The sudden leap of Pope Francis to the geopolitical stage as supreme leader of one of the world’s oldest episcopal jurisdictions covering over 1.2 billion people could spark a “Catholic Spring”, if he bridges the growing schism between liberal and conservative Catholics.
But the challenges may be too convoluted for a kindly 76-year-old whose experiences of administration and diplomacy were acquired mostly in the city of Buenos Aires. He has well known conservative views on the hot button liberal Catholic issues of abortion, homosexuality, ordination of women as priests, the celibacy of male priests.
Being a non-European at the Vatican, he will have to heed the overall conservatism of Latin American, African and Asian Catholics as American and European Catholics slip into minority status. To find common ground, he will have to truly offer an extended hand.
The issue of sexual abuse, opposed by Catholics everywhere, may tie knots in his governance skills. He would have to bring upheaval to internal bureaucracies at the Vatican and dioceses around the world to obtain the transparency and boldness required to punish errant priests and stamp out sex offences. Only such clarity could end misgivings among Catholics and non-Catholics and help to fill churches again. The Vatican’s financial opacity and alleged corruption in its banking systems are further issues that will test his governance and influence perceptions around the world about him and the religion he leads.
Whatever his actions on such matters, this Pope is undoubtedly a devoted spiritual seeker and humble servant of the poor partly because he is a Jesuit who reveres St Francis of Assisi in particular. By taking the name Francis, he has indicated the chief directions of his papacy. St Francis lived simply, alleviated suffering and poverty, and resolutely promoted evangelism through the tradition of itinerant preachers. As a foreign head of the diocese of Rome, the new Pope also extended a hand to all Italians because St. Francis is the patron saint of Italy (along with Saint Catherine of Siena).
Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio (now Pope Francis) is trained in the teachings of Saint Ignatius Loyola, a former Basque soldier who founded the Society of Jesus in 1540 after spiritual visions as he lay wounded on a battlefield. He is the patron saint of soldiers and the world’s 24,000 Jesuits are sworn to solder-like obedience to the Pope, obedience to orders from their hierarchical superiors and acceptance of hardships and poverty. Their chief traditional duty is to seek converts to Catholic Christianity from other faiths, which led them to be early intrepid visitors to remote parts of Tibet, China, India, Africa and elsewhere.
Their work in South America to protect indigenous populations from being enslaved by their European conquerors was a proud chapter that brought them jail time and ignominy for long periods in Europe. Some say no other Christian order has more martyrs for the Faith or spent as many man-years in jail. Switzerland ended a ban on Jesuits as recently as 1973!
Jesuits made their most valuable contributions to all world civilizations by spreading education and cross-pollinating distant cultures with scientific exchanges, linguistics, dictionaries and translations. I am grateful for my education by Irish and American Jesuits, who now focus more on working as citizens of the over 100 countries than on conversions to Roman Catholicism.
Pope Francis may also avoid the former Jesuit “soldiers of God” approach to conversions but is likely to inject more significance into the word “Holy” in the entire church’s operations. He is an expert on St. Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises, a how-to manual on hearing the voice of God. Some say this seminal work has sold 4.5 million copies, equivalent to being published once a month for 400 years despite being a dry teacher’s handbook. Several world cultures love spirituality, including Indians, Japanese and Chinese. A Pope who offers a genuine path could find many new followers among them.
Coming months and years will reveal whether the gap between liberal and conservative Catholics is about societal issues like celibacy and abortion or personal yearnings for spiritual awakening and hearing the voice of God. If a Catholic Spring occurs, its nature may depend on whether this Pope succeeds in making his Faith relevant to believers on both sides of the divide, and beyond.
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