Hand Of God
Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Buenos Aires, now Pope Francis and poised to be more of a popular hero than Diego Maradona in Argentina, may have had the “hand of God” in his elevation as the supreme pontiff of the Church ~ being the first Latin American Pope and also the first from outside Europe in more than a thousand years. The 1978 selection of Karol Józef Wojtyla of Poland as the first non-Italian Pope in 400 years had electrified the Catholic world, and John Paul II went on to become one of the world’s most influential leaders. By elevating a cardinal from outside Europe, the conclave at Rome evidently hopes to achieve a similar effect.
Pope Francis, a Jesuit with Italian roots, hails from a South American society characterized by great disparity of wealth, where materialism, secularism and general disillusionment is rife. Obviously, the new pontiff is aware of the ground reality of the Christian world and it is expected that he will focus his attention on social justice and poverty, and try to speak to the world in a new way, as it were.
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What is significant is the fact that during the election of the last three Popes, the predominantly Italian cardinals during the conclave have been electing non-Italians ~ a Polish, a German and now an Argentinean, which is a good indicator that the college of cardinals is acutely aware of the need to reach out to Catholics on a global scale. Through the election of Karol Józef Wojtyla (as John Paul II) from Soviet-dominated Poland there was an attempt to indicate that the Church was trying to send a message about the great struggle of the time. The election of Pope Francis can be regarded as a sequel to the revival of the Catholic faith in South America and for his effective role in augmenting faith in the region.
Cardinal Bergoglio was seen as a person who could cut through barriers of not only economic exploitation but also those within the church. On the flip side, he had been accused of turning a blind eye to human rights abuses during the 1976-83 years of terror in Argentina where thousands were killed and children and babies disappeared. But he is also known to have regularly hidden people on church property during the dictatorship, and once gave his identity papers to a man with similar features enabling him to escape across the border. This, of course, was carried out in secret, at a time when the church publicly endorsed the junta despite State terror unleashed by the generals on civilians. The situation in Argentina during this period has a parallel with Goan priests in the erstwhile Portuguese-African colonies, who under the dictatorial Portuguese regime had to constantly do a tight-rope walk ~ sermonizing about social justice and at the same time ensuring that nothing said from the pulpit would be seen as “seditious” lest there was a crackdown on the church.
More significantly, Cardinal Bergoglio is known not to be a defender of clerical privilege whilst being sensitive to pastoral realities. In fact, he assailed priests who refused to baptize children born out of wedlock, terming it “hypocritical neo-clericalism”. He has has also expressed sympathy for HIV-AIDS victims, even visiting a hospice to kiss the feet of a dozen AIDS patients. He accused fellow church leaders of hypocrisy and forgetting that Jesus Christ bathed lepers and ate with prostitutes.
In the end, Pope Francis’ reign will not be defined by the terms of the rest of the world or by the priorities of the media. It will be characterized by how he meets the challenges of governance, diplomacy and discipline within the church. To start with, he is expected to bring about a sense of unity within the Vatican bureaucracy. He begins on a note of novelty ~ the first Jesuit, the first Pope from the new world, and the first to take the name Francis. It remains to be seen whether these novelties will strengthen his resolve of reforming a Church which is in some disarray.
