In his speech to European institutions, Pope Francis spoke about poverty and immigration; he underscored the value of family; he condemned the opulence of the world and the culture of the throwaway; and shed light in social plagues like abortion. Two smarting speeches – to the European Parliament and to the Council of Europe – that criticized European institutions, underscoring theyneed to be more human. Above all, the speeches focused on human rights the way they had been originally conceived.

All of the things Pope Francis spoke about in his two speeches to European institutions may be understood as dealing with human rights. Human rights that are always more at risk, in the highly civilized Europe. A continent where new borns who survive failed late-abortion procedures are left to die, and with the European Court for Human Rights refusing to take a position about it; where religions are instrumentalized, and religious freedom must be reclaimed, since it seems that it is only individual freedom that is considered to be worth preserving; where religious communities are not – as it they should be – considered spaces of freedom, but misconstrued as places of coercion of personal freedom.

In these issues lie the connection between Pope Francis’ trips to Europe and Turkey. Turkey has experienced a strong secularization. But it is also a country where the majority of the population is Muslim. The confessional party has gained power, step by step. The country has in the meantime become more and more Islamic. After the exchange of citizens with Greece in 1923 – Greek Orthodox of Greek nationality went to Greece, while Turks in Greece returned to Turkey – the country has moved toward a progressive Islamization. The Ataturk secularizing revolution has been overturned in the course of the years, and the country has become more and more Islamic, to the point of bestowingpower on the ultra-religious leader Tayip Recep Erdogan for more than 12 years.

In the end, Erdogan is nothing more than the heir of that coalition between the Socialist Party and the confessional party that gained power in Turkey in 1974. A complex and difficult binomial, that between socialism and religion. South America has experiencedthis contradiction with Liberation Theology.  Turkey is experiencing its own version of this story.

It is true that religious feelings speak to large segments of the population. It is also true that religion is used as a political weapon, more than to illuminate the path of politicians. In the Turkey getting ready to receive the Pope, how religion is used as a means of power was noticeable. A use that even led to the Papal trip to the country being relegated to a secondary realm of attention.

After the meeting with the authorities in Ankara, the remaining of the Pope’s trip was considered a private visit. And a private visit does not enjoy widespread media coverage. A reductionist perspective with parallels in the situation of Christians in Turkey: they are not considered one of the religious minorities, they are simply conceived a foreign religion.

The Pope, thus, was treated just like any other Head of State. No large public gatherings in open spaces for people to meet him. The Christian community (which represents 0.2% of the Turkish population) is so resigned to this state of affairs that it did not even tried asking for permission to celebrate a Mass in a space that could hold at least 20 per cent of the faithful who wanted to see the Pope. For many Catholic Turkish, There was no chance to see the Pope.

And even fewer were able to attend the meeting between Pope Francis and Patriarch Bartholomew, an exemplary ecumenical meeting, during which the two have renewed once more their shared dream of unity among Christian confessions.

In fact, a political unity among European institutions would be needed first. “Ecumenismis not enough, Christian politicians should standbehind the same political flag, and work together for the sakeof the human being and defending natural law,” says GregorPuppinck, director of the European Center for Law and Justice of Strasbourg.

There are many complaints for violations of religious freedom, filed by many Christian confessions. This situation brings together Catholics, Orthodox, and Protestants. More than being a mere issue of dialogue among Christian confessions, ecumenism should become something concrete, a field to raiseissues on common grounds.

True, Pope Francis and Bartholomew hold each other in great esteem.They both approach issues in unconventional ways, and it is said that they will draft together common texts – first, one on ecology, a sort of encyclical that may become the first of its kind, with the twofold signature of the Pope and the Patriarch. Obviously, they also have a common commitment against religious persecution, especially the persecution ofChristiansin Middle East.

But the common ground of human rights is something to be further developed. While Christians are persecuted, in the heart of Europe the issue of the human being has become always more and more important. Pope Francis entrusted the Council of the European Conferences of Bishops (Consilium Conferentiarum Episcoporum Europae, CCEE) the task of fostering a dialogue with the Council of Europe, especially on human rights. And Cardinal Petr Erdo, Archbishop of Budapest and president of the CCEE, has underscored that “there is a need to clarify the basis of human rights, in the face ofthe so-called third and fourth generation rights that are not shared by everybody.”

The third and fourth generation rights are the environmental and self-determination rights, and in these latter lie many of the attempts of the gender ideology to run counter to human nature. Not by chance, “Humanum” was the title of the wonderful conference on the complementarity between man and woman held at the Vatican the day before the Papal trip to Strasbourg.

This ecumenism of human rights is perhaps the real common challenge for every Christian confession, a challenge that includes all the other challenges. The other task is to prevent religion from becoming a political instrument.

As the Pope in Turkey had been treated by Turkish authorities just like any other head of state, so it was the case for his visit to European Institutions, where he delivered two speeches and abstained from holding any pastoral event. His visit had been instrumentalized by socialists, who highlighted the part of the Papal speech focusing on immigration and poverty, and completely ignored the passages on human rights and family. It is revealing that in the EU official press release, there is no mention of God, the Social Teaching of the Church, or any of the criticism the Pope levied against the European institutions.

All of this to the convenience of Martin Schulz, a socialist and current president of the European Parliament, who had welcomed for the occasion of the Papal visit the socialist French leader Segolene Royale, who will, it seems, once again be a candidateinthe Presidential elections in France.

There is, in the end, the struggle of the socialist world, generally atheistic, to pull Pope Francis under their position. Something similar – but from a reverse point of view – is happening in Turkey, where religion has become a political instrument that has permitted Erdogan’s party to gain and consolidate power. In the end, there is nothing more secular in a party than to use religion as a political tool. And nothing more materialistic and socialist than the idea that religion is a tool through which to guide the masses.

Bishops from Eastern Europe and Africa have been the most active in the revolt that has taken place at the Synod of Bishops. A peaceful –but strong– revolt. A revolt which followed the publication of the ‘relatio post disceptationem’, the synod’s midterm report. Cardinal Petr Erdo, General Rapporteur of the synod, had kept the relatio balanced, stressing at the opening of the evangelization the need for better-formed priests and faithful. But the very same Cardinal Erdo then distanced himself from a text it was not completely his own, and which generated an intense discussion in the synod’s hall right after he read it.

Going beyond the polemics on the so-called opening regarding same-sex unions and with respect to divorced and remarried catholics, what was really missing in the relatio was reference to the Gospel. The relation was just a snapshot of reality, a faithful portrait of the current situation where, in the end, there was no space for Christian hope. With that ‘relatio’, the Church had given up shaping the world, and had decided to allow itself to be shaped by the world. This perspective had been effectively summarized by Cardinal Reinhard Marx, archbishop of Munich and Freising, during a briefing with journalists: «We cannot choose our faithful, we should go toward them.»

This was the setting of the relatio post disceptationem. The relatio recalled the limits of Liberation Theology. Id est, the limits of a perfect sociological analysis that is not able to go beyond the current situation. So much so, that the Marxism applied by Liberation Theology as a tool of analysis theorized about the class struggle and revolution,but in order to generate a new equilibrium rather than to change the people’s heart. Christianity, on the other hand, really goes beyond sociology. It is the Gospel, with its mission of love and its teaching based on truth, that can really shape the world and make it better.

