In the recent Hollywood blockbuster movie Conclave, the College of Cardinals’ choice of a new pontiff represented a crucial moment when the Roman Catholic Church might have turned sharply left or right and toward very different visions of an inclusive or an exclusive community. Certainly, this sense of unlimited possibilities heightened the film’s drama — with the spiritual direction of well over a billion adherents up in the air over St. Peter’s Square, where black or white smoke marked the continuation or culmination of the papal election. I won’t spoil the ending for those who haven’t watched the film, but the actual conclave that will soon name a successor to the late Pope Francis is also being billed as a dramatic confrontation between those promoting wildly varying directions for the church.

To be clear, the use of labels like “left and right” or even “progressives and traditionalists” with respect to this ancient institution bound by scripture and tradition and professing guidance from the Holy Spirit as Jesus Christ’s authorized representatives on earth isn’t very precise and may be actually misleading.

For example, it’s often asserted that Francis represented a sharply progressive Vatican left turn that followed the profoundly conservative papacies of John Paul II and Benedict XVI. On some issues, like recognizing a responsibility to minister to LGBTQ folk and divorced-and-remarried Catholics........

© Daily Intelligencer