Trying to guess Francis might do today is challenging enough, let alone trying to anticipate what the next 12 months might bring. Nevertheless, simply looking at what are already booked for 2015, it’s at least possible to say that it shapes up as another eventful year.
First on the list was Francis’ annual encounter with the diplomatic corps, accredited to the Vatican, on January 12. It’s generally the pope’s top foreign policy speech of the year. Later that day, Francis left for a January 12-19 outing to Sri Lanka and the Philippines, marking his second voyage to Asia and the seventh foreign trip of his papacy.
The stop in the Philippines generated, perhaps, the largest crowd ever assembled to see a pope. When Pope St. John Paul II visited the Philippines in 1995 for World Youth Day, he drew 5 million people. For Francis, the number could have been 6 million or more.
In mid-February 2015, Francis will hold a consistory for the creation of new cardinals. It’s a further opportunity to put his stamp on the Church’s senior leadership, perhaps including his first nomination of a cardinal from the United States. If things hold to form, Francis is likely to name 10-12 new cardinals who are under the age of 80 and thus eligible to vote for the next pope.
Sometime early in the year, the pope’s “G9” council of cardinal advisors, a body that includes Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley of Boston, is expected to begin making concrete recommendations for Vatican reform, possibly involving the elimination or consolidations of some departments and the creation of one or two others.
One strong hypothesis is the creation of a new Congregation for the Laity, to take its place alongside existing congregations for clergy and bishops. If so, Francis has hinted that he might choose to name a lay person, even a married couple, to help lead the agency, which would represent another challenge to the Vatican’s clerical power structure.
Also sometime in the first half of 2015, Francis is expected to release an encyclical letter on the environment. If so, it will mark the first time a pontiff has devoted such a major teaching document exclusively to ecological themes. Last November, a papal aide said the encyclical would be produced in time to influence “next year’s crucial decisions” which include a meeting, in September 2015, at the United Nations to draft the Sustainable Development Goals and another gathering on climate change in Paris in December.
In June, Francis is scheduled to travel to Turin in Italy for a rare exhibition of its famous shroud, regarded by devotees as the burial cloth of Christ. Given that recent popes have sent mixed signals regarding their personal convictions about the shroud, observers will be watching closely to see what Francis has to say. The day trip to Turin also marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of St. John Bosco, founder of the Salesian religious order.
Since the Pope attended a Salesian school in Buenos Aires as a teenager, it should be a highly personal encounter.
In late September 2015, Francis is set to make his first trip to the United States, traveling to Philadelphia for a Vatican-sponsored World Meeting of Families. Though the Vatican has not yet released details for the trip, Francis is also expected to stop in New York to address the United Nations and in Washington, DC for a joint session of Congress.
Catholic leaders in Arizona have proposed adding a stop at the US/Mexico border to the pope’s itinerary in order to demonstrate his solidarity with immigrants, but it’s not clear, at the moment, if that’s in the cards. The outing will mark not only Francis’ first trip to the United States as pope, but also the first time Jorge Mario Bergoglio is ever visiting the country.
In October 2015, Francis will once again convene a Synod of Bishops on the family, in part to ponder how hot-button issues such as how welcoming the Catholic Church ought to be to gays, how positive it ought to be about non-traditional relationships such as living together outside of marriage, and whether divorced and civilly remarried Catholics should be able to receive Communion. The October 2014 synod that discussed those issues was among the most tumultuous Vatican summits in recent memory, and there’s no reason to believe the next edition will be any less controversial.
Francis has also dedicated 2015 as a “Year of Consecrated Life,” celebrating the contributions of men’s and women’s religious orders in the Catholic Church, and will presumably have several events for religious along the way.
Of course, Francis is a spontaneous figure whose agenda evolves in response to new opportunities and changing situations. The only real way to know what 2015 will actually bring, therefore, is to stay tuned. www.cruxnow.com/ John L. Allen Jr.
