Is the Pope a Catholic?

During the weekend of 17th and 18th October, the annual Battle of Ideas, organised by the Institute of Ideas, will take place at the Barbican in London. Among numerous events will be a panel debate entitled "Is the Pope a Catholic?"

At this event I shall be defending the modest view that Pope Francis is indeed a Catholic—at least, as far as anyone can tell. All the available evidence points to this: he was elected by a College of Catholic Cardinals, no doubt after much prayer and discussion, and in any case, non-Catholics are not eligible to lead the Catholic Church. So why would anyone doubt it?

The reason, of course, is that Pope Francis has been ruffling feathers among "traditionalists," and attracting adulation from many whom we would not expect to be enthusiastic about popes. He told a gay man he met on a plane, "I don't judge you." He is alarmed by climate change. He stated, from the very beginning of his papacy, the importance of the Church's mission to look after the poor. He has fulminated against capitalism and gross inequality of wealth. He thinks the Church has become obsessed with petty rules, and even that it is too pre-occupied with abortion. He lives in a guest house, clearly hates pomp and ceremony, and is deeply suspicious of the cliques within the Church. He startled a group of senior clerics when he told them to stop looking so glum. He commissioned a survey to find out what ordinary Catholics think about official Church teaching on such perennial sticking points as re-marriage, homosexuality and contraception. For leftish metropolitan liberals, what's not to love?

Furthermore, there have certainly been murmurings against him in some "traditionalist" circles. I have seen him disparagingly referred to as "Bergoglio" (his family name) alongside a reference to "Pope Benedict," insinuating that Benedict, the previous incumbent of the role, remains the "real" Pope. Some complain—oddly, for adherents of a proselytising religion—that he talks too much to outsiders and not enough to the faithful. Many worry that he shoots his mouth off before thinking.

But if the Pope is a reformer, what sort of reformer is he? Here we must understand the difference between matters of Church doctrine, and matters of discipline, governance, tone and emphasis. For example, the question of women priests is seen as a theological matter. The Church declares that there can be no women priests, because Christ gave it no authority to ordain women, and because a woman cannot represent Christ at the altar (since Christ was male.) On the other hand, priestly celibacy is a matter of Church discipline rather than doctrine, and there are some otherwise conservative figures who have recently argued that the Church should abandon this rule.

On the notorious controversies about the family and sexuality, "progressives" are going to be disappointed. The Pope is not going to alter any traditional teachings about contraception, pre-marital sex, active homosexuality, divorce, or abortion. He is doctrinally orthodox and knows that these are matters of doctrine. He also believes in Hell—though he directs explicit warnings about this fate to the Mafia, rather than to people in gay relationships. He knows that any doctrinal changes would imply that the Church was wrong in the past—and thus its claims to authority would be undermined. If it was wrong in the past, why should it not be wrong now or in future?

This might seem cynical, but there is an obvious logic to it. The Church believes its authority comes from Christ, who appointed St. Peter as (in effect) the first pope, and said the gates of hell would not prevail against it. This is taken to mean that the formal pronouncements of Church Councils, popes and bishops have great authority. Nothing in the seemingly progressive declarations of Pope Francis has contradicted any of this. His merciful attitude towards individuals, his concern for the environment and the poor, his dislike of pomp—all these things are rooted in tradition.

Why then do some "traditionalists" distrust him? I suspect this is because among these detractors are people who confuse orthodoxy with their own esoteric pre-occupations. These include conspiracy theorists, who ruminate interminably about the meaning of strange visions of Mary, and murmur about the malign influence of Satan in Vatican II. The Pope has little time for this. But this should not comfort the Guardian-reading classes, within and outside the Church, who salivate at the prospect of substantial doctrinal change. That won’t happen, and the persistence of this delusion is largely due to the tendency, found in progressives and conservatives alike, to contemplate God and see themselves reflected in him.