Modesty may not be the greatest virtue, but it might be the most Catholic. It implies that things can sometimes — maybe of necessity — be excessive, but that working back toward something reasonable, something beautiful, is better.

That’s why it hurts so bad to see modesty lose ground. The worst type of immodesty is intellectual; and it’s arguably even more pervasive today than its corporal counterpart. Intellectual immodesty is a stain on the church, itself, one that’s especially hard to wash away.

When I say "the church," as Pope Francis recently put it, "I mean we Christians, because the church is holy; we are the sinners.” On the same occasion, during his flight home from Armenia, Francis said he believed “that the church not only should apologize to the person who is gay whom it has offended, but has to apologize to the poor, to exploited women, to children exploited for labor; it has to ask forgiveness for having blessed many weapons.”

It’s arguable that Francis, himself, exercises his post immodestly. He enjoys steamrolling the opposition. At the very least he takes pleasure in plotting impossible courses and watching others fail to navigate them. But, on the other hand, there might be some necessary excess he’s dealing with. Take time to consider that.

It’s of course true that the church — we Christians, we the sinners — have often personally offended, without any redeeming purpose, those who live lives we can’t endorse. We’ve hurt those who are helpless. The pope made a noticeable effort to shift his comments away from a question about Cardinal Marx’s charge to apologize specifically to homosexuals in favor of developing a broader idea that homosexuals are somehow in the same camp, and deserve similar apologies, as those held down by an oppressive, external force — women exploited by crime syndicates for sex, children exploited by employers for labor. The Holy Father even retraced his famous line, saying “a person who has that condition [emphasis mine], who has good will, and who looks for God, who are we to judge?"

Speaking about those who console and forgive, the pope said: "There are many [...] saints. But these ones aren’t seen. Because holiness is modest, it’s hidden."

Father Lombardi’s attempt to clarify that the “condition” Francis spoke about could mean either “condition” or “situation,” however, was thoroughly immodest. Lombardi does a job that no sane person would envy, so he can be cut some slack. But no matter his personal culpability, that a pope’s words describing homosexual inclinations as something to be resisted, even overcome, would demand such superficial interpretation is not modest. It’s not discerning. It’s not even faithful to the clear sense that Francis worked to establish in his own spin on the question posed. In a word, it’s not Catholic.

This sort of immodesty fuels intemperance, and we all know what that looks like. An overwhelming inability to resist, an urge to pounce on what’s made available. From the more intellectual class, it’s constant threats that “this is the last straw” and “you made me do it.” Nowadays, in the church, not only Francis but Benedict, too, finds himself in the crosshairs of an intemperance born from immodest thought.

The remedy for intemperance is to sober up. For a long time, we’ve heard from the “conservative” cohort that Francis is an enabler. He’s a frustrating person, in any case. But as conservative political agendas create more and more blowback not only against Francis but against pastoral sensibility in general — as immodesty rears its head to oppose Francis’s plain, clear statements — I’m emboldened in my belief that it might just be Francis who is soberest of all.

Maybe he’s a nutty old man who’s able to shake off the strains of life through good nature and creativity where the rest of us are driven to drink. Maybe that’s what temperance, even modesty, really look like sometimes.

Maybe in this way the pope is a fine example of how to be Catholic.

Andrew M. Haines is the editor and founder of Ethika Politika, and co-founder and chief operating officer at Fiat Insight.