What Are Pope Francis’s Priorities?

“Francis, it seems obvious, does not want to clash with the spirit of the times. He attacks ‘conservative Catholics’ all the more [Editor’s note: regarding the reception of homosexuals favored by Fiducia supplicans.]  His language, soft as silk, becomes suddenly very harsh,” the Vaticanist explains.

Here are some of those very “politically correct” responses. On the war in Ukraine, the Pope exclaims: “Please, warring countries, all of them, stop. Stop the war. You must find a way of negotiating for peace. Strive for peace.”

On the conflict in the Middle East, he states: “All ideology is bad, and antisemitism is an ideology, and it is bad. Any anti is always bad. You can criticize one government or another, the government of Israel, the Palestinian government. You can criticize all you want, but not anti a people. Neither anti-Palestinian nor antisemitic. No.”

On migrants: “Migration is something that makes a country grow.They say that you Irish [Norah O’Donnell is of Irish descent] migrated and brought the whiskey, and that the Italians migrated and brought the mafia… (laugh) It's a joke. Don't take it badly. But, migrants sometimes suffer a lot. They suffer a lot. [...] The migrant has to be received.

“Thereafter you see how you are going to deal with him. Maybe you have to send him back, I don't know, but each case ought to be considered humanely. [...] People wash their hands! There are so many Pontius Pilates on the loose out there… who see what is happening, the wars, the injustice, the crimes… ‘That's OK, that's OK’ and wash their hands.

“It's indifference. That is what happens when the heart hardens… and becomes indifferent. Please, we have to get our hearts to feel again. We cannot remain indifferent in the face of such human dramas. The globalization of indifference is a very ugly disease. Very ugly.”

Regarding the reception of homosexuals, the Pope returns to Fiducia supplicans, which authorizes the blessing of same-sex couples, and is keen to clarify: “No, what I allowed was not to bless the union. [...] I cannot. The Lord made it that way. But to bless each person, yes. The blessing is for everyone. For everyone.

“To bless a homosexual-type union, however, goes against the given right, against the law of the Church. But to bless each person, why not? The blessing is for all. Some people were scandalized by this. But why? Everyone! Everyone!”

Norah O’Donnell reminds him: “You have said, ‘Who am I to judge?’ ‘Homosexuality is not a crime.’” Francis responds: “No. It is a human fact.” Giuseppe Nardi is indignant at that: “For Francis, homosexuality is simply ‘a human fact’. Period.

“The answer to a moral question that concerns natural law and divine law, but above all the salvation of the soul of individuals, is swept aside by a platitude. Murder is also ‘a human fact’. And then? The question that arises is the following: can one, as Head of the Church, be mistaken on this point, take shortcuts, thus evading his teaching mission?”

On the opposition of conservatives, the journalist notes: “There are conservative bishops in the United States that oppose your new efforts to revisit teachings and traditions. How do you address their criticism?”

The Pope replies: “You used an adjective, ‘conservative.’ That is, conservative is one who clings to something and does not want to see beyond that. It is a suicidal attitude. Because one thing is to take tradition into account, to consider situations from the past, but quite another is to be closed up inside a dogmatic box.”

Giuseppe Nardi reacts to this as well: “On the burning sociopolitical and moral issues, important for the woke left in the United States, Francis apparently gives infantile answers for an infantile world. They are reduced and miss the point. Does Francis want to promote an infantilized vision? Doesn’t a Pope have to teach and also instruct? Some answers are so bland that they seem to have been thrown out hastily to gain applause and move on to the next topic.”

At the end, Norah O’Donnell flatters the Pope: “so many people-- have found hope with you, because you have been more open and accepting perhaps than other previous leaders of the church.” Francis responds with his eternal leitmotif: “You have to be open to everything. The Church is like that: Everyone, everyone, everyone.

‘That so-and-so is a sinner…?’ Me too, I am a sinner. Everyone! The Gospel is for everyone. If the Church places a customs officer at the door, that is no longer the church of Christ. Everyone.” —Except the “conservatives,” attached to the Tradition of two thousand years...

And the Pope concludes with a brief Rousseauist profession of faith: “That gives me a lot of hope. People want to live. People forge ahead. And people are fundamentally good. We are all fundamentally good. Yes, there are some rogues and sinners, but the heart itself is good.” —Is human nature no longer wounded by Original Sin? Is this the Vicar of Christ speaking or the Savoyard Vicar of Jean-Jacques Rousseau?

