Pope Francis’s image of the Church as a “field hospital,” tending the wounded on today’s social and cultural battlefields, resonates with Catholics across the globe. The image evokes a Church living the Lord’s command in Matthew 25 to serve the least of his brethren, and examples of that abound.
The Church tends to the wounds of those abandoned on the Verduns and Iwo Jimas of the sexual revolution. That’s what Catholics do when they staff and financially support crisis pregnancy centers, whose primary clients are suffering women abandoned by irresponsible men. Project Rachel, a parish-based program that serves women and men suffering from post-abortion trauma, is a wonderful example of the Church as field hospital.
The Church tends to the wounds of those struggling to make it in a rapidly changing economy, offering both material assistance and training in the skills that will empower those left behind to enter the networks of production and exchange where wealth is created and distributed.
The Church tends to the wounds of those addicted to the poisons of the day — opioids and other drugs, cheap booze and cheaper online sex — and helps them discover the path to genuine freedom.
And of course, the Church tends the deepest wounds of our brothers and sisters by offering them the healing medicine of the Gospel and friendship with the Lord Jesus Christ, the Divine Physician.
Cautions have been raised about the field hospital image because, misused, it can suggest that the Church merely binds wounds rather than offering a cure for what caused those wounds in the first place. Those cautions were not misplaced.
Now, however, an even more serious danger has arisen. Thanks to the use — some would say, “hijacking” — of the worldwide “synodal process” to advance agendas incongruent with Catholic faith and practice, the pastoral challenge of grounding synodality in truth has morphed into a genuine threat to the Church’s unity and the proclamation of the Gospel in full.
Or to adopt an image from a friend: The Catholic Church today is a field hospital and some of the triage doctors, rather than curing the wounded, are insisting that the hospital no longer tell people that landmines will kill you.
The imagery shouldn’t need much unpacking.
The triage doctors are the bishops, who have taken a solemn oath to teach what is spiritually life-giving and lead their people away from what is spiritually death-dealing, truths known by revelation and reason. Yet some bishops have suggested that the Church is (and has been) teaching falsely about human love, sexual identity, the dispositions necessary to receive holy communion worthily, or the imperative of being a eucharistically coherent Church — a Church of sinners who seek absolution from grave sin before receiving the body and blood of the Lord. And that is analogous to triage doctors in a military field hospital neglecting the wounded while debating whether blithely stepping on a landmine, exposing yourself recklessly to incoming fire, or refusing protective gear in combat are bad for you.
The AWOL triage doctors in the Catholic field hospital have done a service, though. For they have demonstrated that the bottom-line issue in the Church today is the reality of divine revelation and its binding authority over time. Has God revealed truths about what makes for righteous living, happiness, and, ultimately, beatitude? If so, do those truths bind us today as they did when they were first revealed and recorded in Scripture or the Tradition of the Church? When Cardinal Mario Grech, general secretary of the Synod of Bishops, said last September that he envisions a “different Church” emerging from the global synodal process, just what did he mean?
How different? A Church that is comfortable with a unitarian idea of God? A Church with five sacraments instead of seven? Exaggerations, you say? Alright, how about a Church that rejects the biblical idea of the human person? If doctrinal and moral truths affirmed as such in the Catechism of the Catholic Church are open to debate and “synodal discernment” (as suggested with admirable candor, if not theological acumen, by Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, SJ, Synod-2023’s Relator General, and Cardinal Robert McElroy of San Diego), where does the ratchet of “discernment” stop? How does it stop? And why do the proposals emanating from that “discernment” uniformly parallel the failed Catholic Lite agenda of the past 50 years?
Some bishops, including the great majority of the German episcopate, may wish to be triage doctors debating the lethality of landmines. The living parts of the world Church think that a grave abdication of a healer’s responsibility to the wounded.
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Bishops and company have been slowly abandoning God for centuries….it’s very evident to the world that God has abandoned them.
Well put. Can’t put the cart before the horse. Leaders don’t follow. Teachers don’t let the pupils do the teaching.
St. John Paul II truly defined the poor inclusively!
He wrote: “This [preferential option for the poor] is not limited to material poverty, since it is well known that there are many other forms of poverty, especially in modern society – not only economic, but cultural and spiritual poverty as well” (CA n. 57; see CCC 1807).
And, to inoculate against quackery in the field hospital, he spelled things out: “…the Church’s Pastors have the duty to act in conformity with their apostolic mission, insisting that THE RIGHT OF THE FAITHFUL [italics] to receive Catholic doctrine in its purity and integrity must always be respected” (Veritatis Splendor, n. 113).
