Francis, a New World Pope

Michel Cool

• Publisher: Eerdmans
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781467438933
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religious Biographies

After Pope Benedict XVI's historic resignation of the papal office in February 2013, the College of Cardinals elected Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Archbishop of Buenos Aires -- now Pope Francis -- as the new leader of the world's estimated 1.2 billion Roman Catholics.But who is this new Pope -- really?In Francis, a New World Pope, Michel Cool surveys Pope Francis's journey to the papacy, his convictions, his personality, his writings, and the challenges he faces in his new office -- governance of the church, new evangelization in secularized societies, and poverty, among many others.Peppered throughout with anecdotes that demonstrate the humanity of Pope Francis -- and his sensitivity to those who are most distant from the Church -- this book paints a vibrant portrait of the man who has chosen for his motto miserando atque eligendo: "lowly but chosen."

Chapter I

Francis and the Seagull

Wednesday, March 13, 2013: It’s raining on Rome. Cameramen from TV stations around the world have trained their lenses on the Sistine Chapel’s silent chimney. They are being entertained by a seagull’s unexpected choreography. The incongruous bird is strolling across the roof of the sacred edifice, indifferent to the surrounding excitement. No one will ever know if the bird is called Jonathan, like the hero of the book from the 1970s. But this seafaring, well-­traveled bird will go down in history. Because whether it’s just a coincidence, or more likely, a sign from God, didn’t its appearance foretell the election of a pope who sailed the seas to come here, to the banks of the Tiber River, to pilot the bark of the Church?

A throng of some 100,000 people is standing patiently on the cobblestones of Saint Peter’s Square. They stare at the sky, hoping for a wisp of white smoke. Their patience will not be in vain. Just before 7 p.m., thick curls of white smoke rise up from the copper chimney. A few long minutes later, the cardinal-­deacon, Frenchman Jean-­Louis Tauran, appears on the central balcony of Saint Peter’s Basilica to announce the joyful news: “Habemus papam!” Still speaking Latin, he reveals the identity of the chosen one. After a moment of hesitation, as though the crowd is stunned by what it has just heard, a huge shout rises up. The clamor soon becomes an acclamation of joy, a surge of jubilation. The seagull has disappeared from television screens. It has flown away, we know not where, taking the mystery of its presence on this historic evening with it.

Francis! The name of the man in white who is stepping onto Saint Peter’s benediction loggia is Francis, like the saint from Assisi. And there is yet another surprise on top of that first one: he has forgone the scarlet mozzetta the pontiff traditionally wears on his shoulders. In a slow, deep voice, he starts by wishing everyone “Good evening,” raising his hand to greet the crowd who has come to welcome him. “Dear brothers, dear sisters,” he begins, in Italian, warmly addressing the enthusiastic pilgrims waving signs and banners to glorify the Holy Father.

His face is filled with emotion, but at peace, his arms at his side, his attitude during his first appearance as pope displays a key feature of his personality: his no-­frills side. “It seems,” he goes on with a cheerful grin, “that my brother Cardinals have gone to the ends of the earth to get [me] . . . but here we are. . . . I thank you for your welcome.” Then he invites everyone to join him in prayer, as he offers an Our Father and a Hail Mary for his predecessor, Benedict XVI, who is surely watching the scene on TV in Castel Gandolfo, to which he retired when he renounced the papacy on February 28, 2013.

Those first few words and gestures suffice to create a direct, warm contact between the new bishop of Rome and the people of his city. The bond is already palpable on Saint Peter’s Square: despite the falling darkness, the people’s faces are radiant, and their eyes sparkle like a constellation of stars. The new Vicar of Christ compares this budding relationship with the people of Rome to a journey of brotherhood, of love, and of evangelization. Then comes another exceptionally moving moment: the 265th successor to Saint Peter invites the faithful to ask for the Lord’s blessing for him. He bows down to the multitude, which prays in silence for twenty seconds or so. This is unheard of! Never in their long history have Bernini’s columns borne witness to such a profound silence, so filled with fervor and hope to greet the arrival of a Supreme Pontiff.