Even the perspective behind the relatio denoted an understanding of a Church whose vision would be limited. Far from highlighting the beauty of the Christian life and the great examples that Catholic families provide to the faithful, the synod’s midterm report focused on the irregular situations, underscoring the need for a new, merciful approach. «As if the Church was not merciful before, and now it is,» said Archbishop Stanislaw Gadecki, president of the Polish bishops’ Conference.

In fact, all that the relatio dealt with was a Church in need of a new approach. Some claimed that this new approach could be achieved even by eventually changing the doctrine. «The Church can have a change of mind. For example, we know that the Church at the beginning was in favor of slavery, and latershe was not anymore,» said Victor Fernandez, rector of the Catholic University of Argentina, vicepresident of the Commission for the Synod’s Message to the People of God, and Pope Francis’ ghostwriter.

This is a dangerous thesis, and also a false one. From St. Paul on, Christianity has always fought against slavery. So much so, that the first to speak about human rights were the Dominican Fathers Bartolomé de Las Casas and Francisco de Vitoria: sent to America, they coined the expression “human rights” and stressed they were universal, thus rejecting the way the ‘indios’ were treated by the conquistadores.

Of this contribution to international law, as well as many other Catholics’ contributions, there is no record in a large part of all the books written about the history of international law. In fact, almost all of these books have been written after the Enlightenment, with the purpose of finally getting rid of the Church’s teaching. The years of Enlightenment introduced a prejudice against the Church that continues today.

It continues particularly in South America, where the colonial powers pushed the Pope to abolish the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits): they were guilty of having established missions in South America, and teaching the ‘indios’ how to be independent. The movie ‘The Mission’ recounts this story well, which seems to be forgotten.

In fact, Pope Francis’ Argentina is the country that has lived through, more than any other, the new colonization, that of secularism. In only one year, Argentina introduced in its legislation gay-rights bills that allowed gay marriage and in-vitro fertilization, as reported by the 2012 Report on the Social Teaching of the Church issued by the Van Thuan Observatory.

African Bishops seem to be the most aware of the historic risks. It is because Africa is still a colonized continent. There, the Catholic Church is the most important institution working to create conditions for development, in the context of the common good. The Catholic University that has been established in Congo, the other Catholic university in Ethiopia, the health care system that is 70 percent Catholic (and that is now confronting the Ebola outbreak) tell the story of an Africa saved by Catholic ideals. And the Africans are very faithful to these ideals.

African Bishops put the challenges of the future on the table. The challenges do not deal with the pastoral for divorced remarried, or homosexual couples. For the first case, there is a pastoral praxis, put into practice and managed by confessors; for the second case, there is a 1986 instruction of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which already addresses the issue.

The challenges of the future are those that arise from colonization by secularist ideas. The real assaults on the family – African bishops spoke about this – are those driven by states and international organizations. The latter are committedto the development of poor countries, but at the same time they link the delivery of aid to the introduction of laws based on gender ideology, undermining the family.

This is how gender ideology is developed: through processes of soft law that can only be opposed with a lot of skill and knowledge.

Skill and knowledge are needed to defend against assaults on religious freedom. Religious communities have the right to their freedom, something that Eastern European countries know well. Not by chance, countries from Eastern Europe were the only ones that sided with Italy when the latter appealed against the European Court verdict that forbid having crucifixes in Italian classrooms.

African and Eastern European bishops have been the most active in defending the doctrine of the Church. Cardinal Wilfried Napier, very angry for the way the midterm report had come about, understood that its content had been picked-up by media, and that any modification or change of approach would have been described as a step back. In his own words, it was an «irredeemable» situation. He also pointed out that «the synod is not convening to speak about abortion, contraception, same sex marriages. It was convened to talk about family.»

And Cardinal Robert Sarah, president of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum and moderator of one of the small groups that has criticized the relatio, reiterated to Catholic News Agency the teachings of the Church about homosexuality and denounced pressure groups behind push to change the Church’s teaching.

Many synod fathers feared that a powerful lobby found its way into the synod and outside the synod, to undermine the teachings of the Church. The publication of the relatio opened the flood gates to the so-called resistance, culminating in the vociferous publication of the reports of the small groups.

After the first week of assembly, the synod fathers broke out in ten groups to analyze the text of the relatio and make their proposals and observations. Generally, all the proposals that gain a supermajority of two third are admitted, and the Pope later synthetize them in a post-synodal exhortation. This synod introduced a new methodology, according to which the synod’s secretariat, together with the general rapporteur, were tasked with writing a final report, which would become a sort of blueprint for the next synod. And even the proposals that did not gain a supermajority had been published – having being made public by the Pope the result of each vote.

The publication of the reports has shown that the majority of synod fathers were on the other side to the midterm relatio. The synod of the media, so well orchestrated and ready to hail with a hooray any doctrinal change in the Church, had been finally surpassed by the real synod.

It is yet to be known who had ultimately drafted the midterm report, which was so controversial and made even more controversial by mistakes in translations. Those that were suspected to have the role of steering the synod in a particular direction came to the fore when the decision was made not to publish the interventions of the synod’s fathers. Then, the number of suspects increased when Pope Francis appointed six prelates to assist Cardinal Erdo in drafting the relatio synodi, the synod’s final report – surprisingly, among the six, there was no one from Africa – the Pope later had to rectify  the mistake by including the commission Cardinal Napier and archbishop of Melbourne Hart. Suspicions still aroused when it was rumored that Cardinal Erdo was only able to introduce very minor changes to the relatio he had received back Sunday evening, Oct. 12. The Pope – it is rumored – had requested the Cardinal to give him the text Saturday, Oct. 11. It is yet to be known who had worked on the text while it reportedly was in Pope’s hands, making it shorter than Cardinal Erdo’s, deleting any mention of sexual disorder, sexual education, and the Gospel.

Given that Archbishop Bruno Forte of Chieti-Vasto, Special Secretary of the Synod, has been indicated by the same Cardinal Erdo as  the drafter of the report, one of the bishops has said he recognized «the hand of Cardinal Ravasi» – President of the Pontifical Council for Culture and president of the message. Many of the bishops have seen Victor Fernandez’s hand in it (apparent in some inaccuracies of the Italian original). But the «guiding group» includes almost all the cardinals of the Council of Cardinals. Cardinal Marx was one of the most tenacious proponents of a change in doctrine. Not by chance, he was called to brief journalists in one of the very last press conferences of the synod.

In fact, this appeasement in the face of the prevailing culture contrasts with Paul VI, whose beatification was scheduled to crown this synod of bishops. A modern Pope, with a missionary vision, who had been able to keep the Church on course at a very difficult time full of controversy. A Pope who had kept his faith, and that had the faithful do the same, issuing the encyclical “Humanae Vitae,” the very last of his pontificate. It was 1968, and his pontificate extended for another 10 years. However, after Humanae Vitae, Paul VI did not write any other encyclical. «He did not want his magisterial acts to be instrumentalized, he wanted to lead the Church with balance in that difficult time,» recounted Cardinal Paul Poupard, who had been among Paul VI’s collaborators. And then he added: «The first telegram that arrived in the Secretariat of State after the promulgation of Humanae Vitae was that of Dom Helder Camara. He thanked the Pope because, with that encyclical, he was protecting children and helping the Third World countries.»

