The Jesuit Pope
By Kenneth Bagnell
Years ago, an idealistic young man in his early twenties, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, living in Argentina, where he was born in 1936, the gifted child of Italian-born parents, had his eye on an attractive girl. He withstood her appeal. Permanently. In fact he entered the Catholic priesthood and became not just any priest. He became, in 1969, a Jesuit, a member of the most revered if provocative order in Catholic history.
In time, on March 13, 2013, Mario Bergoglio was elected Catholicism’s Pope. Within hours he chose to be known to the world by the name of the most humble name in history: Francis of Assisi. What should we make of Pope Francis, welcomed with such hope, but here and there, also provoking the proverbial wait and see attitude. If my memory serves, one wary skeptic, a liberal Catholic, put it this way: “The message will be the same, but the music will be nicer.” (I think he’s wrong.)
After all, the leadership of The Pope matters to everyone. No religious leader has a congregation even close to the size of his — over one billion adherents. No religious leader is as close to the ear of world leaders as the Pope is. Hence, his approach, liberal or conservative, ecumenical or sectarian, matters much to an era in which moral vision and spiritual values are becoming more and more necessary for a full understanding of living this life. This Pope is a unique Pope. Hence the truth spoken by Jonathan Swift in the 17th century: “Vision is the act of being able to see what others do not.” As for Pope Francis world expectations are very high. Canada’s leading Catholic intellectual, Michael Higgins, said in Maclean’s in early July: “Even if he were to die tomorrow, I do not believe his successor could go back to the old ways. It’s been the best 100 days in papal history…..” Given that what can we be sure of?
First he is, in economic and political terms, what sociologists of religion have come to define as “a social justice Christian.” In Argentina’s so-called Dirty War during a dictatorship, he was falsely accused of deserting some of the Jesuits under him, an allegation later proven false. Reputable voices, including a Jesuit captured by the regime, and a respected senior judge attested to his integrity in resisting the regime and helping some citizens escape the country. In more recent days since his elevation, the symbolism is vivid. It was not for show that, once he was named Pope, he transformed immediately the Papal lifestyle: he rejected the Apostolic Palace choosing a small apartment in a guest house. This decision was followed by a more major one: a wholesale renewal of the dubious Vatican bureaucracy, a policy hangers-on must deeply resent. Then within another day or two his public gestures were almost startling in their message: he washed in public the feet of poverty ridden non-Catholics, thereby saying to the entire world: it’s a new day.
Secondly he’s genuinely ecumenical. One formal example: in November 2012, he held an ecumenical service in his Cathedral for leaders of Jewish, Muslim, and Christian groups, to pray for peace in the Middle East. Several times he has called for interfaith dialogue and reaches beyond religious groups to secularists, agnostics, and atheists. Moreover, I’ve just finished a book, On Heaven and Earth, published in 2010 while Bergoglio was Cardinal-Archbishop in Buenos Aires. He and a Rabbi named Abraham Skorka, co-authored their dialogues on subjects of moral and theological interest. Both are deep thinkers. A few of their subjects: atheism; fundamentalism; euthanasia; same sex marriage; Arab-Israeli conflict. And so on. One or two references must suffice. Bergoglio on Fundamentalism: “The priest who adopts an attitude of only being a boss, like in fundamentalist groups, nullifies and emasculates those searching for God…” Bergoglio on Communism and Capitalism: “In the Communist system, everything that is transcendent and points to a hope in something beyond, paralyzes the work here. Therefore, as it paralyzes man, it is an opiate that makes him a conformist, it makes him bear his suffering, it does not allow him to progress… The capitalist system also has its own spiritual perversion. It tames religion so that it does not bother Capitalism too much……” On death: “God always gives life. He gives it to you here and He will give it to you in the next life…” On religion’s future: “Saint Augustine has a quote that goes in the direction of what you say, Rabbi. He says: ‘Lord you have made us for yourself and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.’ The most important part of this prayer is the word restless…”
It’s now four months since the Argentinian Archbishop’s rise to his awesomely influential office. Thus far, Pope Francis, is emerging as a man of integrity, wisdom and compassion. Thereby he has not just the Catholic world but most people of faith on his side. For us all, it’s been a most remarkable time in church history — one most reasonable people, Catholic and non-Catholic, should hope to see continue.
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