Daniel Johnson: A New Pope on a Pilgrim’s Path
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In choosing Pope Francis as his new name, Jorge Mario Bergoglio conjures Francis of Assisi, emphasizing the church’s humility, poverty and charity.
The election of Pope Francis may prove to be not only a turning point for the Catholic Church, but for all humanity. For the first time in a millennium, the most venerable institution on earth will be led by a man from outside Europe, the Argentine son of an Italian.
Jorge Mario Bergoglio told the multitudes after the announcement of his elevation on Wednesday that he would lead them on “the path of love”—a reference, surely, to Francis of Assisi, the great 13th-century saint from whom he has borrowed his pontifical name. The daring novelty and profound symbolism of the new pope’s name cannot be overstated. Just as Benedict XVI named himself after the great founder of Western monasticism and preserver of Western civilization during the Dark Ages, so Francis has named himself after the founder of the Franciscans in order to signal the church’s humility, poverty and charity.
As a Jesuit, the former archbishop of Buenos Aires has set his sights on a simpler, humbler, more missionary style than the intellectual grandeur of his predecessor, Benedict XVI, now pope emeritus.
Jesuits are of course famously intellectuals too, but Pope Francis is the son of a railroad worker and poor Italian immigrant. He has always stayed true to his roots, and his election signifies the longing of the cardinals to return the church to its roots, too—as an unworldly, dedicated band of pilgrims.
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Not coincidentally, this was Benedict’s farewell to his flock: To be a pilgrim, he said, was his only wish during his remaining days. A pilgrim church, then—this is the theme of continuity that unites the new pontificate with the old.
Cardinal Bergoglio, as he then was, finished second to Benedict at the 2005 papal conclave, so his appointment is neither a revolution nor a surprise. Pope Francis and the pope emeritus have much else in common, not least a steely orthodoxy that was honed in the battles with liberation theology and other Marxist heresies during the past century.
It is true that the new pope’s age (76) did raise eyebrows, given the leadership vacuum that two ailing popes have created. Yet the cardinals rightly attach more importance to the character, holiness and principles of their chosen pontiff than to such superficial matters as his age. Pope Francis will, we must hope, be as youthful at heart as the young nation he was born into.
The “path of love” of Pope Francis will be a momentous journey for 1.2 billion Catholics. After so many scandals, so many souls who have abandoned the faith, here is a chance for a cleansing of the Vatican stables, a root-and-branch reform of the Curia, the Papal administration, and a radical new emphasis on the core mission of the church: to reach out to the world.
Pope John XXIII opened a new chapter when he convened the Second Vatican Council in 1962, declaring: “I want to throw open the windows of the church so that we can see out and the people can see in.” John Paul II did the same when he vanquished the church’s communist persecutors: “I gave the tree a good shake and the rotten apples fell.” Benedict XVI took on the”dictatorship of relativism” and grappled with the threat of Islamist persecution, before setting an example of self-abnegation by retiring into a life of prayer.
Now a new pilgrim pope promises to lead the church into the next phase of its history, a phase that threatens to be more perilous even than the past century. The cardinals have taken into account the possibility that, without embracing the whole of humanity, Rome may once again decline and fall.
This was the first conclave in modern times not to be preceded by the death of a pope. It lacked the intense, heightened atmosphere that surrounded the last election in 2005, when the long-drawn-out agony of John Paul II had suffused the Catholic world in grief and gratitude. At the time, as the new pope was announced, there was a moment of confusion before the news sank in. But now there is a real sense of a new dawn, a moment of grace for the universal church, when she can put the trials and tribulations of the past behind her and begin anew the task of evangelization that is her raison d’être.
It will be incumbent on the new pope to risk everything for the sake of proclaiming the Gospel. He cannot do that without encouraging priests to practice what they preach and removing them from office when they don’t. But Pope Francis will have to be more brutal than his predecessors in dealing with clerical abuse and corruption, and that may bring with it an episcopal backlash.
Even as the new pope settles into his apartment at the Vatican, he will come under fire from those who hate the church. Many a pope has suffered for his principles in the past. One of the greatest reformers, the 11th-century Pope Gregory VII, exclaimed bitterly after he was driven out of Rome by Emperor Henry IV: “I have loved justice and hated iniquity: therefore I die in exile.”
One issue cannot be dodged: the role of the laity, especially women. The decline of the female religious orders has left many women feeling that they no longer have a central vocation in a church that has always revered femininity in the form of the Virgin Mary. Pope Francis will seek to find new ways in which women can serve Christ, even though ordination is closed to them. The promotion of women into secular roles at the Vatican would be a significant first step. The impression that the hierarchy is a closed, exclusive, all-male club must be dispelled, and the unique qualities of women harnessed to restore the reputation of the church.
Francis may take some getting used to, after the two great popes who came before him, but he is a humane and gentle pastor who will win over hearts as well as minds. This pope comes from the Society of Jesus, but his mission is to restore the church into what it once was and could be again: a mission to spread the word of Jesus in society. If Pope Francis loves justice and hates iniquity, he may indeed find himself an exile in this world—but then so did Jesus himself.
Mr. Johnson is the editor of Standpoint magazine.
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