News flash for progressives: Pope Francis is not one of you! He never has been. The same thing goes for conservatives. The man is just Catholic.
Don't get me wrong! This has been a different kind of pope, but he has not be all that different. What so many liberals and conservatives take to be a leftward shift of the church is really little more than a change in tone. Yes, the pope has advocated a more pastoral and measured approach to hot-button issues in general, but nothing he has said or done has indicated a break from church doctrine. When a reporter asked the new pope his thoughts about homosexual Christians, he responded with his now famous, "Who am I to judge?" Judging by their enthusiasm, I got the sense that some liberals took this statement as a sign that His Holiness he was about to throw wide the doors of the church's closet and break out the rainbow vestments. But he was not offering permission or absolution, only compassion. Only love.
Love is also why he talks so much about poverty and economic justice. As soon as I heard that then cardinal Bergloglio had selected Francis as his new "papal name," I said to myself, "Whoa!" I imagine some of the cardinals who had just voted for him had the same thought. That name was a way of saying, "There's a new sheriff in town!" St. Francis of Assisi is popularly known as a kind of Roman Catholic Snow White; surrounded as he is in paintings statues by happy little forrest creatures. But St. Francis was despised by many of his contemporaries in the church hierarchy; his way of life was a constant reminder of how little they loved -- of how selfish they had become. Francis sought to emulate the life of Jesus, who identified with the poor and was poor himself. He believed the church should do the same. But in a way, St. Francis was controversial only because he taught the church what it already believed but did not practice very well. None of what the St. Francis or Pope Francis has said contradicts the teaching of the church. It is only a different (and often unpopular) emphasis.
It can be easy to reduce the pope to purely political categories. This pope is Latin American. Liberation theology, which was heavily influenced by the thought of Marx, had its origins in Latin America. Thus conservatives and liberals alike might be inclined to brand Francis a Marxist. Yet he remains only a traditional Catholic. Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict both preached about the need for a just economy, measured growth, and compassion and justice for the poor. That is traditional Catholic social teaching. Francis preaches nothing different; he just preaches it more.
Why then are so many shocked that he would have a private meeting with Kim Davis? (See what I wrote recently about Kim Davis.) His teachings on marriage and abortion are just as traditional as his predecessors'. He has not betrayed a closeted liberalism. This was a private meeting with a woman who had become a controversial figure in an important nation he was visiting. He might have supported her actions; he might not have. At any rate, his visit does not suggest anything different from what he has said openly. The pope opposes gay marriage.
(Might I also gently point out that the pope can and probably does meet with people he does not always 100% agree with. You know? Just like you and I. A talk, especially a private one, is not necessarily an endorsement, and to say otherwise without all the facts is just rumor-mongering.)
No, the pope has not betrayed a closeted liberalism. He is not, as I saw one Twitter user suggest, spiritually bipolar. Like I said, he is just Catholic, and as a traditional Catholic, his spirituality runs counter to the way we Americans tend to be religious, namely by being political. Of course the gospel is political, but the politics of the gospel cut sideways across our narrow concepts of "left" and "right." For instance, Catholicism stresses the sanctity of human life. Thus the Catholic Church opposes abortion, a conservative issue, and it opposes the death penalty, a liberal issue. The pope can irritate both sides of the political spectrum in roughly equal measures.
The pope is not a polarizing figure. The problem is that we are already so polarized. Perhaps so many find Pope Francis so unsettling because he stands as a kind of living icon of the way our faith is supposed to operate in relation to our politics. We tend to try to shove our faith into narrow and almost Manichaean political categories. But Pope Francis seems to transcend them. Indeed, I would say most Christian teaching does. The politics of the gospel lean left in some ways, right in others. Francis reminds us of that, and our narrow and bifurcated minds cannot stand it. Most of us tend to shape our faith in ways that conform to our political presuppositions. That is just the way we are. But the pope is someone who seems well practiced at getting it the other way around -- of letting his faith shape his politics. That may seem backwards to many of us, whether we admit it or not, but that is probably the way it should be.