The papacy is an “unbiblical office” and Pope Francis is a heretic, according to Southern Baptist leader Al Mohler.
Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., blasted the pope in his May 21 podcast called “The Briefing.” This is not the first time Mohler has criticized Pope Francis. But this time, the disagreement is about the fundamental nature of humanity.
Pope Francis sees humans as good at heart; Mohler sees humans as morally depraved from birth. A key tenet of the Calvinistic theology Mohler espouses is “total depravity,” the idea that since the fall of Adam and Eve, all babies are born with a sinful nature that condemns them before God from the first breath of life.
Al Mohler
The spark for the current debate began with Pope Francis being interviewed May 19 on the CBS news program 60 Minutes. At the end of the interview, CBS correspondent Norah O’Donnell asks: “When you look at the world, what gives you hope?”
Pope Francis responds: “Everything. You see tragedies, but you also see so many beautiful things. You see heroic mothers, heroic men, men who have hopes and dreams, women who look to the future. That gives me a lot of hope. People want to live. People forge ahead. And people are fundamentally good. We are all fundamentally good. Yes, there are some rogues and sinners, but the heart itself is good.”
Mohler considers that statement “absolute banality,” “a rejection of Roman Catholic doctrine” and an “abandonment of the gospel.”
The Baptist seminary president begins his critique by declaring the papacy “an unbiblical office” now occupied by a man who is a “theological vacuum.”
“We’re talking about a man who now inhabits that office who is the contradiction of at least many of the claims made by the Roman Catholic Church,” Mohler said. “He’s not the defender of even those Roman Catholic doctrines. Well, he relativizes them. He emotionalizes them. He is, in so many ways, the repudiation of the two popes who came before him, John Paul II and Benedict XVI, who were known for their doctrinal precision, and also, for their brave defense of, for instance, the sanctity of human life.”
Pope Francis (Photo: CBS)
Pope Francis has, in fact, been consistently “pro-life” in the tradition of modern Catholic teaching. However, he has expressed openness on other social issues traditional Catholics and conservative evangelicals share an alliance to oppose, such as immigration and welcome in the church for LGBTQ Christians.
Even in the 60 Minutes interview, Francis clarified his statements on same-sex unions: “What I allowed was not to bless the union. That cannot be done because that is not the sacrament. I cannot. The Lord made it that way. But to bless each person, yes. The blessing is for everyone. For everyone. To bless a homosexual-type union, however, goes against the given right, against the law of the church. But to bless each person, why not? The blessing is for all. Some people were scandalized by this. But why? Everyone! Everyone!”
Mohler has been an outspoken critic of homosexuality as a naturally occurring phenomenon and teaches that being gay — or transgender — is a sinful choice, not the way anyone is created by God.
Thus Mohler began his latest broadside against the pope by saying: “Pope Francis represents the absolute worst of theological irresponsibility. And he often does so not so much by what he says, but well, just honestly, what he doesn’t say. And what he doesn’t say is in so many cases, even the defense of the classical Christian doctrines that the Roman Catholic Church still officially holds when it comes to such issues as, for instance, the person of Christ, when it comes to the doctrine of the Trinity. You’re just not going to hear things like that, not to mention on the moral issues related to human sexuality and abortion.”
But it was Francis’ comment on human nature that set Mohler on a new tangent against the pontiff.
He quoted the pope’s statement that “people are fundamentally good. We are all fundamentally good. Yes, there are some rogues and sinners, but the heart itself is good.”
“Not only did the pope utter absolute banalities and empty words, he directly, repeatedly refuted the direct teachings of Scripture.”
Mohler declared: “Now, in that case, not only did the pope utter absolute banalities and empty words, he directly, repeatedly refuted the direct teachings of Scripture.”
He explained: “The Bible says that the heart is desperately wicked, and that’s clear language, as clear as it gets. And furthermore, you have this statement that is completely devoid of Christ, that you don’t even find Christ here. The pope claims to be and has claimed to be the vicar of Christ, but this is Christless. Now, I want to be very clear here. I’m talking about the abandonment of the gospel, and the Pope is not alone in this. And the Roman Catholic Church, let’s remember in its official doctrine, contradicts the Protestant understanding of the gospel as revealed in Scripture. That’s just a very honest statement.”
Mohler continues by saying Pope Francis “is really on the side of the Protestant liberals who abandoned the faith, and that’s the point. And as you look at the Protestant side, we have a distinction between the Protestant liberals who have abandoned every single Christian doctrine, undermined the authority of Scripture, and quite frankly, created a new religion. Pope Francis, on the Catholic side, is pretty much just doing the same thing.
“One lesson here is that theological liberalism ends up as the same mush, whether it’s Catholic mush or Protestant mush. It’s mush,” he concluded.
Related articles:
The moral hypocrisy of Albert Mohler (and evangelicals of his ilk) | Opinion by Marv Knox
Thirty years later, no one has reshaped the SBC more than Albert Mohler | Analysis by Mark Wingfield
It’s Al Mohler vs. Andy Stanley, part two, with Christianity Today joining the fray |Analysis by Rick Pidcock