Father Antonio Spadaro, Jesuit editor of La Civiltà Cattolica, gave a talk at the University of Notre Dame titled "The Diplomacy and Geopolitics of Mercy: The World of Pope Francis."
We tend to think of mercy as a personal quality, and it is, but Spadaro sees it as a theme that also runs through the Pope's vision of politics and society.
Spadaro explained: “The Pope's position consists not in saying who is right and who is wrong, for at the root of all conflict is a fight for power or regional dominance, or what the Pope calls a "vain pretext." There is no need to take sides for moral reasons. The Pope rejects the mixing of politics, morals and religion that leads to the use of a language that divides reality between the absolute good and the absolute evil, between an axis of evil and an axis of good, between goodies and baddies. It is that mercy is not our action in history, but God's action in history, and it does explode our human categories and, especially, our desire to claim that God is on our side in the various political battles in which we engage.”
In his talk at Notre Dame, Father Spadaro spelled out the Holy Father’s mercy-drenched vision of a world in which no one and nothing is ever considered beyond hope or love, and not as some abstract ideal, but as the lived reality to which we Christians are called by our Baptism.
So, according to Father Spadaro, in Pope Francis’ vision of world history, totalitarianism is morally equivalent to democracy. So when millions died defending the world from Nazi fascism or Japanese imperialism, free societies were simply engaged in what Father Spadaro tells us Pope Francis sees as “a vain pretext” rather than a conflict between “an axis of evil and an axis of good”.
So, according to Father Spadaro, in Pope Francis’ world, there is nothing noble, nothing sacred, nothing worth defending or promoting since there are no absolutes, no absolute good and no absolute evil. And to think in terms of moral absolutes or (God forbid) speak of such will give rise to divisive, manipulative language in an attempt to claim moral superiority.
So, the fields in Flanders host the graves of fools not defending hearth and home, but duped into a “vain prext” for Western civilization to maintain and expand its dominance over the world. The carnage on the beaches of Normandy, the crushing defeat at Dunkirk, the brutality of Bataan, in Pope Francis' world, stand as stark monuments of petty squabbles over ideals or values which are wholly equivalent.
Sorry, Father Spadaro. Sorry, Your Holiness. I don’t agree. Weak and sinful as I confess myself to be, I still think there are truths worth defending.
I do believe there are values so fundamentally correct and rightful, so profoundly uplifting to the human person that they need to be protected and defended when challenged or threatened.
Sorry, Father Spadaro. Sorry, Your Holiness. I still believe that those who shed their blood, those martyred on the altars of liberty gave their lives defending virtues which provide freedom and thwart oppression.
Sorry, Father Spadaro. Sorry, Your Holiness. I still believe that America is morally superior to North Korea, or Russia, or the hundreds of petty dictatorships around the world. I do believe that Jesus is the Son of God and Mohammed, a misguided misogynistic self-appointed prophet. I still bow my head and shed at tear over the graves at Arlington and Normandy.
The grey, morally neutral, totally subjective world of Father Spadaro and Pope Francis (if Spadaro is right) is not one I would care to know or experience.
In my world, Father Spadaro and Your Holiness, there is still right and wrong, good and evil, virtue and sinfulness. Surely, none of us is perfect. All of us stand in need of God’s mercy and forgiveness. We all need to be forgiving of each other. And we all are called to be witnesses to truths not of our making, but truths which embody the Divine Mind and Will upon Whom our existence depends and for Whose Mercy we plead.
In Father Spadaro’s world, in Pope Francis’ world, my way of thinking is but a “vain pretext” for division or prejudice.
In my world, goodness and righteousness, honor and virtue, bravery and cowardice still mean something, still make life worth living.
And, even as I routinely fail to live an unblemished moral life, I still treasure the Gospel which calls me and all of us to something and Someone greater than ourselves.
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