Is Pope Francis Becoming Based?

[00:00:18] Recent comments by Pope Francis on the impossibility of women being ordained and against the widespread homosexuality in the church and among the clergy have raised eyebrows. Has the pope recently changed his views, or do these comments reflect his something else, or is his thinking all the time? That's what we're going to talk about today on Crisis point. Hello, I'm Eric Simmons, your host editor in chief of Crisis magazine. Before we get started, you know the routine. Please smash that like button, subscribe to the channel, let other people know about it. Also, follow us on social media. But most importantly, right now, we are in the middle of a fundraiser. We do this only twice a year. We try not to nag you all the time about money, but obviously we need money to keep crisis going. So if you like what we're doing here, please donate. Just go to the website crisismagazine.com, and a pop up will come up and ask you to donate. And so please do that. And we really do appreciate that. We appreciate your prayers, of course, as always. But donate if you can. Okay, so the title of this podcast is, is Pope Francis becoming based? Now, before we get started, for all those in the audience who are my age, let me make sure everybody understands what the word based means. [00:01:30] I will admit I had no idea I was called based a few times on Twitter. This is a couple years ago. I had no idea what it meant. And finally, after being called that a few times, I was like, I need to look this up. So I went to my handy dandy urban dictionary. That's the dictionary for old people like me. And it basically means being courageous and unique and not caring what others think. [00:01:51] And in practice, it mostly means going against, like, the woke hegemony that's out there today and saying something that's offensive to woke ears? Sometimes it's done just to be offensive. I mean, sometimes you can be based and be a jerk, but really being based just means you're not gonna go along with what everybody tells you. You have to think about homosexuality or feminism or things of that nature. Okay, so now that we got that out of the way and all the people who are my age and older can listen along as well, let's just talk about these comments. So, one thing that happened recently was Pope Francis in his interview at 60 Minutes. I mentioned this last week, the interview, and I talked about a few things about it, but one of the things he was asked was about women deacons. Like, oh, what would you, would you tell a little girl who's growing up Catholic that she could one day become, be ordained as a deacon or priest. And he just said no. There was no equivocation. There was no kind of trying to soften the blow. He just simply said no. Made it very clear that's. That's not on the table, at least in his answer to this reporter. And then just this one's kind of hard to believe. I mean, when I saw this, I was like, there's no way this actually was. This actually happened. But supposedly, reportedly, and I think it's basically being confirmed, the pope was addressing as a private meeting with italian bishops, and he was urging them not to allow homosexuals in the seminary. And he said, now, okay, now, one thing, I'm not going to quote him even the english translation, because I don't know if YouTube would. Would censor me for it. Also, this is a family friendly podcast. But he said the vulgar, a vulgar, vulgar term. Boy, I can't even say that word for homosexuality. Homosexuals, in his remarks in Italian. And it's considered a vulgar term in Italian. It's the f word, the other f word that has to with homosexuality. And he said there's too much of it in the church. And also, later it was reported, he said that. Let me get this right. He said, get all the queers out of the seminaries, even those only semi oriented Diana Montana reported that. And so, I mean, this is clearly some pretty harsh language. This is something that is not politically correct. It's not woke. And it does seem to be a bit odd, frankly, for Pope Francis to say this in some ways, although I heard report that he had actually used this word for gays in the past. And so it gets a lot of us kind of scratching our heads and thinking, what does this mean? [00:04:31] He's very clear about what he says about women priests, women deacons, even last week. Now he's saying this against homosexuals in the clergy, and there's too much of it. And so what does this mean? I mean, one thing I do think we should say is it is possible that Pope Francis did not recognize kind of the offensiveness of the italian word. Remember, Italian is not his first language. He might not have known. It is possible that happened. The Vatican did issue an apology. It is interesting how quickly the Vatican press corps will come out to issue something when they need to. I mean, often when. When he says something controversial that confuses people, a lot of people ask, could you please clarify this? And their silence in this one is very quick. When he offends the kind of the secular sensibilities he's very, the Vatican is very quick to jump in, and so they issue an apology. And he said he never intended to offend or express in homophobic terms. First of all, the fact that the Vatican uses a made up word like homophobic is just annoying. But let's move on from that. So it is actually possible that the pope didn't realize kind of the strength of that word. A lot of times when you, when you're speaking a second language, you don't quite know the cultural impact of certain words. So I want to grant that at the same time, he, what he meant by it, even if he didn't mean to use that term, was clear that he thinks there's too many