THE CARDINAL
Francis George is not just any cardinal. Archbishop of Chicago until a few weeks ago and president of the United States bishops’ conference from 2007 to 2010, he is the one who guided the new course of the American Catholic Church during the pontificate of Benedict XVI, in perfect harmony with him.
By installing as his successor in Chicago a bishop with the opposite profile, Blase J. Cupich, Pope Francis has sent an unmistakable signal of disagreement with the stance of the episcopal conference.
Which in turn, however, has confirmed that it has no intention of backing off from the course it has undertaken.
In fact, in electing its four representatives at the second round of the synod on the family, it has concentrated its votes, apart from Joseph Kurtz and Daniel DiNardo, president and vice-president of the episcopal conference, on Charles Chaput, archbishop of Philadelphia, and José Gomez, archbishop of Los Angeles, two of the leading representatives of the Ratzingerian current.
Cupich turned out to be the first of the non-elect, but he was immediately followed by another diehard Ratzingerian, Salvatore Cordileone, archbishop of San Francisco.
It is in this context that in the middle of November Cardinal George gave a wide-ranging interview to the vaticanista John Allen of the “Boston Globe,” in which he presented as never before his reservations about Pope Francis.
Here are the key passages.
“IT’S CREATED EXPECTATIONS THAT HE CAN’T POSSIBLY MEET”
by Francis George
I can see why some people might be anxious. If you don’t push it, Pope Francis does seem to bring into question well-received doctrinal teaching. But when you look at it again, especially when you listen to his homilies in particular, you see that’s not it. Very often when he says those things, he’s putting it into a pastoral context of someone who’s caught in a kind of trap. Maybe the sympathy is expressed in a way that leaves people wondering if he still holds the doctrine. I have no reason to believe that he doesn’t. […]
The question is raised: why doesn’t he himself clarify these things? Why is it necessary that apologists have to bear that burden of trying to put the best possible face on it? Does he not realize the consequences of some of his statements, or even some of his actions? Does he not realize the repercussions? Perhaps he doesn’t. I don’t know whether he’s conscious of all the consequences of some of the things he’s said and done that raise these doubts in people’s minds.
That’s one of the things I’d like to have the chance to ask him, if I ever get over there: “Do you realize what has happened, just by that very phrase ‘Who am I to judge?’, how it’s been used and misused?”. It’s very misused, because he was talking about someone who has already asked for mercy and been given absolution whom he knows well. That’s entirely different than talking to somebody who demands acceptance rather than asking for forgiveness. It’s constantly misused.
It’s created expectations around him that he can’t possibly meet. That’s what worries me. At a certain moment, people who have painted him as a bit player in their scenarios about changes in the Church will discover that’s not who he is. He’s not going in that direction. Then he’ll perhaps get not only disillusionment, but opposition that could be harmful to the effectiveness of his magisterium. […]
It’s interesting to me that this pope talks about that novel:“Lord of the World.” That’s one thing I want to ask him: “How do you put together what you’re doing with what you say is the hermeneutical interpretation of your ministry, which is this eschatological vision that the anti-Christ is with us? Do you believe that?”. I would love to ask the Holy Father: In a sense, maybe it explains why he seems to be in a hurry. […] What does the pope believe about the end-times? […]
I didn’t know him well before he was elected. I knew him through the Brazilian bishops, who knew him well, and I asked them a lot of questions. […] I haven’t been to see him since he was elected. […] I don’t know Pope Francis well enough. I certainly respect him as pope, but there isn’t yet an understanding of. “What are you doing here?”.
The complete text of the interview with Cardinal George:
> Chicago’s exiting Cardinal: “The Church…”