What Does the Pope Really Mean?
“Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.”
—Walt Whitman
Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote in his famous essay “Self-Reliance” that a “foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.”
I suspect that the Holy Father would not like the full implications of the remark, but I wonder that he doesn’t realize that some people might see in his many different interventions in the broad stream of social commentary similar disregard for said hobgoblin.
In his 60 Minutes interview with Norah O’Donnell, he seemed to rule out the morality of surrogate motherhood. When O’Donnell said that sometimes this was the only hope a couple might have, the pope said,
I would say that in each case the situation should be clearly considered medically and then morally. I believe in these cases there is a general rule, but you have to go into each case in particular to assess the situation, as long as the moral principle is not skirted
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