Year 26: Frustrated Catholics playing 'Name that pope'

Soon after Pope Francis skyrocketed into media superstardom, some frustrated Catholics started playing an online game that could be called "Name that pope." Most of them were not upset with what their charismatic shepherd from Argentina was actually saying and doing. Instead, they were frustrated with the media storm portraying him as radically different – in substance – from his predecessors.

Frankly, this is one of the strangest stories I have seen during the many years – 26 as of last week – I have been writing this "On Religion" syndicated column.

Want to try this game? Start with this quotation: "The reservation of the priesthood to males, as a sign of Christ the Spouse who gives himself in the Eucharist, is not a question open to discussion."

Name that pope: That's Pope Francis, believe it or not.

Round two: "It is deplorable that homosexual persons have been and are the object of violent malice in speech or in action. Such treatment deserves condemnation from the church's pastors wherever it occurs."

Name that pope: That's Pope Benedict XVI.

Round three: "If we refuse to share what we have with the hungry and the poor, we make of our possessions a false god. How many voices in our materialist society tell us that happiness is to be found by acquiring as many possessions and luxuries as we can! ... Instead of bringing life, they bring death."

Name that pope: Benedict, again.

Round four: "Among the vulnerable for whom the Church wishes to care with particular love and concern are unborn children, the most defenseless and innocent among us. ... Frequently, as a way of ridiculing the Church's effort to defend their lives, attempts are made to present her position as ideological, obscurantist and conservative. ... It is not 'progressive' to try to resolve problems by eliminating a human life."

Name that pope: Francis, of course.

What's going on? Many progressives now shouting praises at Francis don't seem familiar with the doctrines he is supposedly modernizing, according to Rep. Rebecca Hamilton, a Catholic Republican in the Oklahoma House of Representatives.

"This old wine of the Gospel has become new again in Pope Francis' way of expressing and living it. 'Bombshell' is the word that pundits attach to comments he makes that are nothing more nor less than what the Church has taught from the beginning," she wrote, at the Public Catholic website.

Another religion-beat veteran, someone who has read daily Vatican dispatches for 20 years, thinks it's "nonsense" to say that Francis has suddenly shifted Rome's concerns away from contraception, abortion and homosexuality to poverty, peace and environmentalism. If there has been a dominant theme under recent popes, it has been human rights.

"It was the media, some advocacy groups on both sides and perhaps some individual bishops – but not the popes – who were fixated on what is so wrongly mischaracterized as 'pelvic issues,' " said Ann Rodgers, who recently became communications director for the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh after several decades covering religion in the mainstream press.

So why is Pope Francis a media star and "Teflon" when it comes to criticism? Speaking at Franciscan University of Steubenville, Rodgers said the key is that famous Marshall McLuhan statement: "The medium is the message."

After his election, Francis declined a limo and rode a bus to dinner with other cardinals. The next day he famously paid his own bill at the international residence house, where he had often stayed in the past and knew the staff by name.

"The medium is the message," said Rodgers.

The list goes on and on. Last fall, the pope publicly embraced a man with a horribly disfigured face. He warned Mafiosi to repent or face hell. On his first Maundy Thursday, he washed the feet of inmates, including women and non-Christians.

"When he is washing the feet of a Muslim girl, he is not making a claim that she is a Christian or that Islam and Christianity are in any way interchangeable," said Rodgers. "He is saying, 'You are a Muslim girl. You are a prisoner and I love you, in the name of Jesus. I am here to serve you, in the name of Jesus.' ...

"He takes away her sense of shame, but in a way that may help her aspire to holiness. He's not just talking about mercy. He's not just talking about loving the stranger who is our neighbor. The medium is the message."

An honest Easter with doubters and the 'nones'

It's the first thing people do after meeting strangers in coffee shops and clubs favored by the young professionals now flocking into Austin, Portland and America's other trendy postmodern cities. Job one is to define themselves in terms of what they do and what they believe. "I am an accountant," one will say. "I am a vegetarian," or "I am gay," or "I am a techie," others will reply. Hipsters don't need to say, "I am a hipster," because everyone can see the obvious.

"Usually, our identity will emerge as a composite" of these kinds of labels, noted the Rev. Jonathan Dodson of Austin and the Rev. Brad Watson of Portland, in a small book of meditations on the resurrection entitled "Raised?"

"It will have a hidden mantra that goes something like this: I am what I eat, who I sleep with, how I make money, what I wear, what I look like, or where I came from. ... If you cannot imagine yourself without that statement being true, you have likely found something that is core to your identity."

For many Americans that core still includes a religious label, like "I am a Christian," noted Dodson, founding pastor of City Life Church, which meets in the Ballet Austin complex near downtown. And millions who make that claim, with varying degrees of fervor, will flock to churches this weekend for the year's one service in which almost all pews are full – Easter.

