[Catholic Caucus] Leo XIV continues to use Francis’ troubling ‘God of surprises’ theme

LifeSite News ^ | March 9, 2025 | S.D. Wright

[ebb tide]

[Catholic Caucus] Leo XIV continues to use Francis’ troubling ‘God of surprises’ theme

In Leo XIV's Angelus for March 8, he referred to one of Francis' recurring themes. But where did Francis get the phrase 'God of Surprises?'

Leo XIV raised several controversial themes during his Sunday Angelus address in St. Peter’s Square, touching on ecumenism, feminism, and language echoing a favorite theme of his predecessor, Francis.

Commenting on the Gospel read that day, Leo urged his listeners: “The Lord still says to his Church: ‘Lift up your eyes and recognize God’s surprises!’"

In addition, he also spoke in terms that run contrary to the Catholic Church’s claim to be the one and only Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ:

This is not the time for opposition between one church and another, between “us” and “them”: those who worship God seek to be men and women of peace, who worship him in Spirit and in truth (cf. Jn 4:23-24).

And after the Angelus, he also commemorated “International Women’s Day,” which has its origins in the Marxist movements of the early 20th century:

Today, 8 March, is International Women’s Day. We renew our commitment, which for us Christians is based on the Gospel, to recognize the equal dignity of man and woman. Unfortunately, many women, from childhood onwards, are still discriminated against and suffer various forms of violence. In a special way, I offer to them my solidarity and my prayers.

While much could be said about these two comments, this article will focus on the idea of the “God of Surprises.”

Francis and the God of Surprises

In October 2014, at the end of the first Synod on the Family (which ultimately led to Amoris Laetitia), Francis repeatedly characterized the Jews who rejected Christ as “not being open to the God of surprises,” and called for such openness among Catholics.

In the same month, at the end of the first Synod, he used the same phrase in reference to those raising concerns:

… a temptation to hostile inflexibility, that is, wanting to close oneself within the written word, (the letter) and not allowing oneself to be surprised by God, by the God of surprises, (the spirit); within the law, within the certitude of what we know and not of what we still need to learn and to achieve. From the time of Christ, it is the temptation of the zealous, of the scrupulous, of the solicitous and of the so-called – today – “traditionalists” and also of the intellectuals.

Before the second Synod on the Family and after the November 2016 dubia on Amoris Laetitia and growing discontent amongst traditionalists, Francis returned to the same theme. L’Osservatore Romano reported on a morning meditation he gave in May 2017:

Peter had the courage to be surprised by the novelty of the Holy Spirit, to break the rigid response of “this is the way it has always been done.” He was not afraid of creating “scandal” or of not fulfilling his mission as the “rock”. (…)

“The Spirit is the gift of God,” the Pope explained, “of this God, our Father, who always surprises us: the God of surprises.” This is “because he is a living God, a God who abides in us, a God who moves our heart, a God who is in the Church and walks with us; and he always surprises us on this path.” Thus, “just as he had the creativity to create the world, so he has the creativity to create new things every day,” the Pope continued. He “is the God who surprises.”

In the same meditation, Francis contrasted openness to “God’s surprises” with “the sin of resisting the Holy Spirit”:

This resistance can also be expressed by saying: “No, this is the way it has always been done,” almost as if to say: “Do not come with these novelties: Peter, calm down, take a pill to calm your nerves, keep calm,” the Pontiff added.

Critics, such as blogger Louie Verrecchio, considered Francis’ phrase to be directly related to the possibility of doctrinal or disciplinary change – and pointed out the irony that “this ‘God of surprises’ tends to share Pope Francis’ ideas and opinions.”

The ‘classic’ book, God of Surprises

Given Francis’ career as a Jesuit, it is likely that his use of the term “God of Surprises” came from Fr. Gerard W. Hughes SJ’s 1985 influential book of the same title (Cowley Publications, Cambridge, MA, 1993 edition).

Hughes defined the “God of Surprises” as follows:

… God is the God of surprises who, in the darkness and the tears of things, breaks down our false images and securities. This in-breaking can feel to us like disintegration, but it is the disintegration of the ear of wheat: if it does not die to bring new life, it shrivels away on its own.

