The Francis Effect
The Failure & Confusions of a More Accommodating Faith
Very soon after the election of Jorge Bergoglio as Pope Francis, there was a good deal of talk of "the Francis effect": the ability of this popular, charismatic figure to reinvigorate the spirit of aggiornamento, which animated the Second Vatican Council and which, implicitly, had been suppressed in the dour papacies of Francis's two immediate predecessors. Writing for the Catholic News Service (March 6, 2015), Cindy Wooden cited in support of this view a number of participants at a conference at Georgetown University, "Renewing the Church in a Secular Age" (March 4–5, 2015).
One participant, Charles Taylor, credited Pope Francis with "living the Gospel and reaching out" and distinguished between "seekers" and "dwellers," clearly favoring the former: "The seekers—baptized Christians or not—continue to question. The dwellers have found a home in a church and may have a tendency to nest there so thoroughly that they seldom reach out to others and only accept those who believe exactly as they do." Professor José Casanova is quoted as sharpening this opposition: "We were concerned by what could be called a self-referential church that had been too concerned about what could be called a 'moral confessionalism' in which being Catholic was defined by certain moral criteria more than criteria of dogma or belief in doctrine."
An Ineffective "Effect"
THIS ARTICLE ONLY AVAILABLE TO SUBSCRIBERS.
FOR QUICK ACCESS:
R. V. Young is Professor of English Emeritus at North Carolina State University, and a former editor of Modern Age: A Quarterly Review. His Shakespeare & the Idea of Western Civilization is forthcoming in January from Catholic University of America Press. He and his wife are parishioners at Our Lady of Lourdes Church in Dunedin, Florida. They have five grown children, 15 grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. He is a senior editor of Touchstone.
Get six issues (one year) of Touchstone PLUS full online access including pdf downloads for only $39.95. That's only $3.34 per month!
Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives for only $19.95. That's only $1.66 per month!
bulk subscriptions
Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.
Transactions will be processed on a secure server.
more on Catholic from the online archives
31.6—November/December 2018
The Slow Vindication of Leon Podles by S. M. Hutchens
27.5—Sept/Oct 2014
The Culture of Death's Campaign Against the Catholic Church by Brantly Millegan
24.5—Sept/Oct 2011
A Critical Memoir of Thomas Merton at Gethsemani Abbey by Patrick Henry Reardon
more from the online archives
32.2—March/April 2019
Misguided Mercy & Dante's Infernal Purgation by Joshua Hren
11.5—September/October 1998
Speaking the Truths Only the Imagination May Grasp
An Essay on Myth & 'Real Life' by Stratford Caldecott
22.3—April 2009
Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business by J. Daryl Charles
calling all readers
Please Donate
"There are magazines worth reading but few worth saving . . . Touchstone is just such a magazine."
—Alice von Hildebrand
"Here we do not concede one square millimeter of territory to falsehood, folly, contemporary sentimentality, or fashion. We speak the truth, and let God be our judge. . . . Touchstone is the one committedly Christian conservative journal."
—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor
