The Pope and The Parable of the Prodigal Son
Has the Pope saved the wretches of the Church?
Here is the new Pope, Francis, wearing his black shoes. The one who is carted around in a Ford rather than a Mercedes. The man who is changing the Catholic church.
It is December Twenty-Fifth, better known in religious and consumer circles as Christmas. Francis stands on the center balcony at St. Peter’s Basilica, a four-century old architectural ode to opulence with architects like Michaelangelo and Bernini.
He begins his Christmas message with a passage from the Gospel of Luke, then wishes us all a “Happy Christmas.” There is standard worship of god in the middle, wherein he hopes that “everyone will come to know the true face of god.”
But it seems his main missive in his first message was a plea for Peace:
“True peace is not a balance of opposing forces. It is not a lovely “façade” which conceals conflicts and divisions. Peace calls for daily commitment, starting from God’s gift, from the grace which he has given us in Jesus Christ.”
He goes on to ask for peace in Syria, the Central African Republic, Nigeria, and in the Middle East between the Israelis and Palestinians. This is what we’ve come to expect from this new Pope; new meaning both that he has only been here for nine months, but also that he is in message starkly contrasted from the previous Pope.
This quote is from the official English transcript of his message, but the new Pope has a way of speaking from the heart, not the teleprompter. Is there anything else he said about peace?
“I invite even nonbelievers to desire peace,” he said. “Let us all unite, either with prayer or with desire, but everyone, for peace.”
This quote, which comes from the Times, showing sympathy for Atheists is “rare for a Catholic leader.”
It is also completely ridiculous.
The Gospel of Luke, which Francis started his message with, also includes one of the most famous Christian parables: the Prodigal Son. For those that don’t know the story, A father of two gives his share of inheritance before he dies to the younger son. After squandering his money, the younger son returns famished and desolate. The father, naturally, wishes to celebrates his younger child’s return, but the older brother will not have it. “I have done everything right,” the older brother thinks, “why should he be celebrated?” The father assures his older son that he will have the farm when he dies, but for now, all that matters is that the younger brother is not dead.
Personally, I find this is one of the most perplexing parables in the Bible. Are we supposed to be angry at the Older brother for being mad? Or should we all sow our wild oats, and return hungry to our family homes after we can’t find jobs in the field (we call this college now, I suppose)?
You can’t pin it down, mutability being one of the virtues of Jesus’ parables. And for that reason you can attach many different meanings to it. In James Carroll’s recent profile of Francis he quotes David Carrasco, the Harvard historian of religion making a comparison between the Pope and the Parable:
“What came to me was the prodigal-son story, only here it’s the prodigal father! It’s not the prodigal son who’s gone out and is returning. It’s the prodigal father—the father of the Church who seemed to have gone away.”
After years of orthodoxy, I can understand how this Pope is a breath of fresh air. I myself was raised Catholic, never confirmed, but I still hold a keen eye on my former Church in a way that I don’t for other denominations. Even I can admit that I hold some sympathy for Francis, as a Catholic, but this isn’t my reading of the Prodigal Son for this Pope.
If you were to ask me, I’d say that the Pope is the Prodigal Son. And not just this Pope, but all Popes. The Catholic Church is the Prodigal Son. For two-thousand years, the Catholic Church has taken the money and morally bankrupted themselves.
Whether or not Jesus is the son of god, something I don’t believe, most of his sayings are applicable teachings that many people could use. My personal favorite is “let he who is free from sin cast the first stone.”
Now would be a good time to list some of the abuses of the Catholic Church for the last two-thousand years. We certainly couldn’t get to all of them. There’s the Crusades, the Inquisition, the murder of women and homosexuals, the later suppression of women and homosexuals when they couldn’t get away with murder, the suppression of legitimate science, the support of slavery, the idiotic banning of birth control in the face of the AIDS epidemic, and the Child Rapes and Molestation that has been the face of the Catholic Church for the last two decades.
The Catholic Church has sown their wild oats to say the least, but this is also the group that told its followers that they were going to hell if they ate meat on Fridays. Even Jesus would never forgive what they did.
What we find then is Francis as the Prodigal Son attempting his return. He hasn’t even made it back yet. Again quoting Carroll’s Profile:
“Since becoming Pope, Francis has hardly mentioned the abuse crisis. He has not met with victims, and, though continuing Benedict’s espoused “zero tolerance” of sexual abuse itself, he has yet to adjust Vatican policies governing the responsibilities of bishops.”
And while I admire his work with the poor, the Church is far from innocent in institutionalized Child Rape abuses and cover-ups. When he admits that the Church has sinned and when he takes real action on those sins, then we should let him and the Church back from its two-thousand year journey away from the teachings of Christ.
This leaves the Older Brother and Father left in the Parable.
As you might imagine, we are all the Father, ready to forgive even at the slightest hint of reformation, without any real proof. Who knows what Francis will do with his newfound celebrity, and who knows if this is all just a performance to take a spotlight away from the abuses of the Church. But there we are, microphones in hand, ready to eat up every word.
And as for the older brother, well, they are the humanists; mostly nonbelievers, but it’s not inclusive; some believers fight on the side of human rights. Because despite the fact that I personally like this Pope, I was insulted: we have been asking the church and its people to join us in peace, to join us in human rights, rights for women, for homosexual and transgender people, for an end to unjust war, for many, many, many years.
Don’t deign to ask humanists to join you, when all along you should have been joining us. Because Peace is not easy, it is hard work, like the Older Brother toiling away in the field. You have to be ready not to bemoan the place of the poor, but to condemn the man who put him there. You have to reveal not the word, but the man who committed crimes against it.
Francis has to be ready to accept that Peace doesn’t start with god, it starts right here on Earth, with Humans. After that, no one cares whose name you do it in, as long as you do the work.
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