our Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and God-like technology.
Yet, we have evolved.
Philosophy initially centered on a biological man, the measure of all things.
The medieval church replaced him with a metaphysical man. Secular Humanism now idealizes the pretense of a historical man – part homo economicus, part Übermensch: Mr. Hyde emerging from Renaissance man Dr. Jekyll’s shadow.
We understand biology, aspire to metaphysics.
Neither can we change.
History, we can change.
It lets us enshrine particular archetypes of man at the forefront.
This historical man’s emotions are not primitive; they are enlightened, answering the call of the void with creative destruction.
Eroding the rocks of reality to build back better. The vacuum nature abhors has become the engine of history.
But "Palaeolithic" also means "old rock."
The "Book of Genesis" speaks of a world in progress, where man is set upon the path toward truth. Molded from clay, with an extended back exposing all his vital organs — and a brain demanding too much energy and time to develop — he is stacked against the rocks of a hostile reality.
Human civilization still flourished, from Adam and Eve’s struggle through various stages of environmental and social challenges, to Noah’s resilience and ingenuity.
To Abraham and the covenant.
Then God made himself one of us.
A reformer, bringing not peace, but a sword.
If the father turned clay into man, the son turned man into rock.
This marked a moral and spiritual progression, from strict legalism to emphasizing love, forgiveness, and compassion.
From a sect of chosen people to an universal society, radically breaking down long-standing social and ethnic barriers.
The church’s history is a tale of social progress and change.
Progress is not a foreign element forcing its way in but a force the church unleashed into the world.
As Saint Paul said, even if we speak the languages of angels and men, without spreading love the church is meaningless.
Love for the sinner, not sin.
As the myth of the church opposing science fades, a new one emerges from within: the church as an enemy of social progress.
This is dangerous, risking the church becoming an instrument for the world to shape faith, rather than God’s tool for shaping the world.
Leading from behind, following the world into the age of narcissism.
Pope Francis is a man of this age.
Simple, with complex tastes.
Enlightened, he sees the church as a slow-sinking ship, adrift in a storm of progress.
He relishes the attention, purpose, and makeshift dignity from the self-interested groups trying to steer that ship.
Pope Benedict XVI foresaw this age, predicting priests as social workers and faith as a political agenda.
Francis appears eager to fulfill this, turning a church of saints and scholars into one of middle managers with delusions of grandeur, caught between Earth’s noble savages and Heaven’s benevolent tyrant.
Confession has moved from the church to the pharmacy. "Swallow a Valium, and two Zolofts. That's your penance, go in peace,” say our modern confessors in white lab coats.
The ritual is similar: a guilty soul shuffles in, head low, speaking in hushed tones, seeking redemption. Which now comes conveniently cased in a pillbox.
Worship has shifted from the creator to creation.
Men used to achieve greatness, then write about it. Now, they write about the unattainable, to justify their half-hearted efforts.
Pope Francis’ "Laudato Si’" encyclical on climate change, is a case in point.
In his "Fratelli Tutti" letter on immigration, the Pope is right that the church knows no borders, but he forgets that what suits the church doesn’t always suit Caesar. And even the Vatican secures its borders.
The pope’s silence, or faint protests, on issues such as the FBI’s targeting of Catholics and the clergy’s imprisonment in Nicaragua speak louder than his sermons.
His actions reveal his dread of those burdening the ship with moral weight.
Men like Cardinal Raymond Burke, leading with rare moral clarity on issues the pope would prefer to become cloudy.
Pope Francis sees it as a source of "disunity."
When veering off course, anyone steering back disrupts the uniform march towards the void. Cardinal Burke faced eviction by Francis for this reason.
He chose to stay on the path, knowing the cost.
Bishop Joseph Strickland from Texas faced a similar fate.
Others felt Francis’s lefteous indignation. Cardinals Schneider, Sarah, Müller, and Archbishop Gänswein, who spoke hard truths and asked inconvenient questions.
Pope Francis seems to forget that fire forged the church’s legacy. And is forging every brick in the new Benedictine monasteries in the Ozarks.
Rekindling the Catholic devotion to the Latin Mass.
Lighting the paths of young, conservative priests.
He ignores that faith and reason don’t clash but combine, building on the rock, not wearing it away. He confuses the church for a ship adrift, crashing against the rocks of reality. But the church is the rock, not the ship.
Francis, as Peter’s successor, ought to recognize this.
And banish the snakes basking against Christ’s rock, the medieval institution that elevates our primitive emotions toward truth.
Cauf Skiviers writes about philosophy, economics, politics, and things that lie between the inconceivable and the undesirable. His reports also appear at: https://cauf.substack.com.
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