Yes, the very same HelderCamara who lived in the favelas, cited as a champion by all the Liberation Theologians and Third World advocates asking for a greater opening-up of the Church. Today, Helder Camara’s heart seems to have been lost, while merely the cold sociological analysis has remained.

The Evangelical world is a big challenge for ecumenism, perhaps one of the most important ones. There is an open dialogue with the Orthodox world. This dialogue is mostly based on theology. It is a difficult path, but Patriarch of Costantinople Bartholomew I proved to be a great interlocutor. In fact, Bartholomew is carrying on the dialogue on the orthodox side. The patriarch backs Pope Francis’ initiatives and at the same time is trying to unite orthodox churches, supporting a Pan-Orthodox council. On the side of the Russian orthodoxy, there are still big hurdles. These are big hurdles for Pope Francis as well, who even tried to break the ice informally, sending signals of ecumenical peace to Patriarch Kirill. But there has been no movement or change.

Nothing is halted on the evangelical side, and Pope Francis surprisingly found some part of the traditionalist world on his side for what concern the dialogue with it. The dialogue with “evangelical” groups, especially pentecostals, has been called “the fourth ecumenism” by several authors, including the prominent Catholic sociologist Massimo Introvigne, an international authority on religious sects. A conservative and a defender of the Catholic faith, Introvigne wrote a long article on the Italian media outlet “La Bussola Quotidiano” to explain the reasons why the fourth ecumenism (that of the new Protestant sects born at the beginning of the 20th century) is perhaps the most fruitful ground for ecumenical dialogue.

This dialogue – Introvigne himself conceded – has some limits. For example, the search for interlocutors. Although the pentecostals are now three quarters of the world protestantism and one third of christianity, they are very fragmented. The big ecumenical organizations and the traditional protestant world look at the evangelical groups with as much suspicion as the evangelicals reciprocally look at them. And the big pentecostal organizations are in any case too diverse for a dialogue to take place smoothly.

This is the reason why – Introvigne underscored – it is easier to dialogue with the small realities, as the community of Giovanni Traettino, who, before his conversion and his baptism of the Holy Spirit, also had a brief stint in the Italian Communist Party.

The symbolic gesture of the meeting with Traettino comes at the end of a series of meetings Pope Francis had with evangelical leaders before beginning a rest leave to prepare him for the much anticipated trip to South Korea. All of the meetings took place in Domus Sanctae Marthae, where Pope Francis resides.

The televangelist Joel Osteel, the pastor Tim Timmons and the president of the Evangelical Westmont College Gayle D. Beebe were the first to come for a visit, on June 4. On June 24, Pope Francis met with the televangelists James Robins and Kenneth Copeland, with the bishop Anthony Palmer of the Communion Evangelical Episcopal Churches, with the spouses John and Carol Arnott from Toronto and – among others – Geoff Tunnicliffe and Brian C. Stiller, respectively general secretary and ambassador of the World Evangelical Alliance.

This latter gave an account of the meeting in a detailed article entitled “Lunch with the Pope,” since the three-hour meeting ended with a convivial lunch. Stiller goes to great lengths to explain to the evangelicals who were against the meeting with the Pope the reason why it was nevertheless appropriate to get personally in touch with the Pope. Always according to Stiller, the Pope reassured them that he had no intention to convert them, and that he had learned from his friendship with pastor Traettino that the Catholic Church, with her heavy presence, excessively hinders the growth and witnessing of these communities. This was also the reason – the Pope reportedly said – for the visit to the pentecostal community of Caserta, to «apologize for the difficulties given to the community.»

Hence, the deep sense of today’s trip to Caserta. The Italian prominent “vaticanista” Sandro Magister stated that Pope Francis wants to turn evangelicals «from rivals to friends,» and this is proven by this series of gestures.

Magister’s analysis is well founded.  Pope Francis himself admitted – during his trip back from the World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro – that he used to look at charismatic movements with suspicion, and that he later changed his mind, and now he believes that «this movement does much good for the Church overall.»

Why did Pope Francis change his mind? Probably, because he has seen in the charismatic enthusiasm the only way for evangelization. In the press conference on the way back from Rio, he noted that his change of mind toward the evangelicals took place at the beginning of the eighties.

That period coincides with the “obscure biography” of Pope Francis, during which Bergoglio had been sidelined by the Jesuits he had been provincial of during the Seventies.

Intellectual debates, the big dynamics within the Jesuits, probably led Bergoglio to the conclusion that too much intellectualism can drive people away from faith, that there is the need for doing, more than for just thinking. And charismatic movements make things happen, they gather many people, collect money and use it for missionary work.

Bergoglio became aware of this at a time when the clash between the Church of Rome and Liberation Theology reached its climax. In Latin America, Liberation Theology shocked people’s conscience, and created social awareness. But it also ran a risk, and it was paying its consequences: it took out Jesus from the center of the message, and replaced Him with the human person. This choice favored the flourishing of evangelical sects, which took their faithful from the Catholic Church. The Pew Forum in 2006 estimated that 45 per cent of Evangelicals in Brazil were Catholic converts.

In Argentina, the situation was however different. Liberation Theology was featured in the form of the Theology of the People (Teología del Pueblo), which was less centered on the social-structural analysis and focused instead heavily on popular piety. That popular piety able to generate enthusiasm and to gather people around the Church’s message. Intellectual things are not important for the Theology of the People, either. Rather more important was to bring people the closest possible to Jesus, fill the churches with enthusiastic believers. This is the model which evangelization must follow.

Of this theology, Jorge Mario Bergoglio is a long-term follower, being one of his mentors the “People’s theologian” Juan Carlos Scannone. When, in the mid eighties, Pope Francis moved to Germany to study for a PhD he never completed, he was probably disappointed with the intellectual world. He became absolutely convinced of the need to talk directy to the heart of the people, taking the intellectual framework out in order to target the gift and enthusiasm of faith.

In the meantime, in Rome, another clash was taking place. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith published two instructions on Liberation Theology, praising the fundamental option for the poor, which is not questioned, but separating it from marxism. It is a precise work, which included years of education and a re-focus of the theological debate on Jesus. Benedict XVI faced this fundamental issue when he was elected Pope, writing three books on the life of Jesus of Nazareth.

When Benedict XVI goes to Brazil to take part in the Latin American Bishops’ Conference in Aparecida in 2007, he chose as its theme “Disciples and missionaries of Jesus Christ” and added to the other phrase of the title – “That all may have life” – the words “in Him.”

These may seem to be small details. They are not. They give a specific orientation and a foundation to the faith of the Church. The final document of Aparecida – which Jorge Mario Bergoglio extensively contributed to draft – is very much focused on the missionary push. But the approach on the field is very pragmatic, and in fact some of the ideological limits remain. The advent of a Latin American Pope in 2013 might have led to thinking that Liberation Theology was now legitimate, at least in its practical approach. But this did not happen.

The Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is Cardinal Gehrard Ludwig Mueller, very faithful to Benedict XVI. Mueller is a friend of Gustavo Gutiérrez, the father of Liberation Theology. Gutierrez developed a better apreciation for classical theology and helped Mueller understand Latin America’s main problems.

Mueller circumscribed the Liberation Theology debate, underscoring that everything must be focused on Christ and at the same time shed light on the fact that Liberation Theology is a «necessary regional theology.»

Perhaps, this last argument is somewhat weak, as noted by Martin Schlag, director of the Research Center on Market, Culture and Ethics at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome. Schlag stressed that the question «is rather whether Liberation Theology is the right answer to poverty and the correct path out of it,» and he adds: «Unfortunately, my students who are lay people and clergy in Latin America give testimony of their experience in their parishes: wherever and whenever Liberation Theology has entered, people have lost their faith.»

Schlag concludes that «the quest remains as challenging as ever: to find a convincing way of strengthening the Christian faith in the face of poverty and of stimulating Catholics to use their freedom with responsibility, to create sustainable prosperity for all.»

This problem the evangelical world had overcome with the theology of prosperity (you are rich because you are loved by God. The richer you are, the more loved as well) and seeking an emotional response from people. That is not the way out of the problems, but it may help, as the number of conversions shows (even if some may be motivated by the lure of prospertity).

After the wave of evangelical evangelization of Catholics (it is estimated that 100 million Catholics have converted to evangelical believes), Pope Francis would seemingly like to evangelize the evangelicals. His spiritual ecumenism, his putting prayer at the center, even making it a diplomatic tool, represents the most logic meeting point with the Protestant world.

However, it is perhaps naive to think that enthusiastic witnessing will be followed by embracing the Catholic Church in its entirety. Real conversions are not based on emotions. They must have a structure of thought.

In the end, the Catholic Church is still alive because, despite the many narratives on it and within it, has kept uncorrupted the core of its announcement and belief. Mission has always been based on this. The Italian long-standing missionary Father Gheddo recalled this very well. «Until the Second Vatican Council – he wrote – there was a clear assertion of our identity: going to the encounter of non-Christian people, wherever the Holy See would send us, to announce and witness Christ and His Gospel, which everyone needs. Yes, we also spoke about works of charity, education, health, progress, rights, and justice for the poor and for those under exploitation. But above all was the enthusiasm for being called by Jesus to bring Him to people living unaware of the God of Love and Forgiveness.»

So, the missionary enthusiasm came from a well-defined faith. Missionaries were not thinking about numbers or about consensus with the secular world. The Social Teaching of the Catholic Church is rooted, in its entirety, in the Gospel. This is the reason why the dialogue with the “evangelical world” has been until now founded on the common grounds of religious freedom, defense of life from conception to natural death, defense of family and on other issues of mutual interest.

On any of these issues, the Church kept its peculiar difference, its theology which went beyond the charisms of individuals, beyond the numbers. The message of the Gospel was the core of any initiative.

Benedict XVI himself, in his memorable trip to Germany in 2011, warned about self complacency over the Church’s structures for the poor. He also alerted the Protestant world about the enthusiasm arising from the new evangelical labels.

Benedict XVI’s message was clear: we have to return to the roots of our faith, revive the enthusiasm we have lost, feed our work with our inner message. All of us, Catholics, Protestants, and all the Christian confessions. But if we lose sight of the Gospel, if we seek large numbers, if we seek charisms and not the truth, the risk is not only to evangelizing. We would risk, as well, losing our identity.

This is where the Pope Francis’ paradox lies in: the announcement of the Gospel risks to be set aside by thinking of evangelizing evangelicals, laying bridges in pursuit of that state of permanent mission which should bring new faithful to the Catholic Church. There is no Gospel without charism. Unfortunately, there can be charisms without the Gospel.

In 2005 Benedict XVI revised the rules for joining seminaries – one of the very first decisions of his pontificate. That revision was described as discriminatory of homosexual priests because the document explicitly stated the any priest who may be promoting the gay culture could not join a seminary. Yet that revision is really more than that. The document stressed the need for greater discernment and better formation of priests. In the end, the documents asks those who select the future new priests to take into account that to be a priest is something more than to be a martyr. According to St. John Chrysostom, the martyr dies just once, while priests die many times every day for the sake of their communities.

Pope Francis has always said that he wants priests who are impregnated with the smell of their sheep, i.e. close to the people. A priest whose commitment does not end with the Sunday Mass. The responses given to the questionnaire for the synod also put in evidence that a priest with the smell of his sheep must also be a refined theologian, attentive to the magisterium and able to transmit it to his congregation in a joyful way, and not in an overbearing way. Perhaps, this is at the heart of the crisis of the Church, which mirrors the crisis of society as a whole.

Big ideas about how to be close to the people have always come from profound theological reflection. The «blue-collar priests» whose numbers grew in Belgium and France before the Second World War were part of a movement of theological reflection that will be at the foundational core of the Second Vatican Council. After the Council, however, it seems that the sense of theological reflection was somewhat lost.

Being among the poor seemed to be more of a radical-chic fashion, a way of appearing as a grassroots priest, focused on a Gospel of the people, sometimes conveying in his message a criticism of the Church hierarchy and institutions in general. The preferential option for the poor is indeed essential for the Church. But, when this option becomes the measure for everything and lose sight of announcing the Gospel, problems arise.

This is the argument at the heart of the discussion about Liberation Theology, and it also reveals that, as time went by, the Church perhaps lost her ability to go straight to the core of the issues at hand. The quality of reflections deteriorated, and the Church adjusted to this weaker forms of thought. That the synod of bishops is once again proposing the challenge of formation is food for profound thought. Since Pope Francis has said that the true revolution lies in going back to the roots, it is good to look back in history for guidance.

Last week, the Italian edition of the book “The Parish Priest”, by Douglas Brinkley and Julie M. Fenster, was presented. Published by the Vatican Publishing House, the book recounts the story of Father Michael McGivney, an American priest, founder of the Knights of Columbus. The book also offers an excellent portrait of what Catholicism was like in the mid-Nineteenth Century in the United States.

At that time, the United States were a land of mission. The dioceses were under the administration of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith. The priests were almost all coming from Ireland – which was at the time suffering from a huge famine. In a difficult new land, where institutions of all kinds needed to be established from scratch, vocations were precious. Particularly remarkable is how vocations were understood at the time, so different from how they are presented today.

For example, the problem of celibacy. Celibacy – the Authors reflect – «has been regarded as the most conspicuous aspect of the priest’s sacrifice, especially in recent times. In the mid-nineteenth century, however, the emphasis was not so much on the fact that the priest could not marry and the narrow construct that follows – that he couldn’t have a sexual life with a woman. The import of the vow, as it was discussed then, was placed instead along its broader context: the challenge for the priest of cultivating his emotions, such that he would remain pure of passions, tempers, temptations, and vices of any kind.»

