Unlike his predecessors John Paul II, who labored to be the global shepherd and Benedict XVI, the theologian and the guardian of the Magisterium, Pope Francis, the mystic, wants to inject anew a Christ-like dynamism into the ministry. It is apparent to the Pope that the crisis of the Church today stems from its failure to use its imagination to be culturally visible, proactive and participative in the performance of the most fundamental, most powerful and the greatest commandment, that of Love.
The Pope said: “The Church has appeared prisoner of her rigid languages. Perhaps the world seems to have made the Church like a shipwreck of the past, insufficient to face the questions of the present: maybe the Church had answers for humanity in its infancy but not for its adult age.” To this disillusioned humanity, the Pope wants us to respond bridging the many gaps that separate us, going to meet the poor who are everywhere on the increase lest they lose patience and do not wait for the announcement of the Gospel.
Some thought Pope Francis had taken the world by storm in the interview by his Jesuit confrere Antonio Spadaro, editor of Civiltà Cattolica, when he said: “We cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage, and the use of contraceptive methods.” Yet, it was not a new statement.
In the plane, on his way back from Rio de Janeiro, the journalist Patricia Zordan had asked the Pope: “In Brazil, a law has been approved which extends the right of abortion and has allowed matrimony between people of the same gender. Why didn’t you speak about this?” The Pope answered: “It was necessary to speak about positive things that open the way to youngsters… The Church has already expressed herself perfectly about what you said. Moreover, young people know very well what the position of the Church is.” The journalist insisted: “What is the position of Your Holiness, can you tell us?” “That of the Church. I’m a child of the Church” said Pope Francis.
The surprise of the media is sign of a certain amnesia of what Benedict XVI himself had said, speaking to the bishops of Switzerland on November 9, 2006: “I remember when I used to go to Germany in the 80’s and in the 90’s, that I was asked to give interviews and I always knew the questions in advance. They concerned the ordination of women, contraception, abortion and other such constantly recurring problems. If we let ourselves be stuck in those questions, we give the impression that we are moralists with a few somehow antiquated convictions, and not even a hint of the true greatness appears. I, therefore, consider it essential always to highlight the greatness of our faith which is a commitment from which we must not allow such situations to divert us.”
Pope Francis explained that his re-evangelization praxis is not a game-changing scheme, but more of an attitude shift. To discard doctrines will be self-defeating. Pope Francis isn’t abandoning Catholic doctrine. He is calling for new ways of spreading it. He is making a different pragmatic point: in a world already blasted by sin, the Church is, first and foremost, a field hospital for broken souls.
A lover of paintings, literature, music, cinema and opera, Pope Francis has a visceral empathy for the ravages of sin on human beings. He sees sins as ailments. Heal the wounds, heal the wounds, he insists. His insights on human frailties are in depth. The sexual revolution is sending a steady stream of patients to the wards. The ubiquity of their sad stories, the sheer volume of human beings whose lives are deformed by a consumerist sexual ethos, is precisely what Pope Francis is responding to.
He is suggesting that believers work with the facts on the ground and find creative ways of planting the same eternal seed in damaged soil. “Tradition and memory of the past must help us to have the courage to open up new areas for God” he said. The Pope today may as well be standing on top of a hill, healing wounds and spreading beautiful truths just as Jesus did when He delivered the Beatitudes before a huge crowd. During the Middle Ages, another holy man, named Francis, expressed with moving words the same appeal of Pope Francis today: Lord, make me a channel of Your peace.”
