Pope Francis, the risk of a change of era

On August 8, Pope Francis received José-Lluis Serrano Pentalant, coadjutor bishop of Urgell, in audience. On paper, it looked like just another visit with one of the many newly elected bishops in the world. Most of them meet the Pope at the moment of receiving the mandate. This meeting has something more interesting.

The bishop of Urgell is, with the president of the French Republic, also co-prince of the tiny State of Andorra.

Bishop Serrano, coming from the ranks of the Secretariat of State, is Catalan, and this was an essential precondition for genuinely understanding the diocese of Urgell and the particular situation that exists with Andorra, a small enclave between France and Spain in the Pyrenees. Above all, however, Serrano was appointed coadjutor a few months before the 75th birthday of his predecessor, Bishop Vives i Sicilia, who passed retirement age on July 24. So, Serrano is preparing to take over the diocese entirely and to become co-prince of Andorra after a brief apprenticeship.

It is also telling that Serrano comes from the Secretariat of State. In Andorra, there is a prime minister who is openly gay, and the push for abortion to finally be legalized in the country is powerful. The Holy See cannot accept that one of its bishops is the head—even and especially when the title is almost entirely honorific—of a State that introduces legal abortion on his watch.

For this reason, people began to talk some time ago about the the Holy See accepting a change in the Andorran Constitution that would allow the Bishop of Urgell’s right to be co-prince of Andorra lapse.

It may seem of minor importance, but in reality, all this reasoning is the result of the change in era that Pope Francis has been talking about since the beginning of his pontificate. Benedict XVI visited, after all, Malta and Portugal, at the time the last European bastions where abortion was not permitted, a few months before abortion was legalized in both countries. It was already a sign of a Catholic Church that no longer had a hold on society.

Now, we find ourselves in a similar situation in Andorra, which is even more worrying if we consider that the State is tiny. The inhabitants are almost all—at least on paper–solidly Christian in tradition and practice.

The question we must ask ourselves, however, is different.

Does the Holy See really have to give up an honorary title to finally be at peace with the world? Does the Holy See really have to abandon ancient traditions, albeit centuries-old, to fulfill its mission in society?

The French example in Europe says no.

Beyond having maintained the co-prince of Andorra through ups and downs, France has not allowed its galloping secularization to cut it off from its centuries-old ties with the Catholic Church. After the Revolution, there was contempt for the Catholic Church. Bastille Day, July 14, was also the day that celebrated the conquest of Jerusalem by the First Crusade, and it is difficult not to see the symbolic factor in choosing that very day as the one from which to date the national Revolution.

Yet, the country of secularism that wanted to destroy churches and even Notre Dame, which often treats religion as a form of superstition, has never given up two particular privileges. The first is that the President of France is a canon of Saint John Lateran by right, having inherited this possibility from the French royals. The second is the possibility—currently not used but never formally renounced—that the head of State personally imposes the cardinal’s hat on cardinals-elect residents in France.

The last time it happened was with the creation of Cardinal Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, nuncio to France at the time, on whom the red hat was imposed by the then president Vincent Auriol, who was a socialist and notoriously non believer, but who claimed the ancient privilege of the kings of France.

The French example shows that ancient traditions can be maintained despite changing approaches and opinions. However, the Church of Pope Francis prefers to cut ancient traditions, avoid them when they may seem controversial, and empty them of meaning in the name of a specific need for renewal.

In general, the Church had already lost institutional clout. It is striking, however, that there is a need to formalize this change and cut all previous traditions. Some justify this penchant for change by citing Pope St. Paul VI’s reform of the Papal Household. Paul VI, however, never abolished the Papal Household itself. He rationalized and made it more suitable for the times but always kept an eye on tradition and history, aware that a symbol only has its meaning when it is evident and alive.

Meanwhile, some situations in the world cause no small amount of concern.

A woman in Belgium filed a legal complaint against the Church because she could not access the diaconate, and she won the cause. That an ordained ministerial role within the ranks of the Church should become the subject of such a complaint shows the Church is perceived not as an institution but, at most, as a place to work, where even positions that require ordination must be subject to labor laws.

If the Church loses its tradition and history, concedes in the face of epochal change, and accepts being a minority without preserving its language, it risks being perceived only as one agency among many. Or as one business among many, if we look at the financial issue, considering, in effect, the continuous outsourcing of services, from using a real estate network to make profits on houses to the possible outsourcing of the Vatican supermarket.

In short, it is being said that the secular world is more reliable and that the Church prefers to look there rather than form new ideas and new generations. It is being said that the Church is willing to lose everything to evangelize without understanding that by losing everything, one no longer knows what to evangelize for because it lacks identity and history.

Therefore, it should not be surprising that the traditionalist movement makes so many proselytes. At the same time, it should be surprising that this growth of the traditionalist movement—also attested by the record numbers of the Chartres pilgrimage—is mortified, put into crisis, and even, in some way, “persecuted” by Pope Francis himself.

There is a need to find new balances, to recover a real sense of living history.. The great old men who were capable of doing so are retiring one after the other, and there is a palpably urgent need to set a true example. But if the change of era is suffered rather than faced, then the Church is destined to succumb.