Butt now, the infection transmitted by Batzing, Grech, Hollerich, McElroy & Co!
I agree that the Pope’s image of the Church as a field hospital resonates well with the Gospel. But Francis also started his Papacy by saying “let’s make a mess.” Unfortunately he continues to succeed in doing that to his own version of a field hospital, such as by telling priests they must absolve penitents who show no resolve to stop committing the sin for which they seek absolution, which doesn’t resonate well with the Gospel (see Matthew 8,20; John 8,11).
While serving with the Army in Vietnam, I was treated in a field hospital. Fortunately for me, the medical professionals there hadn’t gone AWOL.
Which ever side a Catholic is on in this jeremiad of Weigel, its good to be reminded of one’s own operating ecclesiology (theological vision and understanding of what the Church’s nature and mission is). Tell me what the Church is and I’ll tell you what kind of Catholic you are. By pointing out the working ecclesiology of Pope Francis as mainly that of a “field hospital” Church, Weigel does not mention his own operating ecclesiology, and so I supply it here. Weigel’s theology of the Church is that is of the opposing “fortress” or as some would say, the “country club” Church. By having the “fortress” ecclesiology, Weigel displays the warrior mindset of a Church in constant battle with the wider world’s culture and society viewed as often contradicting its teaching and threatening its existence. Its stance with the world is to close in by walling itself and clearly demarcating who’s in and who’s out whether in doctrine or practice. As in this article, Weigel laments the lack of and wants doctrinal clarity to determine who’s properly initiated and worthy of exclusive membership in this “country club.” The Church here is understood to be the remnant and exclusive few in the midst of the multitudes of the unchurched and the nonchurched judged to be the unsaved. Contrary to the judgmentalism of the “fortress” or “country club” Church, Pope Francis’s “field hospital” Church’s approach to the world is one not of a warrior but of a caregiver, so in this spirit it is not judgment but openness, inclusivity, dialogue (all elements of synodality) is the way of relating with the world recognizing that there is so much evil of woundedness in the world that need healing by the God of health and healing. The members of the Body of the Christ do not build walls around them but instead go to the frontlines of the battlefields of the world and look and care for the wounded without discrimination. When entering the church, sinners are glowingly greeted differently in these two opposing ecclesiologies. In the “fortress” or “country club” Church, sinners upon entering the Church are told: “repent.” In the “field hospital” Church, sinners are greeted: “welcome.”
Sigh. Your comment is either disingenuous or clueless. I could give you any number of quotes from Weigel’s writings about Weigel’s actual ecclesiology, but here’s just one:
Weigel’s ecclesiology is most certainly (for those of us who actually read his books) very rooted in the Communio, or ressourcement, theology of Ratzinger, von Balthasar, de Lubac, and Danielou, all of whom were very critical of the highly defensive, fortress (bastion!) approach that prevailed in the 1800s and into the 1900s.
“In the ‘fortress’ or ‘country club’ Church, sinners upon entering the Church are told: ‘repent.’ In the ‘field hospital’ Church, sinners are greeted: ‘welcome.'”
Lord have mercy. This is embarrassing. I guess your Bible has Jesus announcing his public ministry by proclaiming “Welcome, the faith community is all around you,” rather than “Repent! The Kingdom of God is at hand!” In fact, Christ and His Church both welcome and exhort, embrace and challenge, call and urge conversion. Why? Because, yes, all are welcome and all are sinners, thus all of us need to repent. This is Catholicism 101.
Thus, the Catechism (do check it out sometime) states:
An excellent precis of Catholic ecclesiology from recent past to present. Should be read by all.
Positing a conflict between God’s “radically inclusive” love and the “judgementalism” of traditional Catholic teaching is a malicious deception.
It’s a diabolically false dichotomy.
Of course, God’s love for humanity — both collectively and individually — is infinite.
But it is precisely because of that fact that God does not accept sin, encouraging us to love one another instead of sinning.
Sin is unacceptable; it causes pain, suffering, disorder and death. If God did not let us know what specific actions were sinful, He would be a cruel Father, not a loving one.
Loving others, which He encourages us to do, invariably leads to a joyful, fulfilled, meaningful life.
Not an easy life, necessarily, but a wonderful life.
Suicide has been on the increase in America for years. The people who commit suicide are, for the most part, mired in sin to the point that they have lost hope.
The McElroys and Hollerichs who prattle on about “radical inclusiveness” — i.e., the acceptance of sinful acts as natural and acceptable — are shilling for the ratfaced evil one. They’re lining up future suicides on its behalf.
Their church would be aligned with evil — with pain, with suffering, with disorder and death.