The Cardinals’ Historic Choice

It’s a huge surprise. This election is absolutely historic! Against all odds, and for the first time since the eighth century, a pontiff from a continent other than Europe has been elected. By placing the Argentinean archbishop of Buenos Aires, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, on Saint Peter’s throne, the 115 cardinals elected “the first pope from the Americas,” as President Barack Obama, one of the first to offer his best wishes to the new pontiff, put it. Another first, this pope could be described as “black” in a way. He belongs to the Society of Jesus, whose superior, called Father General, is also known as “the black pope” because of the black cassock he wears, as opposed to the bishop of Rome’s white tunic. So Pope Francis is also the first Jesuit pope of the Catholic Church since Saint Ignatius of Loyola founded that religious order in the sixteenth century. That’s a lot of innovation for a single seventy-six-­year-­old man! Yet he wasn’t even considered papabile (a possible pope) going into this conclave.

First non-­European pope in thirteen centuries; first New World pope since Christopher Columbus discovered it in the fifteenth century; and finally, first-­ever Jesuit pope of the Roman Catholic Church. Yet he was elected quickly, on only the fifth round of voting, on just the second day of the bishops’ seclusion in the Sistine Chapel. He was elected even more quickly than Paul VI, who was the frontrunner of the conclave in 1963, and his election was almost as easy as Benedict XVI’s, who had been chosen on the fourth round in 2005. For Father Federico Lombardi, a Jesuit himself, and director of the Holy See Press Office, the cardinal electors — with the help and guidance of the Holy Spirit — showed truly bold initiative on March 13, 2013: “I was dumbfounded,” he said. “They were brave enough to look across the ocean to broaden the Church’s perspectives.”

It’s a bold choice, but it also reflects the reality of demographic changes in the Catholic world; their choice reflects the changing center of gravity in global Catholicism over the past few decades. The largest number of the faithful do in fact live in the Southern Hemisphere now, and that is where the faith still draws huge crowds into churches and pilgrimage centers. The election of a South American pope does indeed symbolize the end of the Old World’s 2,000-­year hold on the See of Peter; but more than that, it is an act of recognition — recognition that, although the Church is still universal, and alive on every continent, its heart and soul are now to be found in the emerging countries of the South.

The world’s leaders grasped that instantly. Recognizing the historic dimension of the event, they reacted quickly to Pope Francis’s surprising election. Barack Obama, head of the world’s premier superpower, was one of the first to send his “warm wishes” to the new pontiff, praising him as a “champion of the poor and the most vulnerable among us.” UN Secretary-­General Ban Ki-­moon expressed his hope that, like his predecessor, Benedict XVI, the new pope would continue to promote interfaith dialogue. “We also share the conviction that we can only resolve the interconnected challenges of today’s world through dialogue.”

Several Latin American heads of state spoke of their people’s pride and joy that one of their own had been elected to the papacy. Even Cristina Kirchner, the president of Argentina, set aside her political differences with the former archbishop of Buenos Aires — who had been seen as her principal adversary — to salute the election of a fellow countryman. With an admirable sense of fair play, she wished him well with his “great responsibility toward advancing justice, equality, fraternity and peace of mankind.”

In what was perhaps an attempt to change the unfortunate impression he had made by joking about Benedict XVI’s retirement, François Hollande was one of the first European leaders to present the new Supreme Pontiff with his “most sincere wishes for the important mission that has just been confided in him.” The French president then added: “France, true to its history and to the universal principles of liberty, equality and fraternity that found its action throughout the world, will continue the trustful dialogue it has always maintained with the Holy See, in the service of peace, justice, solidarity and human dignity.”

Among the many diplomatic telegrams sent to Pope Francis, it is worth mentioning the one from the Israeli president Shimon Peres, inviting Francis to Israel on an official visit, as well as the press release from the European Union, cosigned by the president of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, and the president of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, wishing him a “long and blessed” pontificate so that he could “defend and promote the fundamental human values of peace, solidarity and human dignity.”

Clearly, governments were not blind to the wave of hope and enthusiasm sparked by Francis’s election. An unexpected one, it must be said, foreseen neither by the specialized press nor even by Latin American public opinion. The populace there had lost faith in the chances of the “poor people’s archbishop,” as he was known in the underprivileged neighborhoods of Buenos Aires. So how did Cardinal Bergoglio unexpectedly leave the Sistine Chapel as the Vicar of Christ?

