JORGE BERGOGLIO’S spartan lifestyle, while archbishop of Buenos Aires became fodder for news worldwide. As pope, his pronouncements on many issues made him controversial. His simplicity and humility made him lovable. But what made him a more significant and respected leader are the reforms he initiated both for the Church and for the global community.
As archbishop of Buenos Aires, Cardinal Bergoglio shunned privileges accorded him. He lived in a modest apartment, cooked his own food, rode the bus or the train and took pride in being with “those in the periphery,” i.e., the poor. As Pope Francis, he is the first pope to come from the New World. He comes out from that context where poverty is dominant.
This gives him sensitivity to need and vulnerability. He knows that those in the periphery belong to places of pain and suffering.
So, while it is widely believed that a cardinal-friend from Brazil was instrumental in making him remember the poor when his election to the papacy was imminent, methinks, he would hardly forget those whom he calls in the “existential margins” because he lived with them, ministered for them and was a father to them.
This experience allowed the pope to offer the cardinals a vision of the Church that takes risks, a church that looks outward to the margins, rather than inward rejoicing in self-absorption, a stance he derided as “theological narcissism.”
He said, “If the Church is alive, it must always surprise.” Indeed, the Catholic world was surprised when he said about gay people: “Who am I to judge”? Or when he criticized the institution for putting dogma before love and doctrine before serving the poor. He claimed that the church had grown “obsessed” with abortion, gay marriage and contraception and become a Church of “small-minded rules.”
Where his predecessor, Benedict XVI, wanted a smaller, purer Church, Francis wanted an inclusive one, which was a “home for all.”
With these, the conservatives in the Church struggle to explain that no doctrine is being changed, the change is only in tone, in emphasis and in method. Liberal Catholics, meanwhile, are optimistic that a modification in substance will match the change in style.
The Synod of Bishops in October 2014 was a showcase of this divide, where some advocated for the divorced and the remarried to be allowed to receive Holy Communion, while others defended the dignity and indissolubility of marriage as willed by Christ himself.
Under this pope, change clearly becomes a necessity. In a scathing remark to the members of the curia, he obviously saw the evils of rumor-mongering, of careerism, of patronage through forming “closed circles,” of being rivals, or boastful, and of existential schizophrenia among other things.
In February of this year, he called for a meeting of cardinals from all over the world with the intent of changing this prevailing culture that perversely affects the governance of the church. Early in his papacy, heads started to roll. The Vatican Bank was reformed and some curia officers were either replaced or demoted.
For us priests in the periphery, none could be more effective in downplaying careerism in the Church than the pope’s policy of not granting “elite priests” the honorary title of “monsignor” which means “My Lord.”
This might be disappointing for some, but, at least, the pope may have seen this as simply the equivalent of the loathed patronage and spoils system in government bureaucracy.
In truth, priests are not “lords,” they are “servant-leaders” tasked to lead the faithful to God.
Austen Ivereigh, the British journalist who authored a book on Francis, entitled The Great Reformer: Francis and the Making of a Radical Pope, said, “People are seeing the Church in a different light than they did a couple of years ago. Simply by being, he has made real and made evident the Church’s compassion, the Church’s mercy, the Church’s love. People just see in him a deeply loving, humble human being.”
And as compassionate and merciful as he is toward the poor, the marginalized and the oppressed, he appears just as hard and “ruthless” with ecclesial authorities who prey on children and with those who flaunt their ostentatious lifestyle.
Francis does not shy away from confronting even the most entrenched religious ideologies, nor does he bow to political expectations. He seems fearless in the face of Church opposition or partisan pressure.
He is not afraid to question religious culture when it gets in the way of living the Gospel. For all his resonance in popular culture, he recognizes that there is something profoundly countercultural and holy in living the selflessness of Christian life.
In pushing the Church forward, Francis insists that “God is not afraid of new things” and that the complexities of human life are not necessarily black and white.”
Some think that Francis is damaging the Church. On the contrary, as Ivereigh puts it, “He is restoring it.” Francis supposes that, by faithfully living the radical messages of Jesus, we can really change the world.
Indeed, his denunciation of human trafficking and other modern-day forms of slavery, his significant role in patching up the broken ties between the US and Cuba and the many different reforms he brings to the Church are great strides toward restoring not just the Church but the world, as well.
Right before our very eyes, a reformation is unfolding. Let us savor, embrace and support it for the future of the Church will depend far less on the man at its helm. Who knows, we may never have it again in our lifetime.
The author is the parish priest of Nuestra Señora del Perpetuo Socorro Parish, Sampaloc, Manila. He is also the Executive Secretary of the CBCP Permanent Committee on Public Affairs (CBCP-PCPA). He earned his Masteral Degree in Public Administration at the University of the Philippines-NCPAG, Diliman.
Fr. Jerome R. Secillano, MPA / Special to the BusinessMirror