These ministers of evil need to be called out at every opportunity.
Sinners are not excluded from the Church — never have been.
But sin most definitely is.
“Thus, the Council had many theological and doctrinal accomplishments to its credit.”
When did you begin accepting the Weigelism that premises prove themselves? And on what basis must we assume that “we’re all agreed” on those premises? Liturgy more accessible? Granted the most egregious of liturgical abuses are not frequent, but I could have done quite well without the episodes I lived of having stumbled on several of the most blasphemous examples that caused me, literally, physical illness. Neither do I assume that “unity” with each of the 38 thousand denominations of “Christianity” is automatically a good thing, short of massive conversions.
And I have read all of weigel’s books until the last 3 that have become boringly repetitious.
True! But I think our bishops adjust to the direction of the wind for smooth sailing. Most bishops during the papacies of St. John Paul II and Benedict XVI operated as if they were the elite of the “country club” and wore and were proudly displaying their expensive gemstone studded pectoral crosses. In today’s “field hospital” under Pope Francis these bishops hide their jewelry crosses for use again in the next papacy and are currently wearing only plain metal pectoral crosses.
Jesus Himself tells us where to go to be healed of what wounds us, and that is in the ‘field hospital’ of Jesus ‘Tribunal of Mercy’, Sacrament of Reconciliation, Divine Mercy. The ‘field hospital’ doctor is Jesus’ ‘Representative’, who is a Catholic Priest.
Jesus also tells us how to not get killed on the battlefield, “Repent! For the Kingdom of God is at hand.”
Divine Mercy in My Soul, 1448
Tell souls where they are to look for solace; that is, in the Tribunal of Mercy (the Sacrament of Reconciliation). There the greatest miracles take place (and) incessantly repeated. To avail oneself of this miracle, it is not necessary to go on a great pilgrimage or to carry out some external ceremony; it suffices to come with faith to the feet of My representative and to reveal to him one’s misery, and the miracle of Divine Mercy will be fully demonstrated. Were a soul like a decaying corpse so that from a human standpoint, there would be no (hope of) restoration and everything would already be lost, it is not so with God. The miracle of Divine Mercy restores that soul in full. Oh, how miserable are those who do not take advantage of the miracle of God’s mercy! You will call out in vain, but it will be too late.
Matthew 11:20 Reproaches to Unrepentant Towns.
Then he began to reproach the towns where most of his mighty deeds had been done, since they had not repented. “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty deeds done in your midst had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would long ago have repented in sackcloth and ashes. But I tell you, it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you. And as for you, Capernaum: ‘Will you be exalted to heaven? You will go down to the netherworld.’ For if the mighty deeds done in your midst had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I tell you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom on the day of judgment than for you.”
John 12:47
“If anyone hears my words and does not keep them, I am not the one to condemn him, for I did not come to condemn the world but to save it. Whoever rejects me and does not accept my words already has his judge, namely, the word I have spoken – it is that which will condemn him on the last day. For I have not spoken on my own; no, the Father who sent me has commanded me what to say and how to speak. Since I know that his commandment means eternal life, whatever I say is spoken just as he instructed me.”
Revelation 22:12
“Remember, I am coming soon! I bring with me the reward that will be given to each man as his conduct deserves. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End! Happy are they who wash their robes so as to have free access to the tree of life and enter the city through its gates Outside are the dogs and sorcerers, the fornicators and murderers, the idol-worshipers and all who love falsehood.”
Women priests and blessings for same-sex couples are the fruit of the Spirit-led Second Vatican Council.
If one disagrees, one is out of communion with VII.
There is no salvation outside of VII.
If someone had written this in parody, he would be accused of wildly exaggerating the errors of post-truth modernism in the Church. However, by making your point in all earnestness, you have perfectly demonstrated the lunacy into which the Church has fallen since Vatican II. Hey, wait a minute… you ARE writing this tongue in cheek, n’est-ce pas? Mea culpa.
Garry L. — Please cite the passages in the Vatican II documents that advocate in favor of women priests and homosexuality.
You can’t, because they’re not there.
I warn you, in all seriousness, not to bear false witness against, as you yourself testified, the work of the Holy Spirit.
I challenge you to read the council’s documents. If you do, you will find them inspiring, beautiful and true.