homosexuals in the priesthood and the seminaries, and he was telling them clearly don't have homosexuals in the seminary. So even whether he used that term or not, the point of what he was saying was very clear. [00:06:16] And also, we have to note that in the interview where he denied the possibility of women deacons, he also had a whole thing deriding conservatives in there, as most people know. So let's be clear about exactly what's going on here. It's not like all of a sudden everything the pope is saying and doing based, so to speak. So, okay, so what are the possibilities here of what's going on with these recent comments by Pope Francis? The first one is, and I think we shouldn't eliminate this, like, out of hand. It is possible he's getting better. It is possible he's starting to recognize things that perhaps he didn't recognize before. I think as Catholics who believe in the power of the Holy Spirit, we should not, who have been praying for Pope Francis, his entire pontificate, I don't think we should just immediately say, no, that's not possible. I see that sometimes with critics of Pope Francis, they just refuse to admit it's even possible he could do something good or he could say something, or maybe he's getting better on something. So I don't want to. [00:07:21] I want to start by saying I'm not eliminating that possibility. I do think it's highly unlikely. I think we need much more evidence before we just go on to that, because, as we'll see here in a minute, this isn't exactly brand new, what he said, what he's saying here, and it combines with his actions and with other things he says and does. And so we need to put that all together into one big picture. So, again, I'm not eliminating that as possibility that he's getting better, but I'm also not thinking it's likely now. Another possibility is what kind of conservative pope splainers have been acting like. I saw a bunch of comments on Twitter about this. Like, what are you talking about becoming bass? He's always been base. He's always been great. He's always thought this, that this is just. This is nothing new, honestly. This is kind of funny and kind of sad at the same time. It's like you've got your head. The Pope slainers have their heads in the sand, and they only pop up out of it when something like this happens to say, okay, CCC, he's really great. [00:08:23] But then all the things he says, and more importantly, does that undermines that they either ignore or try to explain away. I mean, here's the reality. When it comes to, particularly, homosexuality in the church, in. In the clergy, homosexuals have had no better friend in the papacy than Pope Francis. I mean, just the actions alone. Look at what he does to support Father James Martin, who is a homosexualist. He completely pushes the gay agenda. And Pope Francis has elevated him to a vatican position. He has endorsed him multiple times, not just once. Like, I didn't really realize what he's doing multiple times. He's endorsed him. He's had him come to the Vatican with photo ops. [00:09:14] He's done everything he can to say, Father James Martin is my guy. [00:09:19] And by that, that speaks volumes. That speaks much louder than one comment to in a private meeting with italian bishops. [00:09:28] Likewise, we have fiducia supplicants which endorse blessing same sex couples. Even though Pope Francis tried to walk that back a little bit last week, it's still a document that hasn't been rescinded. And it clearly supported this idea, this. This lie that you can be a couple, a same sex couple, and that's somehow a legitimate thing that can be even blessed. [00:09:55] And then you have multiple cases of just, you know, support for homosexuality among Vatican, high up vatican people, people who are in. High up in the back, who are clearly homosexual themselves. I mean, I think to act like all of a sudden, like, the conservative pope splainers do that. Oh, yeah. He's always been anti homosexual. And just. That's kind of like an end it there is clearly you're living in a dream world. [00:10:21] You're living in a dream world. That's just not true. I also think it's interesting that this kind of splits the liberal and the conservative pope explainers, because the more liberal, progressive pope splainers, they're, like, dying, like, okay, what do we do here. We're going to try to explain away by saying, oh, it's not really look the other way. I saw some report for the national catholic reporter was like, oh, everybody's talking about this, but it really matters what's happening in Israel and in Gaza. Well, first of all, I do kind of agree in some ways that what's happening in Gaza is more important than one comment privately made by a pope. [00:10:54] But at the same time, it was clearly a mis, it was like trying to deflect from what the pope said. [00:11:00] And so it's interesting to see the split with the, with the popes, with the pope splainers. So I think it's just a joke to say that this is just who Francis is in the sense that he's always been strongly against homosexuality in the clergy, always strongly been against homosexuality. That's just simply not true. It's obvious all the way since who am I to judge? [00:11:21] It's always been obvious that he has at the very least allowed homosexuality to run rampant in the church. [00:11:32] He has done things that have allowed people to believe that it's now endorsed by the church and he has basically done nothing to really clearly state what the church teaches about homosexuality. I think that's, I mean, it's just we have over a decade of his actions and words that don't all of a sudden aren't all of a sudden negated by one statement here. [00:11:57] So I think the conservative pope explainers