Through this painful in-breaking of the God of surprises, truths of Christian faith with which I was familiarly bored, or doubted, began to take on new meaning. As God breaks down the cocoon of our closed minds, he enters it. (p. xi)

This book was critical of attitudes toward the “institutional” element of the Church. Referring to the modernist writer Baron Von Hügel, Hughes presented the “institutional” stage – in which Church teaching plays a primary role – as corresponding to an infantile stage of Christian development, the “intellectual” to adolescence, and the “mystical” to adult. Elsewhere in the book, he wrote:

The danger in the institutional element in religion is that we never advance beyond a religious infantilism. We attend religious services, hear sermons and religious instructions, are told what is, and what is not, the church’s moral and doctrinal teaching, and the danger is that we may be content with this and desire to go no further, using, perhaps, our adult guile to justify us in our passivity. (pp. 20-21)

Hughes portrays the post-Tridentine period in very negative terms:

The way in which religion was often taught to Catholics, for example, since the Council of Trent in the 16th century, namely through a catechism of questions and answers, which were a summary of the very technical theological language contained in Trent’s Council documents, encouraged Catholics to believe that religion is a subject which you are not expected to understand, but to which you must give your wholehearted assent! This approach instilled a childish attitude with little or no encouragement to move beyond it. (p. 21)

Immediately after the above, Hughes portrayed those who were clinging to traditional Catholic teaching after Vatican II in terms similar to those used by Francis:

Much of the present tension within the Catholic Church is tension between those who assume that the institutional is the only essential element in the church and others who are demanding more of the critical and mystical elements. (…)

The infantile attitude is not infrequently to be found in people who are not at all infantile in the ways of the world and who may be very prominent in public life. Their religion is sealed off so that it does not interfere with their career and the way they pursue it, and they are often the loudest in opposing any change in the church. They want religion to be exactly as it was when they were children. (p. 21)

The book also contains numerous promotions of modernist ideas – such as the following:

He calls us out of ourselves and beyond ourselves, he is the God of surprises, always creating anew. That is why a church which is static and immutable in its ways cannot be a sign, an effective sign, of his presence in the world. Because we want to control God, there will always be a following for any church which presents God in very clear terms and offers an access card to him, procurable by following the clear prescriptions of that church. Any deviation from these prescriptions will be presented as deviation from God himself.

Further examples include Hughes’ characterization of “Hellfire sermons” and the dogma of Hell on pp. 36 and 60, and his characterization of the traditional teaching of sin on pp. 70-1.

After the latter, he writes:

As I write, I can hear comment in part of my mind saying, “This is wild exaggeration and a gross distortion of Catholic moral teaching.” (…)

Another voice says, “You have given an outdated tirade against a form of teaching which is no longer given today.” I hope this objection is valid and that such teaching is no longer given today, but we are still suffering from its effects. Catholic morality is still, in spite of the documents of the Second Vatican Council and the excellent social encyclicals of recent popes, too selective and individualist: selective in its emphasis on sexual morality, especially contraception and abortion, which is not matched by an equally vigorous emphasis on the evils of planning the mass extermination of millions of human beings; and individualist because awareness of our responsibility, not just for our own lives, but also for the life of the society in which we live, is still foreign to most Christians. (pp. 71-2)

Elsewhere in the book, Hughes suggests that there is a “danger” that …

… the mystical element may so be emphasized that the institutional and critical are neglected.

This can lead to a rejection of formal prayer and worship, abandonment of moral and doctrinal teaching, and the growth of an emotionalism which cannot be understood because it will not submit itself to the critical element. (p. 24).

However, it would be a mistake to take such a comment as “cancelling out” everything else Hughes writes in the book. As Pope St. Pius X wrote in his encyclical Pascendi Dominici Gregis against the modernists:

In the writings and addresses they seem not unfrequently to advocate now one doctrine now another so that one would be disposed to regard them as vague and doubtful.

But there is a reason for this, and it is to be found in their ideas as to the mutual separation of science and faith.

