Silence, by Odilon Redon
There are many striking things about Pope Francis’ papacy, but not least among them is the fact that, amidst a global pandemic, he is frequently photographed meeting people without a mask. This is particularly striking given that the disease in question poses an increased threat to both the elderly, who make up a large proportion of his visitors, and whom Francis continually exhorts us to value;[1] as well as people with existing health conditions (‘the sick’), for whom Christianity more generally professes a special care. Indeed, Francis himself is counted among both of these group: the octogenarian Pope had a portion of his lung removed as a child, and a respiratory disease could be devastating for him – but more concerning perhaps is the idea that the Pope himself, chosen by the Holy Spirit to be the heir of St Peter, figurehead and leader of the whole Catholic Church, could inflict an illness on someone else, for whom there could be devastating long term consequences even if it is not fatal.
There is potentially a theological answer to why Francis might be reluctant to wear a mask. Throughout his teaching documents, a central theme is the importance of encounter. Key to understanding this is his first encyclical, Lumen Fidei. In this, he describes the encounter with God, which he understands phenomenologically, in terms of being ‘touched’ by love (no. 31). This experience of touch inaugurates a transformation within us in which we come to participate in Christ’s loving gaze upon the world (no. 18, 27). Amoris Laetitia emphasises the significance of the loving gaze itself as a medium whereby we come to experience love (no. 128); something also intimated in Evangelii Gaudium, which notes that the disciples went forth to proclaim Christ “after encountering the gaze of Jesus” (no. 120). That is to say, this transformation enables us to be a conduit of God’s love.
The centrality of this theme is testified to by its far-ranging expression throughout Francis’ wider teachings. In Evangelii Gaudium, he reframes this in terms of the process of evangelization, describing a process of accompaniment that reflects “our closeness and our compassionate gaze” (no. 169). The document also translates this into a social principle, arguing for a “culture of encounter” (no. 220); a theme that Francis continues to develop in Querida Amazonia, which discusses the need for encounter not only between people or peoples, but between cultures themselves (no. 22, 61). Perhaps most radically, in Laudato Si’, he elevates encounter to a cosmic principle, describing creation as structured by relations between ourselves, our neighbours, the earth, and God (no. 66); and destined for a universal communion (no. 76). Moreover, and the encyclical emphasises that embodiment is central even to this expanded field of relation (no. 155). Finally, in Fratelli Tutti, he unites the social themes of Evangelii Gaudium and Querida Amazonia with the cosmic themes in Laudato Si’, quoting his Message for the Celebration of the 53rd World Day of Peace to offer a picture of humanity’s “innate vocation to fraternity” (no. 26).
Embodiment is one way in which we can touch and be touched in this way, for example through physical interaction with the sacraments (Lumen Fidei, no. 31). He also extends the haptic metaphor through metaphors of the embodied relation of parenthood: Misericordia et Misera describes it in terms of a transformation at the level of creation itself; an expression of a distinctly parental love in which God as Father (re)creates us as an expression of love: “I come to realize that I am truly a “new creation” (Gal 6:15): I am loved, therefore I exist… I have been shown mercy, therefore I have become a vessel of mercy” (no. 16). Emphasising the bodily dimension of encounter and transformation, Misericordiae Vultus describes it as a “visceral” love (no. 6).
Unsurprisingly, Francis is correspondingly sceptical of anything which might interrupt, disrupt, or seek to replace the physical dimension of encounter. For example, in Christus Vivit, he warns against the temptations to replace embodied interpersonality with virtual communication (no. 88, 90); something the dangers of which he elaborates upon in Fratelli Tutti (no. 33, 47). We might read Francis’ reluctance to wear a mask in a similar light. He might be afraid that, in obscuring his face, he obscures the body-part that is perhaps most central to the phenomenon of encounter, at least in its visual dimension. In doing so, he may obstruct the experience of love which he hopes to engender, and so the love of God which is communicated in this engendering.
In this vein also, suffering serves as a privileged site of encounter for Francis, and sickness is a paradigmatic instance of suffering in this regard. Drawing from the example of Christ’s ministry, Evangelii Gaudium states that we are called by the gospel to “go first” and “above all” to “the poor and the sick” (no. 48). Moreover, this is a call to an intimate, and unsettling encounter that draws us out of our safety and comfort. Hence he writes that “Jesus wants us to touch human misery, to touch the suffering flesh of others” (no. 270). In this context, to obstruct the possibility for this encounter out of a concern for (at least one’s own) safety would be wildly misguided. This is not to say that Francis does not appreciate the importance of masks for protecting others from oneself, but it does perhaps increase the sense of need to find workarounds wherever possible.
Yet I think leaving the analysis at this misses out on another important facet of Francis’ papacy, and indeed the wider situation of contemporary Catholicism; a dynamic which may or may not be operative in this instance, but which the pandemic throws into relief, and which can be understood better if we read Francis’ refusal of a mask in its light.