Instead of affirming a "sentimental" or "mushy" faith on this Christian holy day, Dodson thinks more pastors should ask a blunt question: Do you really believe Jesus was raised from the dead?

If some people confess doubts, that would be good because sincere doubt leads to true faith more often than hidden apathy. This is especially true when discussing the brash claim that has been at the heart of Christianity for 2,000 years, he said. Thus, it's time to ask lukewarm believers to question their faith and to ask modern doubters to question their doubts.

This blunt approach would be timely in light of surveys indicating that more Americans – especially the young – are changing how they think about faith, including the role of scripture and the need for any ties to organized religion.

For example, the American Bible Society's recent "State of the Bible" survey found that the percentage of "Bible skeptics" is now precisely the same – 19 percent – as for those who are truly "engaged" in Bible reading and who strongly value biblical authority. The "Bible friendly" segment of the population shrank from 45 to 37 percent.

The 19 percent figure for "Bible skeptics" matched the key finding in a headline-producing Pew Research Center survey in 2012, which found that nearly 20 percent of American adults – the so-called "nones" – no longer identify with any given religion. The "religiously unaffiliated" number was 30 percent for those under the age of 30.

Meanwhile, one common theme in recent surveys is that an increasing number of Americans no longer believe they need to claim a traditional faith, and Christianity in particular, because they no longer see themselves as sinners – especially when discussing doctrinal issues linked to sexuality.

This moral sea change could, for some people, even undercut belief in the resurrection. After all, if the resurrection actually happened, that validates the central claim of Christian tradition, which in turn validates biblical teachings about sin, repentance and forgiveness.

"What ruffles feathers is the God-sized claim" that Jesus died to atone for the sins of humanity, noted Dodson and Watson. This insistence "that we all need an atoning representative troubles our dignity. ... In light of recent horror trends, we might be more inclined to believe in a zombie emerging from the dead than a resurrected and fully restored person."

With doubts and open unbelief on the rise, it's time for church leaders to face this issue head on, said Dodson. This is no time to duck the central question at Easter.

"In so much of popular Christianity today, people are just nodding their heads and saying they believe all of these doctrines, but this really isn't having much of an impact on their lives," he said. "If they actually believe in the resurrection, it should make a difference. … The resurrection matters more than the Easter bunny."

Building a new monastery in the isles of Celtic giants

Father Seraphim Aldea is so committed to building the first Orthodox monastery in the Scottish isles in more than a millennium that he did something no monk searching for solitude would ever, ever do. "I learned how to use that dreadful Facebook thing," he said.

The Romanian monk has already been handed an abandoned Church of Scotland sanctuary on Mull Island. While Kilninian was built in 1755, it appears in 1561 records as a site associated with the great Monastery of St. Columba on Iona. Thus, this property may have been linked to monasticism as early as the 7th century.

But there is a problem. The Atlantic coast of Scotland, including the 150 main Hebrides islands, is now a "Designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty" – which means major restrictions for anyone wanting to build or restore anything.

Normally, starting a monastery means obtaining land and then gathering some monks to move there, noted Father Seraphim, during a fundraising swing through the Baltimore area. The monks build their facility and then it's dedicated. But that isn't how things work in Great Britain these days. Before the 34-year-old monk can build a single monastic cell he has to buy land that can provide running water and a sewage system.

"I need your help ... to build that toilet," he said, drawing laughter from his audience. "It sounds stupid, but that's all there is. We can build the first monastery in the Hebrides in over a millennium if I can build a toilet."

Scotland and Ireland have for centuries – well before the 1054 schism between Rome and the Orthodox East – been famous for the work of St. Columba, St. Brigid, St. Brendan and other great Celtic monastics. Pilgrims continue to flock to these lands to visit ruins on these sacred sites.

It is customary for the boatloads of pilgrims headed to Iona to stop on Mull Island, noted Father Seraphim. Thus, the goal is to build a new monastery (mullmonastery.com) out of local stone for those who want to stop, rest and pray, or even to spend several days as visitors. The chapel will remain dedicated to Saints Ninian and Cuthbert, while the monastery will house a community of nuns, since it is "likely that a pack of bearded foreign men" would be harder for "the locals to trust," he said.

A group of Catholics has already made a similar attempt, but eventually gave up and donated the sanctuary to the Orthodox – under the condition that Kilninian would become part of a monastic community.

Father Seraphim, who is 34, noted that he knew nothing about the great Celtic monastics when he began doing graduate work in England, concluding with a doctorate in history at the University of Durham. Then his bishop asked him to consider working near London or, perhaps to continue his scholarly research in Paris.

