Tag: sin

Pope Francis and His Legacy

W.J. Astore

Reforming the Catholic Church

I woke to the news that Pope Francis had died at the age of 88. Francis had qualities that I admired, including his lack of pomp and his support of the disadvantaged. As Caitlin Johnstone notes, Francis was an advocate for the Palestinians. He was known as a “liberal” pope, so my guess is that we’ll soon see an old-school conservative elected as the new pope.

Pope Francis (Tiziana Fabi/AFP/Getty Images)

I was raised Catholic, getting confirmed back in 1979, but I’m very much a lapsed one today. I think the Church should allow female priests and should not persist in upholding chastity for the hierarchy. I think the Church should speak out far more strongly against genocidal nuclear weapons and warfare in general. I think the Church should use its great wealth and power to ease the suffering of people around the world. And I know all this is not going to happen in an institution dedicated to its own survival.

There are, of course, many “good” priests, “good” sisters, committed to charity and guided by the teachings of Christ, but those who are bumped upstairs, who become the bishops and cardinals of the Church, are often those who are most committed to the trappings of power. They are the most political, the most worldly, the most vulnerable to vainglory and sin, especially the sin of pride and the lust for power.

Perhaps a new pope will carry on the legacy of Francis, but something tells me that the College of Cardinals is going to coalesce behind a traditionalist, a symbol of orthodoxy. There will be no Vatican III, no fresh opening of the Church, no revolutionary spirit. 

After Francis I see regression, not reformation, and it makes me sad to type that.

America’s Original Sin

Hans Baldung Grien, "Eve, Serpent and Death"
Hans Baldung Grien, “Eve, Serpent and Death”

W.J. Astore

I’m a Catholic, so of course I know all about Original Sin.  For disobeying God and tasting the forbidden fruit, Adam and Eve were cast out of the Garden of Eden.  Eve would suffer the pains of childbirth, and both she and Adam would age and die, their earthly bodies returning to the dust from which they came.

I always thought Eve got a bad rap in that story.  She was, after all, tempted by Lucifer, a fallen angel in the shape of a serpent.  Whereas Adam simply gave in to a mild suggestion by Eve to join her.  Eve was tricked by the Master of Deceit, but Adam just joined in for the heck of it, and she shoulders the blame?

Of course, one might see Original Sin as part of God’s master plan.  For without that sin, there would be no need for God to send his only begotten son to redeem mankind.  No Original Sin, no New Testament.  No Beatitudes.  No Roman Catholic Church.  No Christianity.

And without Christianity and its evangelizing zeal, America would doubtless be a far different land.   Assuming Europeans still came to the New World in roughly 1500, would subsequent history be less bloody in the absence of Christianity?  Or would naked conquest have been unrestrained by any moral code of restraint and compassion?

The United States has an original sin as well.  It is the impiety of considering our country as being uniquely favored by God.  American history shows how we’ve killed, enslaved, and otherwise violated God’s great commandment of loving thy neighbor, even as we continue loudly to shout how God uniquely showers His praises on us.  God Bless America!

Is America’s original sin part of some master plan?  How will we redeem ourselves from its awful legacies?  My dad once joked that in school he almost solved an unsolvable equation; I confess I have no solution to such questions.

Readers, have at it in the comments section below.  Is the very idea of Original Sin mysterious and magisterial, or mischievous and misleading?  Have humans evolved beyond the need for God and gods?  Is “sin” a misleading term to apply to America’s past, too metaphysical, too imprecise?  Are there simply too many “chosen people” in this world, too many people who elevate themselves above others just because they believe they share a favored relationship to God?

It’s a grey and rainy day here — a good day for thinking.  Join in.