The priesthood – the Authors add – was «by no means just another job, it was instead a state of being.»

It was a way of being for Father McGivney, who was not the kind of priest whose sense of commitment ends with Sunday Masses. To the contrary. Father McGivney’s activity was not only that of a cultural motivator, but also that of a priest who cared about his community, and who would do anything it would take to see it grow.

«Nearly a decade before Rerum Novarum formally launched the Social Doctrine of the Church, Father McGivney was founding a lay Catholic organization that would be dedicated to both the spiritual and temporal well being of its members,» said Carl Anderson, Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus, presenting the Italian edition of “The Parrish Priest”.

In a land of mission as the United States, the “Rerum Novarum” had an important impact. It was so for John Ryan, a priest who lived in the first half of the twentieth century. Ryan found unbearable both the condition of poverty and the continuous discrimination of Catholics.

In a still difficult situation, John Ryan read Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum. He was fascinated by it. The encyclical gave Ryan the tools he needed to put his Catholicism at the heart of his ideas about the economy.

John Ryan stood for the weak. As Maria Mazzenga wrote, «he advocated for a legal minimum wage when there was none; indeed, he drafted its legislation for Minnesota which, though slightly modified from his original version, became law in 1914. He pushed for federal legislation on a range of basic employee rights, from the right to unionize to unemployment insurance. In 1919, he authored the Bishops’ Program for Social Reconstruction, which advocated for these measures as well as for public housing, a national employment service, and regulation of public utility rates and monopolies. However the 1919 Bishops’ Program was largely overlooked by President Coolidge’s administration.»

“Roosevelt – Mazzenga wrote – was much more receptive to Ryan’s ideas than Hoover or Coolidge had been. Ryan, the priest-scholar, served on various committees within the White House, advising the president on labor and social security legislation. Ryan was delighted with much of the New Deal agenda and publicly advocated for its provisions. When he died in 1945, many of the measures he had championed 40 years earlier had become policy.”

These two examples, coming from a U.S. Church which had become with respect to her own country one of the most influential in the world, show how thoroughly-formed priests had the courage and audacity to change society.

Not by chance the New Deal was also one of the inspirations of the thought of the Italian Catholic politician Giorgio La Pira.

A lay Dominican, with a faith so strong that he proposed to begin the new Italian Constitution that was being drafted after Second World War with the words «In the name of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,» La Pira was also very sensitive to social issues. As mayor of Florence, he sided with factory workers in promoting their rights and in opposing the shutting down of factories.

La Pira formative years coincided with Pope Pius XI’s new habit of commemorating the anniversaries of important documents with a new encyclical. Forty years after the issuance of Rerum Novarum, Pius XI wrote the Quadragesimo Anno. This encyclical also inspired Austrian president Engelbert Dolfuss, whose administration ended with the Anschluss, the Nazi occupation.

This is the reason why the synod, in the end, is in search of parish priests, people strong in faith and well formed who can give heart and inspiration to a generation of new laymen active in society, in politics (the synod’s Instrumentum Laboris even supports lobbying for laws in favor of human life and the family), in every field.

In the meantime, from July 1 to 4, the Council of Cardinals will meet in the Vatican to finalize the new design for the management structure of the Church and to work on a reform of the Curia. There is the possibility of the establishment of a Secretariat for Communications, although it is more probable that it will actually be a commission for communications that will be established. Its secretary should be Monsignor Paul Tighe, current Secretary of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications. Its members should include the American Greg Erlandson (Our Sunday Visitor) and the spokesperson of the Vicariate of Rome Father Walter Insero, and representatives of the Vatican media (Dario Edoardo Viganò, of Vatican Television; Father Federico Lombardi, Holy See Press Office; and Gian Maria Vian, from L’Osservatore Romano). All of them should be asked to think in new ways about Vatican communications, rather than about a re-organization of the Vatican media.

It is not discounted that the work of the Commission will lead to the establishment of a Secretariat for Communications, or perhaps that the Pontifical Council for Culture will become a Congregation encompassing the responsibilities of Culture, Communications, and New Evangelization.

We are in any case speaking about functional reforms. They cannot work if there are no well- formed priests, full of a sense of mission, capable to shape these reforms and inspire laymen who are able to carry a vision forward. Only then would a new communications model, a new way to announce the Gospel, succeed. Parish priests are needed to renew the Church. And Pope Francis knows it.

John Paul II used to celebrate Mass in the private chapel at the papal apartment in the Apostolic Palace. In fact, John Paul II’s Masses were never private celebrations: 30 to 40 people were generally invited to attend, and Arturo Mari –John Paul II’s official photographer– rose up very early every morning to take pictures of the Mass. But there was never any record of John Paul II’s homilies or of the conversations that took place right after the Mass. The most informal John Paul II’s magisterium is that of his conversations around the meal table at lunch time, or that of the press conferences he held in the plane during international trips (collected in a book by Angela Ambrogetti, Compagni di Viaggio).

Pope Francis, on the other  hand, lives completely in the midst of the media’s pervasive presence. He does not seem aware of it. He is used to be around people and to give people a clear and simple message. Pope Francis pastoral messages are all firmly established on the principles of “walking, building, confessing” that he alluded to in the first Mass he held as Pontiff, in front of the cardinals.

We should take into account the situation in Argentina –and more generally in Latin America– to really understand what Pope Francis is talking about. In a continent where sects are gaining an ever greater number of followers, there is a need to continuously affirm that salvation can be reached only through Jesus. Since the new movements gain followers by promising work and prosperity, there is a need to keep the Church away from the temptation of trying to meet this demand by running amok offering services and creating new offices.

The Church in Latin America often fell into this temptation. Liberation Theology was a response to a clear need in Latin America to build and work for equality and justice. Yet putting man –and not Jesus Christ– at the center led to considering man himself, and his “material” condition, the measure of all things. Sects kept on flourishing despite Liberation Theology, causing internal divisions within it. Clodovis Boff –who, with his brother Leonardo, gave birth in Brazil to Liberation Theology– clearly stated that, «without Christ, we risk to become only a charitable NGO.»

Clodovis Boff words echoed Joseph Ratzinger’s concerns. As Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in the eighties, Ratzinger issued two instructions regarding Liberation Theology: the first to condemn its Marxist-materialistic aspects, the second to hail its positive arguments, from the fundamental option in favor of the poor to its focus on the human person. This second instruction (the Libertatis Conscientia) can perhaps be considered the first social encyclical of the future Benedict XVI.

This ante litteram social encyclical is in some ways completed by Dominus Iesus, an apostolic letter issued by Joseph Ratzinger during the 2000 Jubilee. Dominus Iesus was the subject of controversies and polemics, yet it is skillfully written on the basis of Second Vatican Council documents to reaffirm that salvation can be reached only through Jesus. With the letter –unremittingly defended by Pope John Paul II– Ratzinger wanted to put some order in a Church that was relativizing her own faith in the name of interreligious dialogue.

This risk was evident in the interreligious meetings of Assisi, raising concerns that these egalitarian gatherings of religious leaders, resembling an odd UN for different faiths, could lead to confusion and deprive the Church of her mission to propagate the Gospel.

