The Rock Star Pope

It's almost Easter, and I've been thinking a lot about the Pope lately. That's not a sentence I'd ever thought I'd be writing, but there you have it. Maybe it's because Pope Francis is everywhere these days. He's on Twitter. He's on Facebook. He's even got his own tabloid style magazine. And I've been thinking about him because he's actually made me want to give the Catholic Church a second chance.

If nothing else, Pope Francis has breathed new life into the Vatican, an institution so calcified it's amazing they had the vision to choose him as pope. Of course, my suspicion is they had no idea what they were getting. And how has he done this? By being more a man of faith and less a moralizer, and by showing he's not afraid to say things that might make the Vatican unhappy. He's acknowledged that the Church ought to spend more time focusing on poverty and injustice and less time on people's sexual and reproductive choices. He's left the confines of the Vatican under cover of darkness to meet with the homeless. He's been humble, self-effacing, and loving. Francis has given the Catholic Church better PR than it's had in decades. Catholics are talking about Francis in the same reverential way that my mother used to talk about Pope John XXIII, the man who presided over Vatican II. The question is, can he bring the legions of people who left the church back into the fold?

That will be a difficult task. Ever since the child abuse scandal in the Boston Archdiocese back in 2002, the Catholic Church (at least in America) has been beset by scandals that have steadily eroded the faith that many Catholics had in the institution. The latest, thoroughly detailed in some excellent reporting by MPR News, has been in the Minneapolis-St. Paul archdiocese. As a result many Catholics, already struggling with beliefs that fundamentally contradict the teachings of the Church, have walked away completely. I know, because I'm one of them.

For the first 18 years of my life, I had a regular Sunday appointment with the Catholic Church. For three of those years, I was an altar boy. Sure, part of the reason was that my parents were devout Catholics, and therefore not going to Church was never an option. But for the most part I enjoyed going to Church. During my college years, as happens with many adolescents, I steadily began to separate from the church. Not only was it difficult to make it to a 9am mass after a typical Saturday night, but there was also a growing sense that my personal beliefs on topics like abortion and homosexuality didn't jibe with the church, and never would. Of course, learning about the history of the Catholic Church didn't help. College has a way of shaking people out traditional beliefs. 

After college my attendance was sporadic, and I struggled with the notion that I was always going to be what the traditionalists refer to as a cafeteria Catholic, picking the teachings I could get on board with and tossing aside those with which I disagreed. Still, I got married in the Church, and my daughter was baptized in the Church. And I will fully acknowledge that had more to do with making my mother happy than in a belief that those rituals needed the blessing of a priest.

The real break for me came in 2002, when the Boston Archdiocese scandal broke. I was living in Boston at the time, and working in the media. The revelations of that scandal were horrifying, not just the acts themselves, but the behavior of the institution that hid those acts from the public. It was the behavior of an institution that seemed both broken and rotten to its core. After my mother died in 2003, I stopped going to church altogether. In fact, my mother's funeral might have been the last time I set foot in a church. I could no longer support the institution that had played a key role in my upbringing.

I have no faith to speak of these days. I've tried other denominations, but it never seems right. We Catholics are brought up on a certain kind of ritual, and all other rituals seem false and strange. I remember attending a protestant church in Colorado once and thinking, why are all these people so happy? Where's the sin and the guilt? Where's the bloodied Christ suffering for our sins? Where's the incense? What the hell kind of church is this?

I know that it's that kind of attitude that got the Church where it is today, this belief that it is the one and only true faith and impervious to criticism. But I miss it. I miss the ritual and the structure it gave to my Sunday mornings. And that's why Pope Francis has me thinking about returning. Though he can't fundamentally alter the teachings of the Church, he can perhaps make us cafeteria Catholics feel more welcome by acknowledging that there can be differences of opinion on certain issues. I can accept a happier, lighter, more loving Church. Just don't take away the incense.