However, Father Seraphim told his superior that he "felt called to solitude." When told about the abandoned sanctuary in the Hebrides, the young monk asked: "Do you know someone mad enough to be willing to go and live there?"

If he is able to purchase five acres providing clean water and a septic system, Father Seraphim plans to move to Kilninian this coming fall. He said he is convinced, after preliminary research, that there are still believers in England who feel called to monasticism. In addition to several "semi-monastic houses," there appear to be a number of hermits in various parts of the land who are dedicated to prayer and worship.

"This vocation is there, it still pulsates in these islands," he said. "What people are lacking is tradition. They need examples – not one, not two, but several real monasteries – so that they may have somewhere to learn from without having to leave their country."

Meanwhile, if Americans are concerned about the faith's future in their own land, then they need to be concerned about this kind of renewal project in postmodern England and elsewhere in Europe, said Father Seraphim.

"England and Scotland and Ireland are the lands of your ancestors," he said. "It sounds strange to say it, but the truth is that whatever happens in Western Europe today will take place everywhere in the world in about 50 years. If we let those countries go completely ... it is going to affect us all."

The World Vision same-sex marriage wars of 2014

When church historians review the 2014 World Vision wars over gay marriage, they will ponder several puzzling statements by the man caught in the crossfire. "We do know this is an emotional issue in the American church," said World Vision U.S. President Richard Stearns, in the recent Christianity Today interview that revealed his organization's decision months earlier to employ Christians in same-sex marriages. "I'm hoping not to lose supporters over the change. We're hoping that they understand that what we've done is focused on church unity and our mission."

Church unity?

Not quite. The evangelical establishment immediately exploded, expressing outrage and disappointment with the influential charity – America's 10th largest in a recent Forbes list. Thousands of conservatives cancelled donations while liberal evangelicals were just as eager to pledge support.

World Vision U.S. quickly retreated, and Stearns told The New York Times he had "made a mistake in judgment," in part because his board sincerely thought this policy change would help it "avoid divisive debates."

Avoid divisive debates?

The "brokenhearted" board quickly released a statement seeking forgiveness and promised to return to its "longstanding conduct policy requiring sexual abstinence for all single employees and faithfulness within the Biblical covenant of marriage between a man and a woman." The new policy on same-sex marriage, it added, had not been consistent with the charity's faith statement affirming the Bible as the "inspired, the only infallible, authoritative Word of God."

The stakes were high, both for World Vision – with a billion-dollar budget and branches in 100 nations – and for other nondenominational groups that admire its structure and methods. The bottom line: It's getting harder to work with broad coalitions when culture wars keep rocking churches as well as local, state and national governments.

World Vision U.S. is based in Washington, a state that has legally recognized same-sex marriage. World Vision Canada has already complied with provincial laws prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation. Yet World Vision leaders stressed that – even with legal victories for gay-rights rising – the possible loss of USAID dollars played no role in the short-lived attempt at a compromise on same-sex marriage.

"Concerns over government funding had no impact on this decision," Stearns told Christianity Today.

Meanwhile, World Vision's staff and donor base has been changing, especially among young evangelicals. The charity's idealistic appeal for "church unity" was linked to the fact that it's staff now includes believers from 50-plus churches and denominations – including some from liberal Protestant churches that have affirmed same-sex rites, such as the Episcopal Church, the United Church of Christ, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and the Presbyterian Church (USA).

In this case, the goal was to affirm a biblical call to social justice while mapping a demilitarized zone on same-sex marriage between the emerging evangelical left and those committed to defending 2,000 years of Christian doctrine.

A key Southern Baptist leader understood that goal, but rejected the result.

"Richard Stearns has every right to try to make his case, but these arguments are pathetically inadequate. Far more than that, his arguments reveal basic issues that every Christian ministry, organization, church and denomination will have to face – and soon," argued the Rev. R. Albert Mohler, Jr., president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. World Vision cannot "surrender theological responsibility when convenient and then claim a Christian identity and a theological mandate for ministry."

Attempting to do ministry with both liberal and conservative churches "might work if World Vision were selling church furniture, but not when the mission of the organization claims a biblical mandate," he added, in his online commentary.

Leaders on the evangelical left were just as upset when World Vision U.S. backed down. The Rev. Nadia Bolz-Weber, the tattooed pastor of a hip ELCA flock in Denver, tweeted her disappointment: "One step forward, two steps back. #worldvision." And the popular writer Rachel Held Evans, author of the bestseller "Evolving in Monkey Town," said she felt betrayed, frustrated, broken and angry, at the church in particular.

"I confess I had not realized the true extent of the disdain many evangelicals have toward LGBT people, nor had I expected World Vision to yield to that disdain by reversing its decision under financial pressure," she wrote. "I don't know what else to do but grieve with everyone else who feels like a religious refugee today."