are just, like I said, they're living in a dream world. [00:12:04] Okay? So on the other hand, another possible explanation of what Francis is doing here, this is mostly explained by his critics, which of course I know I'm one of them, is that peronism? I think that's how you pronounce. I might be pronouncing it wrong, but it's this idea, an argentinian political strategy from Peron, the leader of Argentina a long time ago, where basically it's a fascist idea that you rule with iron fists. But one of the things you do is you say you can, you, you don't care about the truth, you don't care about accuracy. If you're meeting with a liberal group, you will say something liberal. If you meet with a conservative, you say some conservative. You don't care about what you, what your really beliefs is. All is, is about power running the show. And so if it helps you run the show to say one thing here and literally the exact opposite thing in another place, then you'll do that. You don't care. And so a lot of people have said that essentially, that's what Pope Francis is doing here. And in other cases where he says things that sound catholic in a way, is that he's doing that. And I get that. I'm not saying that that's impossible, that that's the case here. I think, you know, there have been lots of indications over the years of the idea of him being a dictator. Pope. I've, I've talked about that as well. [00:13:33] I just don't think it's as clear cut as that. I don't think it's as clear cut as that. [00:13:40] I think ultimately, Pope Francis is difficult to put into a box. [00:13:47] I think, first of all, I think everybody is, in a way, we, we want to have these clear delineations that, okay, this person here, because he says this or thinks that he's in that camp, then he always thinks this and he thinks that. And he only thinks that. [00:14:01] And you see it. You see it online all the time. You know, like, for example, I'm labeled a trad. So people think I believe certain things all the time that I actually don't believe. [00:14:14] They think I'm a young earth creationist or they think I'm a anti semite or whatever the case may be. All these things they just assume because I'm in a category and this happens. Everybody. I mean, I'm not unique in that. And, and I think that's also the case with Francis. People want to put him in a box. And I think ultimately, I think ultimately, he's a bit. He is not. He shouldn't be put in a box. He is hard to define. [00:14:44] A couple, couple ways I'll talk about that is first is I think his communication method is purposefully chaotic. [00:14:53] I think he really means it. When he told those young people years ago to make a mess, I think he really means it. [00:15:00] And he really likes this idea of kind of chaos within the church. [00:15:07] He likes the idea of there being battles between people. And maybe perhaps a lot of that has to do with that allows him to keep power. I mean, he's the pope. He has power whether, you know, no matter what he does. But I think he keeps people fighting against each other. And I think that helps him. Maybe he sees it like that, but I just think it's the way his brain works. I think, honestly, he's not that clear, kind of precise thinker as a Benedict was. As Pope Benedict was. I mean, that's one of the reasons I love Benedict, is because he was very precise when he said something. If you read it properly, you knew exactly what he thought. You can read something Pope Francis writes or says 15 times, study it carefully, and still not be sure exactly what he's trying to say. [00:15:53] And I think that's just the way his brain works. I think it's the way he communicates naturally. I don't think it's something that is always purposefully done, but it definitely is always done. The idea of his communications being chaotic. [00:16:07] And also, I think that, I think he is a product of his generation. He's a progressive, no question about that. The idea that he's not progressive is just a joke at this point. Obviously, he's a progressive, but he's a 1960s progressive who hasn't necessarily moved on from the latest progressivism. That's the problem with progressives, is they're literally redefining what it means to be progressive every single minute of every single day. And so you constantly have to get, like, the guidebook updates all the time. Okay, what do we believe now? Because they don't have any fixed set of beliefs. And so what happens is they're constantly having to update that. But if you are older, like Pope Francis is, he's 87 now, I believe you might retain some of the older prejudices or thoughts that you might have had before that you can't really necessarily, you don't necessarily give up. So down deep, this is what you really think. And I think, honestly, down deep, he really does despise homosexuals. I mean, active homosexuals, I mean, just people who are flaunting homosexuality. I think Downdeep actually does despise them. He does not think highly of them. [00:17:25] He thinks they're not only just disorb, but kind of, I mean, this is way okay for those of you who are younger, it's hard to imagine, but just like maybe 40 years ago, it was the common opinion of most normal people to be disgusted by homosexuals. Now, whether or not that's right or wrong, I'm not saying right here. What I'm just saying is that was the common way. I mean, when I was growing up, it was, first of all, this f word was just said all the time. I actually don't say that word. [00:17:55] I haven't said that. I don't use that word in speech and like that. And I purposely don't, haven't used it in years since I was very young, because I do think there's, it's just not, it's not appropriate to use in almost