Refining Father

Jorge Bergoglio became Pope Francis just two years into my Catholic commitment. This began a deeply personal, disruptive, and transformative relationship with him. In what I loved and didn’t about his leadership, this son of the Church became a better one through Francis.

 His roots were closer to mine than a Euro-crat pope. Francis was American! (He would hate that.) The South and North of America are culturally closer than Rome is to Los Angeles or New York City. The Americas unite in populism, dethroning royalty, and championing the little guy. Francis was all about that. He chose the poor; where they were, he was. I love that about him and Francis exposed my love of ease: the buffers and multiple options of privilege.

I also knew something of his Argentine roots, as I cut my teeth in Spanish-speaking ministry there. Cordoba and Buenos Aires are familiar to me, as is Argentina’s unique Jesuit history of dissidence from Rome. I knew Francis would not be a good company guy.

And he wasn’t. Yeah, the stodgy Vatican needed shaking up but not brushing off. There’s a fine line between the two. Francis didn’t walk that line well. He provoked unnecessary ire from colleagues who may have been won over by a more gracious hand. Francis’ compassion for the material and moral poor didn’t extend far enough. Poor leaders needed Francis’ advocacy, not the pope writing them off as Pharisees for disagreeing on important things.   

Oh well. Can’t be good at everything. Funny. Francis was a lot like my dad. Tom Comiskey loved the poor and hated what he perceived to be pretense of all kinds. He invested in lives, not stocks, and was the first to decry petty moralizing. When I told him I was ‘gay’, he was the first to advocate for my rainbow dignity.

Love, yes, but love without a compass.  My dad was a thoughtful progressive who sadly didn’t distinguish one thing from another, morally speaking. He would have accompanied me to a ‘gay’ wedding but I knew better. I knew Jesus.

And I knew that following Him meant allowing Him to take me down to the end of myself. Deeper than sexual desire is the longing for God. Surrender to Jesus supersedes all else. In no other way does the Cross make sense. Christ Crucified asks us to die to every passion and every ‘self’ that raises itself above the Creator. And Resurrection—His, then ours—is the first day of the new creation.

This new creation took Francis’ leadership seriously. I winced early on at his legendary response to a question about a ‘gay’ priest: ‘Who I am to judge?’ as if to say, ‘Who knows?’ and “Who cares?’

I did. It’s my struggle and the struggle of thousands of Jesus-followers I represent. I discerned in his disarming comment the same spirit that divided the Protestant world: atone for heavy-handedness by dodging the question, then give a diffused answer later on about being kind to everyone, including the ‘gays.’

Could be worse, but such confusion dilutes real moral aspiration (chastity) to placating pastoral care for the LGBTQ+ set. 

I was used to this. I walked it out with my father all his days until the end of his life, when LGBTQ+ culture was running the show in California. He began to see that ‘diversity’ masked a fracture that could be healed. He saw that wholeness in me and in my friends. Mostly he delighted in it through my pretty good wife and kids and grandkids.

I wish I’d had access to Francis like I did my dad. I tried on several occasions to appeal to the pope and his compassion for the poor: Jesus meets us in our moral poverty and raises up whole-enough men and women empowered to lay aside childish things. Through the Church!

He never responded. I didn’t really expect him too. He had another view of ‘accompaniment’ if his high-fiving James Martin and New Ways Ministry is any indication.

But Francis doesn’t have the last word. Jesus does. His love changes everything, and whatever confusion and resistance I discovered from Francis made my conviction for robust chastity stronger, not in spite of the Church but through her.

I learned something else. Again. We become faithful sons and daughters of the Father as much by what we love about our fathers as by what we don’t. They refine us into radiant witnesses as we keep our eyes wholly fixed on Jesus.

Honor Pope Francis for giving his all, especially to the material poor. Honor Jesus by raising up Church foundations that no confusion can conceal.