In that same time period, Jorge Mario Bergoglio was bringing order to his Buenos Aires diocese, which was in a moral and financial meltdown. A peculiar Jesuit who spoke plainly, Bergoglio was – according to John Paul II and his circle – the only person capable of giving Argentina’s faithful a new notion of Church.

That plain oratory has become the program of a Pontificate. Disappointing those who expected a doctrinal change of course, Pope Francis has reverted to the arguments of Dominus Iesus four times in the last week, while at the same time issuing a warning about the dangers of ecclesiastical careerism, which also was one of Benedict XVI’s pontificate main themes.

On April 22, after attacking the «Church social climbers,» Pope Francis reiterated that Jesus is the only salvation. «Some of you – he said – would say: Father, are you a fundamentalist? No, I am not. I am just saying what Jesus said: “I am the door, I am the path to bring life.” It is a beautiful door, a door of love, that does not mislead us, that is not false. Always tells the truth. There are perhaps easier paths to follow, but they are misleading, they are not genuine: they are false. Only Jesus is the way. »

On April 23, celebrating Mass in the Paoline Chapel on his namesake Saint’s day, in front of cardinals joining him for this festive occasion, Pope Francis underlined that «the Church is ever more a mother that gives us the faith and our identity. This identity is not a document. It is a sense of belonging. Finding Jesus outside the Church is not possible.»

On April 24, Pope Francis focused on these very same topics. «There is a need for each particular thing,  also for offices, but up to a point,» the Pope said. Then he paused, and smiling at the Vatican employees attending the Mass he added «pardon me (for my saying so).» He then continued: «When the Church boasts about its size and creates organizations and establishes new offices and becomes more bureaucratic, it loses its mains substance.» This is how –the Pope added– the Church «risks to become an NGO. And the Church is not an NGO.»

The Pope used almost the same words in a Mass in the Sistine Chapel on March 14. Yet, since the employees that were attending Mass on April 24 were those of the IOR (the Institute for Religious Works) Pope Francis’ words led to speculations that he was criticizing the Vatican financial institute. Many –including cardinals– have called for the abolition of the IOR. Perhaps, as suggested by Cardinal Cristoph Schoenborn, Archbishop of Wien, by transferring IOR’s funds to an «ethical bank.»

The MONEYVAL report on the Holy See/Vatican City State paved the way for a reform of the IOR and of Vatican finances. But this reform –which is currently under way– is aim at strengthening (rather than dismantling) the Holy See’s financial system, make it more transparent and preventing  new scandals.

It is unlikely that Pope Francis’ remarks were meant as a criticism of an institution that directs 80 per cent of its profits to missions, Catholic schools and hospitals all around the world. Furthermore, the IOR had actually helped the then Archbishop Bergoglio to save the Church of Argentina from economic meltdown.

Ultimately, the April 24 homily echoed once again the main themes of Dominus Iesus. Looking again at what the Pope actually said –and leaving aside speculations about what he supposedly meant– Pope Francis did not seem to be particularly interested in the «organizational» aspects of a Curia reform. There can be no Curia reform if there is not a return to Jesus first.

Returning to Jesus seems to be Pope Francis’ pastoral program. He has tasked the management of the technical and practical aspects of the reform to a group of Cardinals who are friends of his. Pope Francis knows that what is ultimately expected of him is not a management reform. He was elected to take the Church out of her self-referential mode, since this was at the center of his remarks during the pre-conclave meetings, remarks that led the cardinals to vote for him.

Just barely after a month of pontificate, it is evident that there is a need to protect Pope Francis teachings from being trivialize by the media. Otherwise, his message could be misused and abused. It happened with respect to the IOR. It could surely happen again.

Does complying with the principles of the Social Doctrine of the Church suffice to have a better future? Students at the Studium Aquinatis – a workshop on the Social Doctrine of the Church held in the Marian Sanctuary of Canneto, Southern Italy, July 21 to 23 – tried to give an answer to this question. A quick review of the discussions from the workshop allows us to understand two things: how much society is imbued by Christian values, even if nowadays nobody wants to define these values as “Christian”; and, secondly, that young people need to live out these values, and are searching for new reference points.

A new generation of Catholic politician. A glance at Europe

In Italy, this reference point has been for a long time the Democrazia Cristiana, i.e. Christian Democracy, a political party which for years represented the Catholic electorate. While not all Catholics supported Christian Democracy –which inherited the legacy of the Partito Popolare, the Italian People’s party founded by the Italian priest don Luigi Sturzo– the party offered a solid Catholic point of reference. It attracted the best people formed in Catholic associations. That of Christian Democracy was a 40 year-old story which came to a halt with the Tangentopoli scandal –the trial on the kickbacks that fed the Italian political system– and was never resumed fully. Nowadays, Catholics are said to be increasingly irrelevant in the Italian political landscape.

Benedict XVI has spoken –several times– of the need to give rise to a new generation of Catholic politicians capable of putting into practice the Social Doctrine of the Church. The Pope was not only appealing to Italians, but to peoples in all countries.  There is a living Catholic family in the world whose struggles are far from parochial.  The future of humanity itself is at stake in these struggles.

Just take a look at some European examples. In Finland, Timo Soini, a Catholic, has presided over a spectacular growth of his party.  His political program was mostly focused on the economy.  Soini did not defend the banks and the European Monetary System. He defended States and their sovereignty, even by accentuating Finnish Pride.  His approach stood in contrast to that of the euro-bureaucracy and the Europe of technocrats.  In fact, there are major differences between the European ideal early model and that of today.

In Hungary, the Fidesz political party won the elections with such an ample majority that it was able to push through constitutional reforms confidently.  The new Hungarian constitution considers Christian values the roots of the Hungarian state, forbids abortion and euthanasia, and limits the arbitrary power of judges.

Yet, both Timo Soini and Fidesz Leader Viktor Orban have been characterized as excessively nationalistic and conservative. In Hungary in particular, the new balance of influence has occurred within the Church itself.  The Hungarian Bishops’ Conference changed the name of its «Justice and Peace» commission to Commission Caritas in Veritate, a change later emulated by the Council of European Bishops’ Conferences.

Life in Christ. The principal factor of development

Caritas in veritate, however, is not the only encyclical which deals with justice and peace. It is one of the social encyclicals that -from Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum on– has enriched in succession the history of the Catholic Church. The Social Doctrine is in some way a sort of summary of all the social encyclicals, each strongly influenced by the signs of their times. Caritas in Veritate itself, drafted in 2008, was strongly influenced by the global financial crisis that erupted that same year. The multiple revisions of the encyclical draft, with contributions also from people not involved in the Social Doctrine of the Church, underscored magnitude of the challenge.