It is true that during this interview Francis made it known that there would be no deaconesses in the Church, clarifying, however: not “with Holy Orders,” adding that “women have always had the functions of deaconesses without being deaconesses, right? Women offer a great service as women, not as ministers [...] within the sacred order.”

As FSSPX.Actualités analyzed it on May 23: “Women will not receive the sacrament of orders, but they will be ‘instituted’ and ‘blessed’. They would have an office or ministry, as the lectorate and the office of acolyte have become today, or the newest, the catechist.

“Then it will be enough to give them the opportunity to give the homily during Mass, to baptize solemnly, even to assist the priest at the altar like a deacon, and the deaconess will have all the powers of a deacon...without ordination. The confusion will then be at its peak. For most people, and even Catholics, they will really belong to the sacrament of orders.”

The week before the CBS interview, at a symposium on climate change held on May 16 on the theme: “From climate crisis to climate resilience,” the Pope acted as if he were a scientific expert on the climate. He makes a very questionable expert, according to Phil Lawler, who laments on the website catholicculture.org that Francis seems forgetful of his mission, which is to evangelize nations and not to predict the climatic future of the planet.

The American journalist wrote: “There was a time [...] when one would expect the Roman Pontiff to focus on spiritual rather than climatological questions. But that time is long gone, and no one is surprised today when Pope Francis speaks at length without touching on any distinctively Christian theme, except perhaps when he says that the destruction of the environment is ‘an offense against God.’”

But he immediately clarified: “In his May 16 address the Pope said that the destruction of the environment is caused by human activity, which in turn is motivated by greed. [...] However, the essential of his speech rests on a series of hypotheses, of which none are taken from the Gospel.

“The Pope assumed: that a recent trend toward higher global temperatures is destined to continue and indeed accelerate, with disastrous consequences, in the absence of new public policies, because…the warming of the earth is due to a rapid accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and that accumulation is caused by human activity, specifically the consumption of fossil fuels.”

But Phil Lawler recalls: “Each one of those assumptions is contested by at least some leading scientists. [...] And Pope Francis has no authority to settle scientific debates. So why is St. Peter’s successor speaking with such confidence on these issues?

“Well, for one thing, Pope Francis has no interest in listening to contrary opinions. He has dismissed skepticism about climate-change ideology as ‘foolish.’ For another, he was addressing an audience of political leaders and climate scientists —more politicians than scientists —who shared his assumptions.

“None of the scientists who have raised serious questions about the climate-change models will be heard at this week’s Vatican conference. In short the Pope, and the Vatican agencies under his direction, have taken sides in the climate-change debate. That partisan approach, to a discussion that does not directly involve Catholic doctrine, is imprudent in itself.”

And he warns: “But the Pope’s May 16 address goes further, insofar as he plunged head-first into the details of the scientific discussion. Pope Francis did not merely insist that political leaders reverse the process of climate change, by restricting the use of fossil fuels. He suggested methods of removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

“The Vatican News service reported: ‘He mentioned especially the Amazon Basin and the Congo, peat bogs, mangroves, oceans, coral reefs, farmlands, and glacial icecaps.’ So now St. Peter’s successor is issuing directives for work on the peat bogs and the coral reefs, in the Amazon Basin and the Congo.

“Not missionary work, mind you, but public policy. [...] to comply with the proposals drawn from the models of climate ‘experts.’ [...] He told his audience of like-minded political leaders that ‘we are working for a culture of life or for a culture of death.’ [...]

“[T]he terms ‘culture of life’ and ‘culture of death’ were popularized by Pope John Paul II. But when that sainted Pontiff introduced those terms, he was not speaking about climate change; he was denouncing an approach to public policy that promoted abortion and euthanasia, homosexuality and contraception and divorce. And on May 16, 2024, Pope Francis was speaking to an audience dominated by politicians who promote exactly those policies.”

Phil Lawler regrets that, “given an opportunity to speak to politicians who ordinarily ignore the Gospel message—given a chance to challenge opponents of Christian morality—the Pope chose to present himself as an expert of public policy, a champion of scientists’ models.”