How Bergoglio’s Name Rose to the Top

Tongues had wagged to the press after the 2005 conclave, sharing information about what had gone on behind those locked doors. They said that Jorge Mario Bergoglio had attracted enough votes to be considered Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger’s strongest competitor. According to those rumors, the Argentinean prelate enjoyed the support of the liberal wing of the College of Cardinals. At that time, their leader was the late archbishop of Milan and eminent Jesuit scholar Carlo Maria Martini, who even then was fighting the rare form of incurable Parkinson’s disease that would cut him down in 2012.

But Bergoglio dampened his supporters’ ardor by claiming to be in poor health. Indeed, ever since the Argentine had lost a lung to the tuberculosis he had contracted in his youth, he had needed to watch himself. He also said he didn’t want to prevent the election of Ratzinger, whose lofty intellect he admired, and who could lay claim to the role of John Paul II’s natural successor. Still, a number of cardinals at that conclave were impressed with their Argentinean counterpart’s eminent spiritual and pastoral qualities. Intransigent when it came to Catholic moral doctrine, Bergoglio was equally firm about the Church’s social doctrine. His greatest asset is to incarnate a synthesis between, on the one hand, the tenets of doctrinal conservatism opposed to widespread liberalization of social mores, and on the other, the vision of a social Catholicism that would stand up to the excesses of an unbridled global economy under the sway of the financial powers that be.

That same duality seems to have determined the outcome eight years later. And yet the Argentinean cardinal has aged: he is just two years younger than Benedict XVI was when he was elected, in April 2005. And his health is no less affected now by his missing lung than it was then. One might easily assume that the reasons Pope Benedict gave for relinquishing his position would lead the cardinals to choose a younger, more vigorous successor. According to the French cardinals, the issue of their next leader’s age was indeed debated at the conclave, before the first vote and between votes, yet clearly, in the end, it didn’t prevent the election of the outsider Bergoglio.

So just what were the decisive criteria in choosing him? We can suggest four that were in his favor:

1. His personal aura, which had not weakened since the previous conclave.

2. Both his international stature and his reputation as a man who knows how to network, which were shown or reinforced by several elements: his Italian descent — which would comfort the Italian and European cardinals who might mourn the historic loss of the papacy if a non-­European were elected; his membership in a religious order with outposts around the world; and his close ties to the Communion and Liberation movement, which is very influential in Italy.

3. His pastoral sense and his intelligence, as well as his spiritual depth and personal modesty, also helped bring consensus to their eminences, as the cardinals are sometimes referred to. He was also appreciated by the Roman Curia, which he was a part of, having been a member of several Roman congregations and both a pontifical commission and a pontifical council.

4. His diocese’s focus on evangelizing in the streets, the slums, and other places considered distant from the church, and on getting priests and the laity to work together, could well galvanize priests searching for the inspiration and means to reenergize their communities.

It also helped him that, during the general congregations preceding the conclave, the cardinals had clearly stated their desire to turn the page on the Roman Curia’s dysfunctions and the scandals that had recently tarnished the Church’s image and credibility. Taken all together, it began to look like a red carpet had been laid at Cardinal Bergoglio’s feet. Because, in addition to his renowned integrity, his natural authority — unblemished by the least trace of authoritarianism or scorn — was recognized and respected by all.

In the less troubled context of Benedict XVI’s succession, less tragic or traumatic than the prevailing mood during John Paul II’s, Bergoglio’s name gradually drew the attention of the cardinal electors. They seem not to have been disposed to elect either an Italian or any candidate who was supported, even discreetly, by the “bosses” of the Curia who were worried about their own future. And so — without of course minimizing the inspiration of the prayers chanted during the impressive, hours-­long liturgy experienced by participants in a conclave — after five rounds of balloting, an Argentinean Jesuit wound up in the Room of Tears donning the white cassock of the successors to t...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Contents
• PREFACE Mercy on the March
• CHAPTER I Francis and the Seagull
• CHAPTER II Ten Pressing Matters
• CHAPTER III Pope Francis in His Own Words
• CHAPTER IV The Pope We Have Been Waiting For