Certain “progressive” Catholic thought leaders love to label other Catholics who resist their attempts to radically change Church teaching as “anti-Francis.”

Not only is it a lazy rhetorical device, it’s also plain silly — especially since the latest Catholic leader to exhibit what have been called “anti-Francis” leanings is Pope Francis himself.

In recent months, he has made a series of bold, unequivocal statements upholding Catholic teachings on some of the most contentious issues in the Church today.

The first of these was the April 8 release of Dignitas Infinita. Issued through Francis’ chief of doctrine, Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, the declaration provides a timely reaffirmation of what the Church teaches on such hot button issues as gender ideology, abortion and euthanasia.

That was followed by Francis’ 60 Minutes interview with Nora O’Donnell, which aired in full on May 19, in which he bluntly answered the call for the ordination of women to the diaconate (and hence holy orders) with an emphatic, “No.”

It’s true that at other times during his pontificate, Francis has communicated more ambiguously about some contested issues. But there is no mistaking that, while the Synod on Synodality is still underway, he has gone out of his way to reiterate the Church’s teaching — clearly, forcefully and repeatedly. This is the strong pastoral leadership our Church desperately needs.

The Pope did something else recently that bears highlighting as the National Eucharistic Congress gets underway in Indianapolis this week. For the first time in several years, he was able to actively participate in the Corpus Christi celebrations on June 2, which included a Eucharistic procession through the streets of Rome.

While he couldn’t walk in the hour-long procession because of his limited mobility, the Pope reflected on this beautiful, centuries-old Roman tradition during the Mass before it started.

“We are not doing this to show off or to flaunt our faith but to invite everyone to participate in the Bread of the Eucharist, in the new life that Jesus has given us,” he said in his homily. Later, he held the monstrance in his hands and blessed the participants at the conclusion of the procession from the steps of the Basilica of St. Mary Major.

Hopefully, this gesture sent a pointed message to the more militant members of the “anti-Francis” police who have seized on, of all things, the ongoing National Eucharistic Revival as an ideological wedge issue.

A chief promoter of this distorted view is Bishop John Stowe of Lexington, Kentucky. In a July 2023 essay, he criticized the U.S. Eucharistic Revival as “a mega-event featuring plenty of pre-conciliar piety and theology” secretly meant to “replace” the “focus on the Synod for a Synodal Church.”

Wrote Bishop Stowe, “It does not strike me as coincidental that much of the Eucharistic Revival focuses on [E]ucharistic adoration, passive in nature, and so offers an easy alternative to the active engagement of walking together synodally.”

Unfortunately for Bishop Stowe’s narrative, just ahead of the publication of his divisive article, the Pope had directly contradicted this assessment of the National Eucharistic Revival.

“Dear friends, the National Eucharistic Congress marks a significant moment in the life of the Church in the United States,” Francis wrote in a June 2023 letter to the National Eucharistic Congress organizing committee. “May all that you are doing be an occasion of grace for each of you and may it bear fruit in guiding men and women throughout your nation to the Lord who, by his presence among us, rekindles hope and renews life.” And the Pope praised the Eucharistic endeavor in another letter last week, extending a blessing to attendees of the congress.

More recently, Jesuit Father Tom Reese argued in a column for Religion News Service that ongoing emphasis on Eucharistic catechesis, devotion and service in the United States is “more about Benediction, where the consecrated bread is worshipped, than the Eucharist, where the community is fed.” Again, why this attempt to turn the Eucharistic Revival into another divisive issue?

Of course, like Pope Francis himself, the world’s bishops are perfectly capable of reverencing the Eucharist and undertaking a global listening and discerning process at the same time. What’s more, it is difficult to think of anything that the U.S. bishops have undertaken in recent memory that has done more to bring Our Lord to the peripheries and promote street-level dialogue about our respective faith journeys than the Eucharistic processions crisscrossing the country ahead of this week’s gathering in Indianapolis.

As the Holy Father has repeatedly said, listening lies at the heart of a synodal Church. But listening is a two-way street. The question is, are those at the Church’s ideological peripheries willing to listen to what Francis is saying now?