Funny to place Weigel in the camp of Ratzinger and ressourcement theologians. Weigel has no clear theological loyalty except those in line with his commitment to liberal capitalism like his misleading and dishonest interpretive presentation of St. Pope John Paul II as an apostle of unbridled market capitalism, misreprenting the saint pope in his encyclical Centesimus Annus as having endorsed his neoconservative ideology. Worse of all was Weigel’s mockery of Benedict XVI as having no full mental faculty in writing the encyclical Caritas in Veritate saying it was half written by Vatican social justice advocates. He was unhappy with this as it contradicted the narrative Weigel has long presented to the American public about Catholic Social Teaching as endorsing his brand of liberal market ideology. So Weigel suggested a hermeneutic of distinguishing what was actually written by the Pope and what was not by color coding them into gold and red! Anyway, regarding Communion ecclesiology, after Vatican II until 1985 the accepted understanding was that the Council’s primary understanding of the Church was that of the “People of God.” Lumen Gentium, after reflecting on the “Mystery of the Church” that unites the Triune God and the people in chapter one, the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church in chapter two declared that the “People of God” best describes what the Church is highlighting the Church’s shift of understanding itself from being a “Perfect Society” or “Fortess” Church (rightly noted by Weigel in his latest book about Vatican II citing Balthasar’s little classic) while retrieving (ressourcement) the long lost biblical teaching that all the baptized constitute the Church and are all equally (not just the hierarchy) co-responsible for its life and mission. Yves Congar called this shift as one from hierarchology to ecclesiology. Cardinal Ratzinger, although having written his doctoral dissertation on the “People of God,” beginning in the late seventies became unhappy with this ecclesiological development and in a way wanted to restore hierarchology. He expressed this in a series of interviews that was published as The Ratzinger Report in the mid-eighties. This book as intended succeeded in influencing the participants of the 1985 Extraordinary Synod of Bishops by the gravitas of his being not just any theologian but as Prefect of the Doctrine of Faith. The deliberations and Final Report of the Synod totally denigrated the “People of God” ecclesiology and from then on “Communion” ecclesiology was taken to be the central and fundamental idea of Vatican II’s teachings. Upon closer examination, “Communion” ecclesiology is basically hierarchological as it emphasizes the spiritual hierarchy of relations euphemized as “Communion” from top to bottom: from the Trinitarian God to the hierarchy and down to the laity. With the papacy of Pope Francis, the “People of God” ecclesiology is once again emphasized and given its right place and applied and lived out in the “Field Hospital” ecclesiology.
You commit a lot of sociology in your understanding of ecclesiology, which describes perfectly what went wrong with VII, not merely its aftermath but in its conception and in the conceits of its documents.
The Church cannot be engineered nor can there be changes of “emphasis” intended to satisfy any particular administrative vision of how we are to serve God for the simple fact that we are and always will be damaged by our sins. The human condition is imperfectible and so is the Church. The problem with VII is that it unleashed vanities leading to expectations of what a church could be if we ceased thinking of ourselves too much as sinful creatures, which we not only cannot do but we cannot help but make a corrupt Church by trying to alter the reality of what we are. The only authority that matters is the authority of truth because no truth at all is the product of mortal man. We create no new truth; all truth comes from God. We don’t even possess truth. Truth possesses us.
Francis can invoke a nice platitude like field hospital, perhaps the only non-offensive idea he ever generated, but such is self-evident to anyone who ever listened to the Sermon on the Mount. Pretending such things represent any sort of new vision has the reverse effect in preaching charity to the world, in effect saying, see how phony and dumb Catholics have been for two thousand years prior to now, so you don’t really have to take anything we say too seriously because we’re just making things up as we go along and have no claims that are the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
Incidentally, a free market is not an ideology. Believing it is anything but innately human is tyrannically amoral.
Edward J Baker: I invite you to read and study the actual documents of Vatican II which are now easily accessible online. Doing so, your preconceived idea of the Council as merely sociological or of human engineering will vanish. One of the conciliar inspirations is St. John Henry Newman who reflected on the reality of the development of doctrine. The Council fathers took this idea of development to mean not as the introduction of new doctrines but as the deepening of understanding of traditional doctrine such that it can be then stated in a new fresh way. As Pope Benedict XVI taught, the proper lens (hermeneutic) to interpret and implement the Council’s teaching is that of reform; reform meaning that it contains elements of both continuity and change. Unfortunately and mistakenly, many today only like to see and highlight the continuity and disregard the change. Take the People of God ecclesiology of Lumen Gentium, the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, for example, it is heavily biblical with its abundant quotations and citations from scripture. The ecclesiology is not new, it is totally biblical and definitely not sociological.
Someone finally had the moral doctrinal acumen to set aright the Field Hospital analogy of the Church in the world. The constant banter has been warm embraces and unconditional inclusion. That the devil can do. Not us. George Weigel’s irrefutable major premise, we must hold to revealed truth in healing the wounded.