any situation. [00:18:11] But an older generation, they really had a disgust at homosexual activity. And therefore, at homosexuals, people who kind of were outwardly homosexuals, kind of something they were disgusted by. [00:18:23] And so I do think he still retains that. I think at his age. I just think that's just something he is. Now the question is, well, why does he surround himself with homosexual zim? I think it's because they will do his will. He probably has something on a lot of them. I think it's. I think the idea with him is that, yeah, he might. He looks very down on them. It doesn't mean they can't work for him and they can't, like, be pawns used by him. [00:18:49] But I think, personally, he has no love loss for homosexuals. [00:18:54] And so I think this is, this comes out in these situations. It comes out in this situation where he uses his vulgar term and he talks about it in a very degrading, kind of degrading way. [00:19:06] I think that's. I think that's a lot of it is just that. And likewise with something like when he just said no immediately about the women deacons, I was a little surprised by that one. I'm not that surprised by this, this comment he made about the homosexuals. But they said so, so bluntly, I would have expected him to be more kind of nuanced and say things, kind of lessen the blow a little bit. But I think this is also, I don't think he's ever been supportive of the ordination of women personally, but I think he doesn't mind the discussion to keep on going. Like, he doesn't. He doesn't want to shut the door on the discussion of whether or not women can be deacons, ordained in any sense. He likes that being discussed, because I think he thinks that is somehow healthy debate. I don't quite, like I said, I'm not claiming to understand completely, but I think he sees that as kind of a healthy thing, or at least it keeps him in power, because you had this debate between the people. I mean, honestly, this is what our political elites do here in America. I really believe a lot of the social, like, the culture wars, are purposely driven by our elites in America in order to keep us at each other. I mean, like, if you look at it, the transgender crap didn't even start until after the recession and operation. I always forget the Wall street one, the, oh, the Wall street thing movement and the Tea party movement and all that stuff. Occupy Wall Street. I just thought of it. Occupy Wall street and the tea party movement, all that stuff. I think the trans stuff was, like, honestly kind of injected into the cultural stream in order to get us away from seeing that the real problem is the elites. And I think in a way perhaps this is what Pope Francis is doing by allowing it to be, by not coming down. I also think progressives don't like to come down hard on any one thing. They don't like to put their foot down and say this is permanent because they know eventually it might get, they believe, I should say eventually it will get overturned. And so I think he doesn't think women should be ordained in any way, shape or form, but he doesn't mind allowing debate. I think this is terrible, by the way. I want to be clear about that. I think something like this, it should be shut down, should be very clear. He should make very clear homosexuality is always immoral. The, the homosexual acts are always immoral. Homosexuality is a disorder. And also that women can never be ordained, period. End of story. I think this is something that does need to be clearly stated. I don't think he, I don't think he ever wants to be very clear about hardly anything. [00:21:41] And so I think that's kind of how it came out. You know, when he, when he was asked, he just said no. Cause that's his personal thoughts on it. But we know it's not like all of a sudden it's not going to be re brought up at the Vatican, probably at the next synod. So he, and he's not going to put his foot down and say, no, you can't discuss this anymore, which is what he should do. So I do think that this is more complex than just, he's always been awesome in base or he's a proneness or something like that. And so ultimately, I would say he is not based, I think these comments are based, but I don't think he is based himself in the sense that we mean it of, he's willing, he has these beliefs, they strongly believe that he's willing to go against the culture and defend them no matter what. I think that's, that's a key difference. I think he's confusing all around. I think he is, you know, it's scandalous. You know, honestly, the way he allows this confusion to happen here, here's the important point here, a pope, it's not just a matter of, he's supposed to be personally orthodox like that, or even that. [00:22:47] He just kind of defined, you know, that he's just supposed to be a capacitor or something like that. One of his biggest roles is to be, is clarity, is to be clear about what the church teaches because there can be just in human experience among people, there can be confusion about what is right and what's wrong. And the pope is there to say, here is what is right. Here's what is wrong. Here's what is church teaching. Here's what is not church teaching. That is, like, literally almost the top task of a pope is to be clear about what the church teaches. And this pope has done a terrible job of that. I mean, I just think we have to be blunt and just say that he's done a terrible job of being. Being clear. Because even though he's very clear about, like, when he was asked about the women deacons, the fact that he allows discussion to continue about the ordination of women to the diaconate of priesthood, that's confusion. So even though he's very clear when he says the italian bishops