Fascination with Francis stirs Protestant hearts

Nation Catholic Reporter ^ | 1-22-2014 | Bill Tammeus

[ebb tide]

What has intrigued me most about Pope Francis is not the way in which Catholics -- well, most of them, anyway -- have embraced him but the way in which countless Protestants have moved into his fan club.

More is at play here than simple celebrity in our overwrought pop culture. At least, I hope so.

The Protestant fascination with him hasn't broken down the many theological, liturgical and structural barriers that still exist between Protestantism and Catholicism, but it has softened them a bit and it has caused some Protestants to want to figure out what makes Francis tick, what Jesuit theology is all about and what ground we Protestants might share in common with Catholics.

My own congregation is a good example of this phenomenon. Our pastor, Paul Rock, recently began a sermon series he's calling "Jesus, the Pope and a Protestant Walk Into a Bar." His sermons, which started Sunday, can be found here [1].

To alert people to this series, he posted this short video [2] on our church's website [1]. As Paul says in the video, "This is a pope who has become the people's pope. ... The fact that Pope Francis has been an inspiration to both Catholics and Protestants I think provides us a unique opportunity to take a fresh look at this Catholic-Protestant divide."

I suspect that the intense Protestant interest in Francis is a sign that deep in our protesting marrow, there is a yearning for unity and a latent sense of regret that it had to come to all that division in Martin Luther's time and that the divide has never been healed.

For good and sufficient reasons back then, insistent Catholic reformers broke away from Rome in what became known as the Protestant Reformation, and although countless feelings were hurt and vicious charges traded, it was surely a reluctant parting. The Luthers, the Ulrich Zwinglis and the John Calvins of the time first sought to fix what they thought had gone wrong in the church. But failing that, they felt they had no choice but to leave.

So off they went in a huff while the Catholics they left behind mostly shouted after them not to let the door slam them in the butt on the way out. It was sad, though perhaps avoidable, but we can't rewrite that history now.

No divorce happens because of what just one of the partners does, thinks or says. It's always a group failure, as it was in this case. But it's also true that no divorce happens without some residual regret.

Some of that residual regret is helping to fuel the Protestant fascination with Francis. Whether it will mean anything in the way of reconciliation over the long haul is unknown. But it's certain that no reconciliation will be possible if both Protestants and Catholics continue to deny the regret they feel and their hope for a different future.

To Protestants, one of the most attractive things about Francis is his humility, his willingness not to rely on, defend and protect all aspects of the hierarchical system of polity that has marked the papacy, especially in the time since Pope John XXIII. That system, at least to Protestant eyes, seems to be in tension with the idea straight from the mouth of Jesus that true leaders must first be servants.

Now Francis not only is saying exactly that, he's acting as if he believes it.

Protestant polity usually is more decentralized and democratic than the Roman system of governance, but that doesn't mean some Protestant leaders don't also fall into the trap of being insufferable monarchists and worldly kingdom-builders.

Today, however, when Protestants set aside that nonsense and focus on humbly seeking to follow the God of love revealed in Jesus Christ, they find they have been joined by a fellow pilgrim, Francis. And we should welcome each other on the journey.

[Bill Tammeus, a Presbyterian elder and former award-winning faith columnist for The Kansas City Star, writes the daily "Faith Matters" blog [3] for the Star's website and a monthly column for The Presbyterian Outlook. His latest book, co-authored with Rabbi Jacques Cukierkorn, is They Were Just People: Stories of Rescue in Poland During the Holocaust [4]. Email him at wtammeus@gmail.com [5].]

[ebb tide]

Obama got 76% of the low information hispanics that identify as Catholic, who no more have been catechized and know the doctrine of the Catholic Church than the man in the moon.

Thanks to no other than their Latin American bishops, like Archbishop Bergoglio.

[NKP_Vet]

“are still abortion-advocating Obama supporters”

You mean like those millions and millions and millions of black PROTESTANTS that cast their vote for brother Barrack?
The ones that go to Church 3 or 4 times a week and will tell you how Christian they are and how they don’t believe in abortion and how they don’t believe in homosexuals getting “married”. Yea them. Oh, but you give them a pass because they call themselves protestants. It’s only Catholics that are singled out for voting for Obama, when the ones that allowed him to carry the “catholic vote” can barely speak English. Or those white protestants all over Virginia, Penn, Ohio, and West Virginia that call themselves Christian but voted for the baby killer because their good ole boy union members, and “my daddy voted democrat all his life and daggummit I will to”. You give them a free pass because they are protestants.

[ansel12]

Catholics, we know how they vote, and now we are learning that some want a white’s only church.

Which I guess is what happens when immigrants from Catholic societies and nations, meet with Catholics who don’t live in such Catholic utopias.

[GeronL]

More self-love from the Catholic scribes about how they are the center of the world and we should all agree with them.

