In case you came away from the media’s coverage of Pope Francis’s lengthy interview concluding that the Catholic Church was about to become pro-choice, check out the Holy Father’s comments this morning: “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.”
This isn’t surprising stuff, unless you misinterpreted his comments published Thursday.
Here’s the relevant portion of the interview: “The church’s pastoral ministry cannot be obsessed with the transmission of a disjointed multitude of doctrines to be imposed insistently. Proclamation in a missionary style focuses on the essentials, on the necessary things.”
Key words: “a disjointed multitude of doctrines.” That is, Pope Francis wants to join that multitude of doctrines into unity. The rules of the Catholic Church aren’t like random government statutes handed out in separate floor votes — they all grow out of central teachings and revelations on divine love.
Catholic scholar Stephen White of the Ethics & Public Policy Center put it well in the Washington Post:
