You go, pontiff!
Timothy Cardinal Dolan on Friday cheered Pope Francis’ declaration that the church has become “obsessed” with abortion, homosexuality and contraception.
“He wants to shake us up. He’s daring. he’s fresh, he’s innovative,” Dolan told “CBS This Morning.” “And every day I think, ‘Thank God he was elected.’ This man is batting a thousand.”
Francis, elected pope six months ago, warned, “The church has sometimes locked itself up in small-minded rules.”
Dolan, head of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, said Francis’ change in tenor was welcome and necessary.
“Every pope has a different strategy,” Dolan said. “What I think he is saying is: Those are important issues and the church has got to keep talking about them but, we need to talk about them in a fresh new way.”
“If we keep a kind of negative, finger-waving tone, it’s counterproductive,” he said.
“At times, the Church gets listless, and we need a good shock,” Dolan said. “Shock waves is a good word” to describe his comment, he added.
Bishop Thomas Tobin, of Providence, RI, said last week that he was “a little bit disappointed” that Francis had yet to speak out about “the evil of abortion.”
On Friday, he hailed the pontiff’s comments, which appeared in a 30-page interview in an Italian Jesuit journal.
“Being a Catholic doesn’t mean having to choose between doctrine and charity, between truth and love. It includes both,” he said. “We are grateful to Pope Francis for reminding us of that vision.”
Francis’ comments were a sharp break from his predecessor, Pope Benedict, who stepped down in February.
Francis’ declaration that “the people of God want pastors, not clergy acting like bureaucrats or government officials,” also resonated among the Catholic leadership.
“I particularly welcome his reminder that the clergy are primarily to serve as shepherds, to be with our people, to walk with them, to be pastors, not bureaucrats,” Dolan said.
“We bishops, we priests, we lay leaders of the church, we’ve got an opportunity now to help him clarify and present, in a fresh and vigorous way, the teaching of the church because, all of a sudden, everybody’s interested,” the head of the New York Archdiocese told NBC News.
“This man, Pope Francis, has given the church a front-burner position in the life of the of the world that we know.”
The pope offered an olive branch to more conservative Catholics on Friday by urging an audience of Catholic gynecologists to respect life and refuse to perform abortions.
“Things have a price and can be for sale, but people have a dignity and worth far more than things,” he said.
“It seems to be culture and society,” he said. The pope “says instead of talking about these . . . issues, why don’t we talk about tenderness and love?”
Dolan said it’s not just the Catholic hierarchy that has been focused on controversial issues such as homosexuality.