The Two Popes

I recently watched The Two Popes on Netflix for a second time. It left me thinking about my time in Catholic schools and how I have always questioned the Church’s dependency on a theology that is man-made and that has little to do with Jesus Christ’s messages.

The movie itself is a fictitious depiction of a meeting that never took place between Pope Benedict XVI and the then future Pope Francis. Nevertheless, the writers claim that the supposed dialogue between both Pontiffs is accurately based on each Pope’s public speeches, interviews, and writings.

Two great actors portray the Popes: Anthony Hopkins is Benedict and Jonathan Pryce is Francis. Each brings out the depths of both men and their fundamentally different interpretation of the Church’s role throughout the ages.

Benedict was an absolutist. Prior to becoming Pope, he was the known as the Pope’s rottweiler and defender of traditional Church doctrine and Catholic conservatism.

In this role, he defended traditional Church doctrine that, in my view (and that of Pope Francis) had little to do with Christ’s message. 

I will take four of the Church’s fundamental teachings and their origins.

The tradition of priestly celibacy was never taught by Jesus. This doctrine that keeps priests from marrying originated in the 11^th century and only became a part of canon law in 1917.

Papal infallibility was only decreed at the First Vatican Council in 1870 when the Council declared that the Pope was infallible when he spoke on matters of faith and morals.

The tradition of the Holy Trinity originated in the Council of Nicaea in 325 – never by Jesus or his disciples.

As well, the doctrine of Mary’s virginity only became Church doctrine at the Ecumenical Council of Constantinople in 553.

According to the Holocaust Encyclopedia, in the first millennium of the Christian era, leaders in the European Christian (Catholic) hierarchy developed or solidified as doctrine ideas that: all Jews were responsible for the crucifixion of Christ; the destruction of the Temple by the Romans and the scattering of the Jewish people was punishment both for past transgressions and for continued failure to abandon their faith and accept Christianity.

This teaching was only rescinded in 1965 at the Second Vatican Council, and ratified by Pope Benedict XVI in 2011.

Thus the doctrines that Pope Benedict defended tooth and nail were never promulgated by Jesus. Indeed, the antisemitic teachings of the Church and Pope Benedict’s writings in 2011 underscore the fact that even this most orthodox of Popes was cognisant of the fact that change was fundamental to change a fundamental flaw in the Church’ teachings.

Pope Benedict’s action in this regard underscored the fact that theological teachings can and must be changed if the Church is to be an instrument of justice and not one of punishment and exclusion.

Theology is the instrument that men in power use to create a corpus of beliefs that provides them with the canonical foundations to control what people think and believe.

And yet, Jesus Christ was not about control.

Pope Francis’s main message is the message of Jesus himself: love each other as you love God.

In his homilies and writings, Francis underscores the need to respect all minister sacraments to both homosexuals and divorced people, and to create a Church that pursues forgiveness and love rather than fear and punishment.

He understands why many are leaving a Church that is peddling antiquated and false ideals and sustaining the views of men rather than of Jesus its founder. A Church that has supported the worst dictatorships and practitioners of torture, oppression, and murder – the very things Francis fought as a liberation Jesuit priest.

Francis believes in the role of the priest as a shepherd rather than a prosecutor, and a Catholic as one full of empathy and charity towards their fellow human beings. One who believes in love rather than scorn, inclusion rather than exclusion.

Yes, the meetings were fictitious.

But the conversations underscored the fundamental differences between Benedict’s absolutist approach to religion and God and Francis’s commitment to relativism and the concept of an ever-changing universe and hence of a religion that must also be ever-changing.

Which wing of the Church will win when Francis passes?

That remains to be seen.

Some fear that the debate could lead to a deep schism if ways aren’t found make the Church responsive to today’s Catholics rather than committed to an orthodoxy that is no longer relevant in the 21^st century.  

Francis believes that your beliefs don’t make you a better person, your actions do. And today, actions call for love and compassion if one is to make a difference.

Today, change is the leitmotif of life. Those who don’t change wither on the vine and lose their relevance.

One hopes that this institution of 1.2 billion followers will never lose the focus on universal love over man-made theologies and will change as it must.