Recently, Pope Francis appeared in a documentary titled “The Pope: Answers.” In it, he answered questions from a group of 10 young adults between the ages of 20-25 years old. Concerning the content of the conversation many news media headlines declared: “Pope says Tinder use is normal.” Tinder is a hookup app. As one of those present in the interview declared: “[Tinder] is mostly about sex.”
It should come as no surprise to us that the Pope did not say that Tinder use is normal. Instead, if you watch the full interview he said: “I don’t know. It’s fine that people meet each other. It’s normal.” Here the Pope uses the term “normal” when describing the universal human need for relationship. Of course, that would be normal. Human beings are communal creatures made for interpersonal relationships. Even God is a communion of persons. When he was asked specifically about Tinder, the Pope admitted that he did not know what it was.
The fulfillment of the human need for relationship can take many forms. Yet not all of those forms lead to human flourishing and happiness. The Tinder app tries to fulfill that need through the hookup culture. This reduces human relationships to mutual use and frustrates the ability to form lasting and meaningful relationships. If anything, its use represents an abnormality. We need to look beyond news headlines and read the Pope’s words in their entirety.