I doubt there is this much self-affirmation in a homosexual focus group or a psychologists couch

[NKP_Vet]

There’s a real big big difference in voting patterns of Catholics who can read and those who can’t.

[Alex Murphy]

You mean like those millions and millions and millions of black PROTESTANTS that cast their vote for brother Barrack? The ones that go to Church 3 or 4 times a week and will tell you how Christian they are and how they don’t believe in abortion and how they don’t believe in homosexuals getting “married”. Yea them. Oh, but you give them a pass because they call themselves protestants.

Who? Oh, you mean them. Those people.

It’s only Catholics that are singled out for voting for Obama, when the ones that allowed him to carry the “catholic vote” can barely speak English.

What's that, you say? We established from your last post that 40% of white, weekly-church-attending Catholics still voted for Obama - does this mean that the 40% can barely speak English, too?

I don't get all this "singling them out" talk. Black, non-English-speaking, low-information baptized Catholics are numbered by their bishops among the 70 million claimed here in the USA - just like the magic white folk are. Is the number wrong? Are there 70 million Catholics or not? Now if you don't want some of them counted, you go right ahead and not count them That's an argument to take up with your own church, not with me.

Or those white protestants all over Virginia, Penn, Ohio, and West Virginia that call themselves Christian but voted for the baby killer because their good ole boy union members, and “my daddy voted democrat all his life and daggummit I will to”. You give them a free pass because they are protestants.

Wait - am I supposed to give them a free pass because they are, because they call themselves protestant, or because they have the right skin color? Where are you finding all these free passes laying around, that you claim I've punched?

[NKP_Vet]

“I doubt there is this much self-affirmation in a homosexual focus group or a psychologists couch”

Try asking your Episcopalian brother. Lots of sodomites getting “married” in his church.

[Alex Murphy]

There’s a real big big difference in voting patterns of Catholics who can read and those who can’t.

I'm told that's what the icons and relics were created to make up for. I'm guessing they missed the circles and arrows and paragraphs on the back of each one?

[NKP_Vet]

No, just the hypocritical protestant voters, who were responsible for sending Obama back to the White House. There are a hell of a lot more protestants in this country than Catholics.

[GeronL]

Try asking your Episcopalian brother.

wow. Personalize it, just like leftists always do.

[ebb tide]

Don’t you need to read to vote on a ballot?

[ebb tide]

No, just the hypocritical protestant voters, who were responsible for sending Obama back to the White House.

[ansel12]

No other lefty voting church denomination gets defended for voting pro-abortion liberal, only the Catholic one.

[ansel12]

I don’t notice a lot of nasty and fierce defense of the Episcopalian denomination here.

I have seen them explained as almost Catholic though, in fact it is almost a sideways move, it seems.

They probably vote for democrats also.

[Alex Murphy]

No, just the hypocritical protestant voters, who were responsible for sending Obama back to the White House. There are a hell of a lot more protestants in this country than Catholics.

That's not what I'm told, certainly not by other Catholics. First, other Catholics repeatedly post that there are more Catholics than Protestants in this country. Second, other Catholics have also claimed that the majority of Protestants "stayed home" and didn't vote for Romney, with sufficient numbers missing that Romney lost the election with the remaining non-Protestant voters.

Take your pick. If we're the majority, exit polls showed that of weekly-attending Protestants who did vote, they still voted in greater numbers against Obama than weekly-attending Catholics did. And if we're in the minority, then Catholic-cast votes outweighed ours. Any way you want to slice it, your side come out and supported Obama in greater numbers than our side did.

I'll toss you a bone, however - more Catholics voted for the Republican presidential candidate in 2012 than did in 2008 (roughly 3% more among white weekly mass-attenders). That said, the majority of bishop-counted, self-professing Catholics still voted for Obama in both elections. Deal with it.

[ansel12]

I don’t see any defense of the democrat voting black denominations here, I don’t even think we have any members of those denominations here.

The only pro-abortion, pro-gay marriage, pro-democrat denomination that gets fiercely promoted and defended here, is the Catholic denomination.

[NKP_Vet]

Leftist? Haha, that’s real funny. Try finding a Catholic Church that will “marry” a couple of fags. Only protestant churches do that, you know the ones that ignore scripture.

[GeronL]

Lots of fake churches out there, trying to lump them all in as “protestant” should be beneath you.

like asking

How is the open borders libertarian church of Rome these days?

[NKP_Vet]

Except your PROTESTANT Lutheran, Episcopalian and Presbyterian churches that consistently vote for democrats, and 100% of black protestant churches in the country. When was the last time anyone on FR called out these hypocrites for calling themselves pro-life Christians and turning right around and voting for Obama. I’m the only one. I criticize anyone that voted for the SOB and that includes hypocrites that call themselves Catholic that voted for the fraud.

[Alex Murphy]

Try finding a Catholic Church that will “marry” a couple of fags

How about one that will "celebrate the Eucharist" with them? Does that count?