Christian theology has always been preoccupied with the body. Debates about the resurrection, sex and reproduction, gendered relationships and the constitution of society, and the nature of humanity as animal, have all cemented the body’s place as a deeply meaning-laden element within our picture of creation. More recently, it has become particularly emblematic of a conflict between the Church and what some claim to be an aggressively secular, decadent, materialistic or even nihilistic modern world. The meaning of the body has become a contentious, politicised issue, and the wider web of theological meanings which have been constructed around it is often seen as something to be defended against a hostile force that would unpick its complex structure.
In this context, there is undeniably a strain in modern Catholicism that resists transformations in the meanings around the body that it professes. By extension, this also includes any intellectual current or discipline which appears to introduce fluidity or uncertainty around those meanings which may lead to this transformation. We see this in particular around questions of gender and sexuality; a reactionary impulse of which Francis himself is not entirely free – for example, where he cites the need to recognise the limits of human nature and to accept our bodies “as God’s gift”, including by valuing them in their “femininity or masculinity” in Laudato Si’ (no. 155); or where he condemns “ideologies of gender” which nominally undermine the family in Amoris Laetitia (no. 56).
As I described in an earlier article in this series, COVID-19 has radically transformed our relations with one another. This includes transforming the meanings that texture our experiences of our bodies and those of others. We are now vectors for infection: our bodies have become dangerous, and the tender, personal gestures which previously may have been deeply significant of love and care are now deeply threatening, tinging any experience of encounter with the shadow of danger and fear. This is particularly a problem in Francis’ own theology. It constitutes a change in the phenomenology of then body itself, disrupting the experience of love which Francis figures as not only the heart of Christian life, but the goal of social life, and perhaps even the cosmos itself.
Above all other signifiers, the face mask has come to represent this transformation of meaning. It makes visible upon our bodies the invisible threat of infection. The way it covers our mouths connotes silencing, and the helplessness we feel before the overwhelming power of the virus. The way it seems to obstruct airflow evokes the broader ‘suffocation’ of claustrophobic lockdowns and an atmosphere thick with anxiety. The fact that they have become mandated by the government also raises the spectre of powerlessness for some, and the sense of our own materiality and therein vulnerability that comes with new legislation over bodies.
In this context, it would not be surprising to find something of the reaction described above in Francis’ refusal to wear a mask. In refusing, perhaps he is attempting to preserve some of this lost meaning – either by witnessing to its possibility by still meeting with others as if it were intact, by reminding us that it still has a purchase on an unstable world that threateningly slips and slides beneath our signifiers, or just simply by denying this shift through stubbornly refusing to recognise the dangers which brought it on. Read in this way, Francis’ refusal to wear a mask seems less like a strange moment of recklessness, and more like a repetition in a specific instance of a broader dynamic within Catholicism: the resistance to changing meanings that subvert the Church’s worldview and practices. Read in this way, his refusal to cover his face is one with his condemnation of “gender ideology”, rejecting the disruption of the Church’s language by the latter just as he rejects the prophylactic obstruction of his own voice in the former.
However, the challenges of the pandemic also show why this defensiveness is wrongheaded – in both contexts. The semantic disruption occasioned by COVID-19 is not something that can simply be undone. Consequently, the solution cannot simply be to cling to old meanings. Instead, we must look to the possibility of new meanings within it, finding ways to relate to our bodies despite their new dimension of threat. If so, then perhaps the very disciplines which Francis rejects as presenting this problematic disruption may in fact be our greatest tools for constructing the new meanings that enable us to navigate the treacherous field of meanings created by the pandemic. They are, in a manner of speaking, native to the fluidity that troubles us. Consequently, although they embody the very subversion of meanings that unsettles certain elements within the Church, they also take as their premise the possibility of recovering something useful from within it. Indeed, this hope within difficulty is not unlike Francis’ own understanding of evangelism, in which God makes Himself present to humanity precisely where we embrace the uncomfortable and uncertain, and our lives become “wonderfully complicated” (Evangelii Gaudium, no. 270).
This article is long enough already, and a decent theology of the mask will take much more than a single blog post to elaborate. Nevertheless, I think that we can find the beginnings in this methodological shift itself, wherein we surrender the impulse to cling to old meanings and instead look in hope towards the now uncertain semantic terrain. In embracing the mask, learning to view it anew and transforming its meanings, perhaps it can become something more than simply an obstruction of the person. This significant object can take on a new meaning, as an expression of a kenotic love that surrenders not only the ease of its own presence, but the very meanings to which it clings for security in that presence. A love that therein overcomes this absence of encounter and uncertainty of meaning by transforming it into the mark of the greatest love of all: one that comes across not in defensive reaction, but in powerlessness.
Nicolete Burbach is a Consultant Research Associate at the CCSTP, and editor of the COVID-19 Blog Project
[1] E.g. Laudato Si’, no. 123; Amoris Laetitia, no. 48.