Different popes, different personalities -- and underlying continuity

Different popes, different personalities -- and underlying continuity

By Michael Sean Winters

The Italians have a saying: "After a fat pope, a thin pope." Different men bring different personal qualities to the task, and their sense of the issues they face and their understanding of the Petrine ministry itself will have been shaped by their life experiences. It should be no surprise that there are differences from one pope to another. Just as it is rare for the American people to elect a presidential candidate from the same party more than twice in a row, cardinals tend to set the pendulum swinging every 30 years or so, between popes who are determined to press forward and popes who think it is time to consolidate the gains and clarify any stray developments.

It is important to note that the tensions that exist around Pope Francis' pontificate are often the result of fidelity to the entirety of the conciliar teaching. Take, for instance, the topic that became the most controversial during the twin synods on the family (October 2014 and October 2015): the relationship of conscience and moral law in determining whether the divorced and remarried can discern a path to the sacraments.

According to church historian Massimo Faggioli of Villanova University, "The tensions between the sovereignty of the conscience of the faithful (from the Second Vatican Council document Gaudium et Spes, #16) and obsequium religiosum (religious submission to the authentic magisterium of the Church in the Vatican II document Lumen Gentium, #25) are already part of the teaching of Vatican II: in this sense Vatican II makes clear and does not resolve the paradoxes within the Catholic experience."

For the full article see: https://www.ncronline.org/blogs/distinctly-catholic/different-popes-different-personalities-and-underlying-continuity