Pope Francis said there is a “very strong, organized, reactionary attitude” in the U.S. Catholic church, that is “backwards” and has led the church to replace faith with “ideology,” according to a new transcript of the comments released Monday.
The remarks came during a private meeting with Portuguese members of his Jesuit religious order during a visit to Lisbon on August 5, per a transcript of the meeting published by the Jesuit journal La Civilta Cattolica.
A Portuguese Jesuit told Francis that he struggled during a recent sabbatical year in the U.S. after coming across many Catholics, including bishops, who were critical of Francis’s papacy and today’s Jesuits, at which point Francis commented on the “backward” reactionary attitude in the U.S. church.
“Doing this, you lose the true tradition and you turn to ideologies to have support. In other words, ideologies replace faith,” he said.
“The vision of the doctrine of the church as a monolith is wrong,” he added. “When you go backward, you make something closed off, disconnected from the roots of the church.”
“I want to remind these people that backwardness is useless, and they must understand that there’s a correct evolution in the understanding of questions of faith and morals,” he said.
Francis has drawn criticism for his stance on a number of issues, including his calls for gun control and his opposition to the death penalty. He’s come under fire for his emphasis on social justice issues and for his support for the creation of civil union laws for same-sex couples.
“Homosexuals have a right to be part of the family,” he said in Francesco, a 2020 documentary about his life. “They’re children of God and have a right to a family. Nobody should be thrown out, or be made miserable because of it.”
However, Francis’ comments were in reference to civil unions and did not condone those unions within the church.
Francis has responded to previous criticism by saying it is an “honor” to be attacked by Americans.