Hence in their books you find some things which might well be expressed by a Catholic, but in the next page you find other things which might have been dictated by a rationalist. (n. 18)

Conclusion

Without denying the importance of an adult understanding of the Catholic religion, the possibility of distortions in the presentation of orthodox teaching, or even aspects of Hughes’ critique of passivity among some Christians, this book represents an attack on the pre-conciliar Catholic religion in a style characteristic of the modernists, who like many heretics, “seem to proceed correctly in all things, but with a single word, like a drop of poison, corrupt the pure and simple faith of the Lord, and, through it, the apostolic tradition.” (Pope Leo XIII, Satis Cognitum n. 9).

This is the pedigree of the term “God of Surprises” – and as we have seen, there is more than a “drop” of poison here. As already stated, Francis’ career as a Jesuit makes it likely that his use of the phrase did indeed originate in this “modern classic” of Jesuit spirituality – and that this book can provide a clarifying light on what he (and Leo XIV) mean by it.

Although Leo XIV was explaining the reaction of the Apostles to finding Our Lord speaking to the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4), his use of one of Francis’ most iconic and criticised statements positions him firmly in continuity with his predecessor. This is all the more confirmed by his previous comments about seeking to continue Francis’ “prophetic vision for the Church,” and clear indication that the immutable dogma of the Church could be changed if “attitudes” change first.

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TOPICS: Catholic; Current Events
KEYWORDS: francisii; frankenchurch; sinnodalchurch

[ebb tide]

This is the pedigree of the term “God of Surprises” – and as we have seen, there is more than a “drop” of poison here. As already stated, Francis’ career as a Jesuit makes it likely that his use of the phrase did indeed originate in this “modern classic” of Jesuit spirituality – and that this book can provide a clarifying light on what he (and Leo XIV) mean by it.

[ebb tide]

Ping

[Scrambler Bob]

I am afraid that many will be ‘Surprised’ by God when they meet Him personally, at their ‘end’.

[SpirituTuo]

Not that the article is without value, but seems poorly focused, and an airing of grievances with the late Pope Francis.

Without additional context, my interpretation of Pope Leo’s statement regarding us/them is the very common theme of Christian unity. I don’t see any negation of the truth and universality of the Church. Additionally, particularly in social media, there appears to be an us/them mentality between some Latin Mass goers and those who don’t. It is not productive.

Regardless of Fr Hughe’s book, God is indeed a God of surprises, just ask Abraham and Sarah, repeatedly. Ask the Apostles upon seeing Jesus calm the storm and walk on water. Ask St. John Cardinal Newman. His divine will is regularly a surprise to mankind.

Regarding women, is this statement not true:

Unfortunately, many women, from childhood onwards, are still discriminated against and suffer various forms of violence.

It is true. Look in many non-Christian parts of the world. Regardless of creator of International Women’s Day, shouldn’t attention be drawn to suffering and not treated with basic human dignity?

While everyone is free to have their own thoughts and opinions, as well as sharing them commercially or otherwise, I don’t think this article was much more than a drive by and a critical swipe at Pope Leo.

[ebb tide]

I can’t believe you are comparing miracles worked by God to the blessing of homosexuals and giving Holy Communion to unrepentant adulterers.

[SpirituTuo]

How did you come to that conclusion???

Just because some obscure Jesuit wrote an even more obscure book using the term “God of Surprises” doesn’t mean he perpetually owns the plain meaning of the phrase.

The whole article seemed petty and grasping at a complaint to make.

[ebb tide]

How did you come to that conclusion???

It was quite easy. You compared the miracles worked by God for Abraham and Sarah as God's surprises; to Francis' use of his God of Surprises to justify blessing homos and giving Holy Communion to adulterers.

God never surprises with new permissions to sin. God does not change His mind according to the whims of men.

What's petty to you, is not necessarily petty to God.

So feel free to complain to God.

[Oystir]

That is because you are a discerning reader, SpirituTuo. The LieSite articles presented by ebby always have “issues” with them. The headline and the article rarely match in theme and there is always a shift to the irrelevant, making assumptions and presenting them as truth - when they are only some level of propaganda.

As you state, “The whole article seemed petty and grasping at a complaint to make.” There certainly no need for ebby attacking you with issues not relevant the article but like the LieSite articles themselves there is no truth or consistancy, right ebby?