Over the past week or so, since the election of Jorge Mario Bergoglio to the Chair of St. Peter, there has been a lot of hullabaloo about the new pope’s “style.” The above meme is one such case in point. The praise is great and abundant, and it comes from all corners of the world and all walks of life. The consensus seems to be that Francis, with his lower key style than his predecessor Benedict, will single-handedly save the church and all Christendom with it by returning to the central things of the gospel of Jesus Christ. All this he does by foregoing pomp and circumstance—and most of all, his red papal shoes.
I will begin by adding my praise of His Holiness for remembering his is a call to serve. In his public actions since the conclave, it appears this pope Francis is willing to meet the people where they are, to share the gospel with them—even if it means doing some things generally uncharacteristic of former popes. His humility is something that we can all take inspiration from and learn from. The earthly office of Christian is one of service to God and others on account of Jesus Christ. By the outward signs we’ve seen thus far, it would appear that Francis gets that message.
I would caution both my Roman Catholic and Protestant friends, however, not to get too excited about the “changes” the new pope is making. While we might initially welcome them with eagerness, we must weigh everything before jumping to the conclusion, “This is what Jesus would do!” Remember the words of the Evangelist John to the church at Ephesus—“Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God; for many false prophets have gone out into the world.” I’m not intending to call the pope a false prophet, but we must be wary, and test everything!
The excitement about the new pope’s departure from standing practice in pontifical custom is grounded in both a mistrust and misunderstanding about tradition and the role it plays in the church at large and the Roman Catholic Church specifically. The papacy with all its trappings represents for many all things about ecclesial tradition that can go wrong. There are good, honest, merited critiques of some ways the papacy has carried out the duties of its office, but to call for a complete abolition of all things traditional under the guise of “serving the gospel” belies myopathy and ignorance toward the role of tradition in Roman Catholicism and the wider church catholic.
For Roman Catholics, tradition plays a huge role in their faith—both Apostolic Tradition and ecclesial traditions. The Roman Catholic Church teaches in its catechism that “the Church, in her doctrine, life and worship, perpetuates and transmits to every generation all that she herself is, all that she believes.” In this way, maintaining the traditions of the Church, both the Apostolic and the ecclesial, serves the larger ends of the gospel for Roman Catholics.
Likewise, Roman Catholics teach that “the liturgical celebration involves signs and symbols relating to creation (candles, water, fire), human life (washing, anointing, breaking bread) and the history of salvation (the rites of the Passover). Integrated into the world of faith and taken up by the power of the Holy Spirit, these cosmic elements, human rituals, and gestures of remembrance of God become bearers of the saving and sanctifying action of Christ.” Here, particular rites and their incumbent ritual, including the use of vestments and other liturgical paraphernalia, come to bear. In these rituals, as in all that the Church does, Roman Catholics believe they serve the gospel of Jesus Christ among themselves and in the wider world.
An issue arises naturally when we suggest foregoing ritual and its accouterments. The truth of the matter is that true worship is directed at God—“In the liturgy of the Church, God the Father is blessed and adored as the source of all the blessings of creation and salvation with which he has blessed us in his Son, in order to give us the Spirit of filial adoption.” This directedness can be misplaced when we focus too closely on the ecclesial traditions and miss the wider message of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
While we don’t want to fall off the side of the horse where the gospel is sidelined, we also don’t want to fall off the side of the horse where the gospel becomes a new law. For evangelical Christians insist that “the two teachings of law and gospel dare not be mingled with the other and mixed together, and the characteristics of one dare not be ascribed to the other.” That is to say, we cannot make the gospel of Jesus Christ, which in the strictest sense is about freedom for condemnation, into a condemnation of freedom exercised in Christ. For St. Paul writes—“there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.”
Even within our own parishes we see a wide range of ecclesial expression. We have “high church” congregations and “low church” congregations. We have bishops who’d rather not wear episcopal purple and bishops who wear cope, chasuble, ring, and mitre.
These are all permissible within the expression of Christian piety and worship. And evangelical Christians confessionally uphold them, especially within the mass. For “we do not abolish the Mass but religiously retain and defend it. Among us the Mass is celebrated every Lord’s day and on other festivals, when the sacrament is made available to those who wish to partake of it, after they have been examined and absolved. We also keep traditional liturgical forms, such as the order of readings, prayers, vestments, and other similar things.” This all sounds very heady, and the main point could well have been lost by this juncture. To review: at discussion is the excitement about the Holy Father’s embrace of a less formal and less traditional pontifical style and its relationship to the gospel of Jesus Christ. What becomes tricky here for the Roman Catholic Church, and the wider church by extension,* is to maintain its sense of continuity with the past and its claim to authority in the presence.
Throughout history, the Roman Catholic Church has placed a high premium on the role of tradition to link its current reality with the past reality. By doing so, its authority has been cemented in place. To throw out one of the primarily pillars supporting this edifice, however, could have perilous side effects. If a church who bases its witness, its authority, and its credibility on that which has been handed down from generation to generation, all of a sudden strips that tradition bare, on the grounds that it’s not necessary for and gets the way of the proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ, what does that say about the past and the authority of the church in the past? What does that say about the teachings of the church, not merely regarding arcane issues such as the vestments but also such fundamental matters such as the creeds, which themselves are traditional in the strictest sense? Were they misguided, founded on unimportant matters? What about today? Is the church today simply indulging an aberration? Is the church today in continuity with the past? If not, which one are the faithful to look to? Against what do we judge and test, as the evangelist exhorts us to do? Can both expressions be in agreement with the gospel of Jesus Christ? To pick away haphazardly at one corner of a foundation could lead to the collapse of the entire structure.
In the end, the question about vestments and tradition is one of undifferentiation—especially for evangelical Christians who believe the church is a unified body made manifest through the preaching of the gospel and the administration of the sacraments. As such, “we also believe, teach, and confess that no church should condemn another because the one has fewer or more external ceremonies not commanded by God than the other has, when otherwise there is unity with the other in teaching and all the articles of faith and in the proper use of the holy sacraments, according to the well-known saying, “Dissonantia ieiunii non dissolvit consonantiam fidei”—“Dissimilarity in fasting is not to disrupt unity in faith.” It is my fervent prayer for the wellbeing of the Roman Catholic Church and His Holiness, Pope Francis, that in all they do, they might serve the great and glorious gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ—who didn't come “into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” I pray all faithful Christians, Roman Catholic and all others, earnestly join me in this.
-DS
*The reality of Christendom is that, though many of the world’s Christians don’t count themselves among the Roman Catholic family, what happens in Rome has universal churchly implications. Protestants may delude themselves into believing that what happens in Rome stays in Rome, but that simply is not the case. One need only look at the fall from grace experienced by all clergy, regardless of tradition, in light of the recent pedophile scandals to know that isn’t the case.
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