How far can a pope go? Francis is a change agent rivaled by few other figures in power today. Does a reform-driven pope have the power to change doctrine?

[...]the advancing story line of Francis's papacy is this: how far can a pope go in making reforms against an embedded culture of cardinals and bishops, averse to change? "Gay clergy many times feel that their gifts as ministers flow from the experience of a homosexual orientation," i...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inGlobalPost
Main Author Berry, Jason
Format Web Resource
LanguageEnglish
Published Boston Public Radio International (PRI) 11.12.2014
Subjects
Birth control
Catholicism
Gays & lesbians
Same sex marriage
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Summary:[...]the advancing story line of Francis's papacy is this: how far can a pope go in making reforms against an embedded culture of cardinals and bishops, averse to change? "Gay clergy many times feel that their gifts as ministers flow from the experience of a homosexual orientation," is how Father Robert Nugent explained his advocacy for gay Catholics, when I first interviewed him in 1987. How pleased he would have been at seeing his key metaphor - "gifts" -echoed in the Oct. 13 draft report by the Vatican Synod on the Family: "Homosexuals have gifts and qualities to offer the Christian community: are we capable of welcoming these people, guaranteeing to them a further space in our communities?" Media scrutiny of the initial report authored by Archbishop Bruno Forte seized on Francis' famous remark on gays, "Who am I to judge?" Nugent would not have been surprised to see Forte's draft catalyze hard-line conservative bishops: A revised draft, translated from Italian to English, watered domwn "welcoming" to "providing for."