Because many people contributed to it, Caritas in Veritate has been interpreted in several different ways. Its theological foundation, however, should not be underestimated. Drawing from Paul VI’s social teaching, paragraph 8 of Caritas in Veritate quotes the late Pope’s declaring how «life in Christ is the first and principal factor of development». This affirmation is revolutionary. It signifies a new hierarchy of predominant values. Go back to the Gospel and reinitiate your path from there, Benedict XVI has often said. Proclaiming Christ cannot be set aside, Joseph Ratzinger, then prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, reminded the theologians of Liberation Theology who placed the poor, rather than Christ, at the heart of their doctrine. The Gospel cannot be set aside, Benedict XVI told the Church of Germany, underscoring the need for the Church to be less worldly, because a wealthy Church risks losing sight of the Good News announced in the Gospels.

To give rise to a new generation of Catholic politicians, the starting point must be the Gospel. «The rejection of the common or social good can lead to all kinds of sins». This admonition from Saint Thomas Aquinas dates back to the XIII century, yet it is extraordinarily pertinent to the present times. There has been a long debate on the role of Catholics in political organizations, and periodically there are parties that claim to be inspired by Christian values. Thomas Aquinas inverts paradigms, underscoring that it is not sin that brings about rejection of the common good; it is the rejection of the common good that leads to all kinds of sins.

What are the distinctive features of a politically and socially committed Catholic? How can this man/woman put into action this distinctiveness? These questions still beg answers. Occasionally, someone will propose a formula. Other times, the principles of the Social Doctrine of the Church will be presented in purely «secular» terms, as if the exponent would be afraid to affirm his own identity. As if it all amounts to just words, ultimately.

Look no further than to Thomas Aquinas

We need to look no further than to Thomas Aquinas and his «integral humanism» –as philosopher Jaques Maritain defined it– and more deeply into the heart of Catholicism to realize that being a Christian in society is simple and at the same time difficult, just as following Jesus is simple at the same time difficult. The starting point is the heart of the human person, an awareness of having been created in His own image.  This new persona then sets into action in history, relating to others in a spirit of fellowship. Are these «secular» terms? No, they are not. They are simply Christian terms. To embrace these dynamics is quite different from merely becoming a professional politician. It essentially means living the Gospel truly.

When Benedict XVI talked about a new generation of Catholic politicians, he is calling for a new generation of people committed in civil society and conscious of the challenge of the Gospel. This appeal risks but must not be misunderstood.  Often, the emphasis is on appearances and not enough on life itself.  For example, in Italy, groups on the Social Doctrine of the Church are established, and local and international special events around the Social Doctrine are organized, feeding an endless search for the right formulations that increasingly lose sight of teaching the Gospel.

A new commitment of Catholics in the public sphere

These were the key issues that Msgr. Mario Toso, Secretary of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, addressed to the students of the Studium Aquinatis who listened attentively to prominent speakers during the three-day workshop. Toso focused on the Gospel and the importance to start again from the Gospel. Then, he underlined the need for a new commitment. It can be a political party, but not necessarily. It can take the shape of a new project.   How this «venture» will take form is not crucial.  What is most important is to begin in the heart of the human person, which is ultimately at the core of the Social Doctrine of the Church and the heart of the Gospel. Starting again from the Gospel, and learning to apply it to everyday life, and thus to society.  Only thus the common good will not be discarded.

A new venture can only take off from two places: families and parishes. One must start from our immediate surroundings and work our way to the international arena, to live the Gospel also there.  That is how we make a U-turn in the misguided political path of the present and inaugurate a different kind of politics.

This new political season can begin from the grassroots. Father Francesco Occhetta, SJ, a regular contributor and editorial staff member of Civiltà Cattolica –the oldest magazine in Italy, whose drafts are reviewed, before printing, at the Apostolic Palace of the Vatican.– shared three fascinating insights with the young participants of the workshop.  First of all, he talked about a personal experience: when he was in Chile doing apostolic work, he was asked to celebrate a funeral for a woman who died in an isolated village in the desert. He thought no one would attend the funeral. But when he got to the church, a crowd was there. That woman had committed her life to resolve conflicts in his parish and in her village, from a place and position that was essentially a center of power.  The people acknowledged her commitment, celebrating her funeral as if it were that for a Head of State. «What kind of justice model do we want for ourselves?» Father Occhetta asked the students, challenging them to fundamentally change the prevalent political mindsets of today.  He did not seek practical answers, but rather to stir a fruitful reflection.

Justice and reconciliation are two pillars of the Social Doctrine of the Church. «From South Sudan to the Middle East, from Latin America to Congo, from Colombia to the Philippines, the Catholic Church is a powerful force of peace, freedom, justice and reconciliation. But this impressive and courageous commitment to peace-building of Catholic communities is often not acknowledged, it is hardly studied, and it is not valued», Cardinal Peter Kodwo Appiah Turkson, President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, wrote on the Osservatore Romano.

There have been many justice and reconciliation commissions that have built peace in countries, especially in Africa. The students of Studium Aquinatis considered this model for Italy, but concluded that each country must set its own path, based on its particular experience and identity. For Italy, they proposed other venues of reconciliations. For example, the project Cesare deve morire  (Caesar must die) of the Rebibbia prison in Rome – where prisoners are encouraged to be part of theatrical plays that in some ways re-enact the crimes they committed.  More broadly, the students noted that reconciliation is fully meaningful from the certainty of the punishment applied, and also that the rights of the inmates should be fully restored after sentences are fulfilled.

Father Occhetta highlighted the importance of the education dimension. Nowadays, everybody uses overtly technical and specialist vocabularies, hindering our collective capacity to define the horizontal landscape of reality. Even politics – father Occhetta said – has become technocratic, losing sight of achieving development in the medium term. Politics have also fallen to the power of the mass media, which now controls consensus building in society.

Solutions and practices

Fortunately, in the midst of these problems –which were identified in Caritas in Veritate– there are also solutions and best practices about how to live the Social Doctrine of the Church. The Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace shed light on some of these best practices last May, during a conference to celebrate the 50^th anniversary of the promulgation of John XXIII’s encyclical Mater et Magistra.

Centers for the Study of the Social Doctrine of the Catholic Church rise up in very difficult conditions –just think of the Institut des Artisans de Justice et de la Paix in Benin and the Jesuit Center for Theological Reflection in Zambia. While in Mexico anticlericalism is going through a sort of revival, the  Imdosoc (Istituto Mexicano de Doctrina Social Cristiana) continues to facilitate networks, train social entrepeneurs, and teach the Social Doctrine.  In Brazil, a popular initiative supported by the Episcopal Conference brought about the approval of the Ficha Limpa national law, which sets standards for the eligibility of candidates who run for public office.

Is this enough? The «diplomatic path» of Catholic Church has its sight on the long term, favoring a reform of the United Nations. «Justice – Msgr. Toso says – must be founded on the acknowledgement of the universal human good. Social conscience must be applied and advanced within the market economy. A world governance based on cooperation among nation is needed. It must be a true ‘world authority’, able to take objective decisions. A new economic, political and financial architecture is required». Above all, the primacy of politics over the economy must be restablished. What is now missing is a “Catholic laity” capable of assuming and advancing Christian values. There must be politicians Christianly trained, who can grasp the positive challenge to embrace the Social Doctrine of the Church. Confronted with world imbalances, this Christian laity must be capable of specifically contributing to greater equality». The time has come for the Social Doctrine of the Church to take action.