privately against homosexuality, he allows homosexuals to rule the church, basically to be in positions of power, to have documents that allow for the blessing of same sex couples, which clearly is confusing at best. I mean, it's really awful, but at best, it's confusing to the average person. I'm saying this. We have to think like the average person, not like most people who are watching this, who understand church teaching and know all that. The average person, that's very confusing. And so I think that that that matters. And ultimately, it's actions far more than words that matter. Words are very important, don't get me wrong. But truth is a person. It's Jesus Christ. And Jesus Christ is the word. But what is the word? It's more than just a verbal communication. The word was made flesh and dwelt among us, meaning it has actions. [00:24:42] It does things. So, for example, if Jesus said one thing, but his actions reflected something very different, that would be horrific, right? Because he is truth, and he can't actually do that. We know that. But that's what's happening here with this pope. Some of his words, not all of them, not a lot of them, some of his words very clearly talk about catholic truth. [00:25:07] But then his actions, in other words, he says, undermine that. [00:25:13] They go against that. And so therefore, we have this state of confusion. Now, to be honest, though, this is not. I mean, this particular aspect of this papacy, scandalous aspect of this papacy, might be relatively unique in church history, but it's not unique to have scandalous popes to be wondering about, okay, you know, to be wondering, like, how can this man be the successor of St. Peter, the vicar of Christ? [00:25:41] I think ultimately what we have to recognize as Catholics is that we weren't promised a succession of great popes, not perfect popes, obviously. Not even great popes, not even good popes. We were just promised a succession of popes that would remain till the end of end of the world and that these popes would do their jobs well at times and poorly at other times. Nothing in our faith believes otherwise. So the fact that this pope is very confusing is scandalous, don't get me wrong. And scandal is a bad thing because it can lead souls to hell. It's a real thing. I'm not trying, don't think I'm trying to act like it's not a big deal. It is. [00:26:23] But I think as Catholics, talking to everybody who's watching this or listening to this podcast, we shouldn't be overly scandalized. If we understand church history, we understand papal history, we shouldn't be overly scandalized. We should recognize this is just something we have to endure right now. And that's basically the way it's going to be. So I think ultimately, like, I'm going to say, let me just wrap it up with this, to just say that this pope is not really based, he has some views that are old school, so to speak, that are against the kind of the progressive narrative, the modern progressive narrative. I think he personally does have some views like that. But I think ultimately to be based in the best sense of the word, and who am I, an old man to try to define it, but I will anyway. [00:27:05] To be based is to have a consistent view of the world that is contrary to kind of the woke hegemony that we see dominant today. So it's not just a matter of, kind of saying privately, oh, yeah, you know, those homosexuality, those homosexuals, that's a problem. But then you do everything you can to support them. It's standing up for the truth, no matter what it's. And that doesn't mean, by the way, there, let me, just, before I finish, there was some people who were saying we should, we should not praise the pope for saying this vulgar, vulgar term because it demeans people with homosexual attractions. [00:27:46] I think, honestly, they're being a little too sensitive. Like I said, I don't go around saying the word here and there. I mean, I never say it. So I'm not like endorsing the use of the term, but I think honestly, like a, a phrase that said maybe in private, just kind of to make a point strongly, isn't the end of the world. It isn't like some grave scandal, him saying that word or something like that. Yes, we should be giving respect and dignity to every person, no matter what their. Their sexual orientation is. If they have that. That disorder of being same sex attracted, we should treat them with love and respect and all for who they are as images of God. [00:28:28] That doesn't mean we can never use that term or something like that. That all of a sudden now, that's the worst thing in the world. It just, it's a one off. It's not that big a deal. So don't. Let's not get hung up on that. [00:28:39] But ultimately, like, I was just go back to my final point, which is that I don't think this pope was truly based. I do think he has some views that are, that are old school, pre, you know, modern, progressive. But ultimately, I don't think he's based. I think he is scandalous because of this confusion. Because, honestly, things like this just cause more confusion because I get people thinking, look, he really is fine. And then when he does something terrible, they're like, but he's fine. So I'm going to defend that as well. Honestly. What we need to do is we need to make sure our standard is the deposit of faith, the deposit of catholic faith. That is what our standard is. That's what always should be. We keep to that standard, and if the current pope sometimes goes with it, great. If he sometimes goes against it, that's not so good. But ultimately, our standard is to deposit faith. We stick to that and we'll be fine, and we will be saved. Okay, well, that's it for now. Until next time, everybody. God, love.