To the Editor:
Pope Francis has not been "updating the Church's views on key social issues," as Lorelei Yang would have us believe (A Progressive Papacy, Sept. 24). Despite secular rhetoric to the contrary, the pontiff's recent statements on homosexuality and other controversial social issues simply reiterate basic Catholic teaching on these matters. Sorry to disappoint.
If, as Yang irresponsibly claimed, Pope Francis had offered "a blunt rebuke of the Church's previous stance on homosexuality," he could not have also insisted "the teaching of the Church, for that matter, is clear." Similarly, the pope's most recent comments on abortion, delivered last Friday to a group of Catholic gynecologists, leave no room for interpretation: "Every child that isn't born, but is unjustly condemned to be aborted, has the face of Jesus Christ, has the face of the Lord There is no human life more sacred than another, just as no human life is qualitatively more significant than another."
Yang's article reflects what has become a disturbing journalistic trend: an almost willful misunderstanding of the papacy and the development of Church doctrine. While the pope's remarks represent a slight tonal shift, he is in no position to contradict truths supposedly revealed by God. On fundamental matters of faith and morals, the Church will not, indeed cannot, change. Pope Francis is not some fickle politician catering to the will of the masses, and he is largely unconcerned with "bringing the Church's policies in line with the views of a greater proportion of its membership." Instead, he protects the unvarying tradition that has been entrusted to him by communicating it in a new and refreshing way.
