If I Weren't Mormon, I'd Probably Be Catholic

I have more than one friend who has said, “If I weren’t Mormon, I’d probably be Catholic.” They have their reasons, and now I have one, too: Pope Francis. The more I hear about him and from him, the more I just like him. I think I’m starting to understand how my dear Muslim friend (and former roommate) felt about President Hinckley.

Last week an interview Pope Francis gave was making the social media rounds. At least, excerpts were. The highlights are interesting, but read the full thing if you can. It's long, but it’s worth the time. The sensational headlines talked about how he said the church should stop focusing so much on things like abortion and birth control and homosexuality. Headline-worthy for sure. Except that’s not quite what he said. This is what he said on the subject:

The church sometimes has locked itself up in small things, in small-minded rules. The most important thing is the first proclamation: Jesus Christ has saved you. . . .The church’s pastoral ministry cannot be obsessed with the transmission of a disjointed multitude of doctrines to be imposed insistently. . . . The proclamation of the saving love of God comes before moral and religious imperatives. . . . The message of the Gospel, therefore, is not to be reduced to some aspects that, although relevant, on their own do not show the heart of the message of Jesus Christ.

He’s not saying these traditions are unimportant, only that they are secondary. They come after.  He calls them relevant, but they are not the core, not the heart of the message of Christ. Reducing the Catholic faith to these “imperatives” is much like someone saying, “Yeah, I know what Mormonism is all about. They don’t smoke or drink, right?” Yes, that’s true, but there’s oh so much more to my faith than that. The Word of Wisdom is a valid and useful commandment – but it can not even compare to my testimony of Christ, the atonement, the good news of the gospel. “The saving love of God” is the message that must come first.

I learned a few other things in reading the full interview. First, and least importantly, I learned I’m not very well versed in Cathlolic-ness. This interview was intended to be published in a Jesuit journal; he is very much speaking to insiders – and I am not one.  And that’s ok.  The ideas are mostly familiar and generally understandable, even if the exact references are not. I would expect Pope Francis himself to be equally at a loss if I were to reference Talmage or J. Golden Kimball; or mention Elder Bednar’s tender mercies; or allude to the allegory of the olive tree in Jacob or the way Alma talks about faith.

Second, he uses the phrase “blessed Imelda” – which the translation clarifies to mean “a goody goody.” And I thought, “Hey! The Catholics have an idiom like Molly Mormon!” Love it!

But the most important thing I gleaned from reading his words (well, his words translated into English) is how very much we have in common. In fact, at church on Sunday I was struck by the fact that so many of his words would have been a perfect contribution to our Relief Society discussion on missionary work or to our Sunday school lesson about rescue.  Gems like these:

This church . . . is the home of all, not a small chapel that can hold only a small group of selected people. 

The thing the church needs most today is the ability to heal wounds and to warm the hearts of the faithful. 

I see the church as a field hospital after battle. It is useless to ask a seriously injured person if he has high cholesterol and about the level of his blood sugars! You have to heal his wounds. Then we can talk about everything else. 

The confessional is not a torture chamber, but the place in which the Lord’s mercy motivates us to do better. 

Yes, in this quest to seek and find God in all things there is still an area of uncertainty. There must be. . . . You must leave room for the Lord, not for our certainties; we must be humble. 

I have a dogmatic certainty: God is in every person’s life. God is in everyone’s life. . . . Although the life of a person is a land full of thorns and weeds, there is always a space in which the good seed can grow. You have to trust God.

See? And that’s less than half of the really good stuff from the interview. He also speaks about needing community and the importance of meaningful consultation and discussion. He touches on the holiness of the everyday – of raising children, of supporting a family, of ministering. He talks of looking for God in the world of today, rather than longing for less “barbaric” times, and of letting God come to you. He speaks of love and sin and repentance and grace and memory and covenants and rescue and understanding and faith. In fact, much of what I hear him say closely echoes my own belief, my own faith, and the words I hear from my own ecclesiastical leaders.

I love realizing just how much he and I have in common. It just proves to me that our faiths are, indeed, theological cousins – or better still, theological siblings! After all, we are all children of the same God. And I'm glad to call Pope Francis my brother.

Pope Francis