Unchain the Social Doctrine

There is also a need to unchain the Social Doctrine, as the last «Van Thuan Observatory» Report on the Social Doctrine of the Church states. What are the shackles of the Social Doctrine of the Church? There are external shackles – the report says – i.e. «the aggressive lay culture that violently mobilized to secularize society not only from religion, but also from ethics and finally from the sense of the common good.  At the international level, these forces are planning a brutal and sustained attack on life and family, by using huge sums of money to have all countries adopt laws that favor abortion and destroy the family.  These forces are the cultural agencies that impose unilateral views on individual freedom, relations among sexes, and procreation.  They are the strong economic interests, and the absence of a Christian and ethical perspective regarding business administration and finance resulting in poverty and sufferance». And then, there are the internal shackles, i.e. «the disregard for the Pope’s teachings, which are often considered, sadly, as just one among many different perspectives» and even «not applying to the Social Doctrine of the Church the hermeneutic criteria that Benedict XVI suggested with respect to the Second Vatican Council, and instead continue to speak of two Social Doctrines, one pre-Council and one post-Council. By doing so, the faithful are deprived from having a Social Doctrine of the Church in its integrity and fully inserted in tradition».

The way in which the Social Doctrine is followed, ignored, or contrasted in different parts of the world is addressed in the second section of the report. Among the issues discussed are the work of U.N. agencies, and the change of vocabulary that is masquerading the emergence of worrisome changes in the world.  Silvano Maria Tomasi, the Holy See Permanent Observer at the UN in Geneva, has talked about the change of the U.N. vocabulary several times.  Most recently, Tomasi appealed the international community to defend the «universality of Human Rights», that already «foresees and provides for the prevention of discrimination.  To propose particular rights [for specific groups] weakens the principle of the universality of rights».

The drafters of the report conclude its introduction stating that «we think that the salient need evident in 2010 is the urgency of witnessing, sanctifying and martyrdom of the Social Doctrine of the Church. Our suggestion for the future is not to separate the diverse aspects of the Social Doctrine of the Church, but to keep them together in the authentic Christian life of the Church. Witnessing, sanctity and martyrdom remind us of this need. Without it, the Social Doctrine of the Church would surrender to the ferocious secularization currently under way, and would lose sight of the primacy of God».

Ultimately, there is the need to free the Social Doctrine of the Church for it to become the path to peace.

There is a specific reason why the appointment of Mueller took place notwithstanding any internal or external criticism.  It is the same reason that moved Benedict XVI to appoint Tarcisio Bertone as Secretary of State and to renew his esteem and trust in him several times – most recently through an open letter from the Papal residence in Castel Gandolfo, where the Pope spends his summers.  The reason is personal trust.  The Pope trusts Mueller, he considers him a personal friend.  He trusts him  so much that he wanted Mueller to be the curator of the publication of his opera omnia in Germany. The relationship between Benedict XVI and Mueller is such that the first argument raised to prevent Mueller’s appointment was that «it would be better for a bishop close to the Pope to remain in Germany, to weather the storm (of challenges to Rome within the Church in that country)».

It is a fact that, traditionally, the German-speaking world does not feel close to Rome and is vulnerable to a sort of crude reformist competition with Lutheranism.  It was from the German- speaking world that the Pfarrer Initiative – the proposals from a group of parish priests for a renewal in the Church and for married priests and the ordination of women – came out.  The Pfarrer Initiative began in Austria and found fertile ground in many parts of the Church in Germany, a national Church already influenced by dissident movements like We are Church – popular with Catholic associations and also among bishops. It is a real challenge, given that Robert Zoellitsch – the president of the German bishops’ conference – does not seem the right man to weather the storm.  Zoellitsch quite unexpectedly jumped to the top of the German bishops’ conference.  As is the case with other national conferences of bishops — except Italy’s, which President is selected by the Pope–  Zoellitsch was voted in by his fellow German bishops, to whom he may feel obliged.  This could weaken his authority and make his job more difficult.  Thus, some within the Sacred Walls lamented: Why on earth not leave Mueller in Germany, to be a counterweight in a Church so rich and also so detached from the Gospel that during his last trip to Germany the Pope himself asked her to be less worldly?

But Benedict XVI trusts Mueller, whose works in dogmatic theology are highly regarded. Furthermore, Mueller is one of the most prominent interpreters of Joseph Ratzinger’s intellectual discourse.  Mueller’s reflections recently focused on the idea of  “un-mundanizing”, which Mueller, then archbishop of Regensburg, explained as a process to «transform and unify.»  Transform and unify can be considered a sort of «synthesis» of Benedict XVI’s thought.  When he was prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Ratzinger perfected a method, the same method he used when he was a professor of theology: no complete condemnations, since theology is the always perfectible path to follow the word of God; if there must be a condemnation, the Congregation must deliver two instructions, one pars destruens and the other one pars construens,  as part of  a dialectic process.  Transform what is not good, and then re-unify.  This was the method followed, for example, when the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued its pronouncements on the Theology of Liberations: first, the Congregation condemned its Marxist orientations (instruction Libertatis Nuntius); then, the Congregation acknowledged its preferential option for the poor (instruction Libertatis Conscientia).  Obviously, this decision was misunderstood in South America.  Leonardo Boff, for example, missed the point, and later decided to leave the Franciscan order and marry; his brother Clodoveo Boff, on the other hand, fully understood the Congregation’s message. The first to understand was Gustavo Gutierrez, the father of the Theology of Liberation, who made some corrections to his book «Theology of Liberation» and joined the Dominican order, probably in order to avoid possible tensions with the local clergy.

Mueller and Gutierrez are friends.  Mueller has been several times to Peru, on visits to the Peruvian Dominicans and to give lessons at the once Pontifical University of Peru – the very same institution from which  the Secretariat of State recently took away the title of «pontifical» because of the university’s lack of adherence to the Doctrine of the Church.  Mueller’s honoris causa PhD from the formerly “pontifical” Peruvian university and his friendship with Gutierrez are underscored in the second round of unsolicited information about Mueller anonymously divulged.  The insidious question being raised: is a friend of Liberation Theology trustworthy?

Contrary to widespread perceptions, Benedict XVI is not an ultra conservative out of touch with reality.  With an attention to detail typical of a professor of theology, the Pope wants us to remember that the Church is founded on Christ and Truth, and that her social impact is meaningless without Faith. At the same time, the Pope readily acknowledges what is good and innovative in the world, and welcomes the opportunity to enter into a fruitful dialogue with new ways of thinking. «Transform and unify» –the key to understand Ratzinger’s «un-mundanizing» prescription– actually constitutes Benedict XVI’s program for Church governance.

And so the Pope did not heed to critics, and appointed his friend as prefect of the most important dicastery of the Curia.  There, some of the most prominent officials of his Pontificate were trained. If one would seek for a sort of “Ratzinger’s school”, he would need to look at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.  A Congregation, called La Suprema, which has gained the upper hand recently in its competition for influence with the second section of the Secretariat of State – the diplomatic section.  Thus, one should look to the “old” Vatican diplomats to understand the war that is being waged inside the Vatican.