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Pope Francis has captured the imagination of many people over the last year-plus -- not all of them Catholics. (ALBERTO PIZZOLI / AFP/Getty Images |
In 2005 I was invited to Rome by the BBC to
provide commentary for the events surrounding the death of Pope John
Paul II and the subsequent conclave that would elect Joseph Ratzinger as
Benedict XVI. On the day the cardinals entered the conclave, I was on
camera with the veteran BBC correspondent Brian Hanrahan (who died in
2010) and who seemed incredulous that the College of Cardinals might
elect Ratzinger who had just given a memorable homily to the cardinals
in which he decried the “dictatorship of relativism.”
Could so narrow-minded a man, I was in effect asked, become pope?
I
argued that Ratzinger was well-known to each of the cardinals and that,
he more than any other, had the best chance of being elected. I
allowed, however, that perhaps “a friendlier version” of Ratzinger could
be elected, and speculated that perhaps this might be “Bergoglio of
Argentina.” I was about eight years off.
So,
on a rainy March evening in Rome last year, finding myself unexpectedly
once again present for a conclave, I was familiar with the man who
would walk on to the loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica. Nonetheless, this
pope of many firsts (the first to take the name Francis, the first
Jesuit, the first from the Americas) was ready with a number of
surprises of his own. For those of us who follow the papacy, Pope
Francis provides a constant stream of material for reflection.
For
commentators accustomed over the past 30 years of explaining the
meaning of dense theological and philosophical magisterial texts which
were the norm prior to this pontificate, the simplicity and spontaneity
of Pope Francis’ style can be confusing and somewhat deceptive.
Whereas
his predecessor had largely taught in very precise words and nuanced
argument, Francis speaks boldly through effective and moving gestures.
One tender and manifestly genuine embrace of a deformed man is worth an
entire encyclical on love. And in the age of the Internet, it is more
instantly accessible to millions of people.
It
is no surprise that the man who took as his model and name the model of
il poverello of Assisi would place the poor as a central concern of his
pontificate: their dignity, their rights and their sustenance. Yet, the
spontaneous gestures and the impromptu manner in which they are
displayed ought not to beguile us into thinking this pope is offering a
superficial dichotomy between left and right; between capitalism and
socialism. To think that any pope, but especially this pope, is animated
in his concern for the poor and vulnerable by a particular political
ideology is to miss him completely.
While
renouncing the notion that the market alone is sufficient to meet all
human needs, Francis is also prepared to denounce a “welfare mentality”
that creates a dependency on the part of the poor and reduces the Church
to the role of being just another bureaucratic NGO. The complexity of
his thought surprises some, on both the Right (some of whom worry,
needlessly, that he is a liberation theologian) and the Left (who are
already using his words to foment a political “Francis Revolution” in
his name). Such tendencies reveal a rather anemic understanding of this
man but also of Catholicism, which has historically been comfortable
balancing the tensions of apparent paradoxes (Divine/human;
Virgin/Mother; etc.). It is too facile a temptation to collapse 2,000
years of tradition, commentary and lived experience into four or five
politically-correct hot button sound bites that are the priority, not of
the Church, but of propagandists with an agenda.
If
one wants to understand Francis’ thinking about the poor, it would be
good to look objectively at his much talked about, but little-read
Apostolic Exhortation, “The Joy of the Gospel.” It soon becomes apparent
that much of this Exhortation is an extension of a keen insight that
Jorge Bergoglio had when he was Archbishop of Buenos Aires:
We
cannot respond with truth to the challenge of eradicating exclusion and
poverty if the poor continue to be objects, targets of the action of
the state and other organizations in a paternalistic and aid-based
sense, instead of subjects, where the state and society create social
conditions that promote and safeguard their rights and allow them to be
builders of their own destiny.
As one who
has promoted a free economy as a normative way to assisting people out
of poverty, I find two innovative challenges in these words which could
go a long way to depoliticizing the debate about wealth and poverty.
Imagine
if all of those presently engaged in the debate on these matters began
to ask questions such as, “What excludes the poor from the process of
prosperity?” or “What would a society look like that no longer considers
the poor as objects of paternalistic aid but rather as potential
shapers of their own destiny?”
The
particular details of policy prescriptions are not the heart and soul of
Francis’ incredible attraction on the part of people throughout the
world. It is not his political motivation that moves us as we witness
his embrace by — and of — frail human life.
In
a monumental and unanticipated way Pope Francis is changing the tired
conversations of the past and inviting us to engage in a process of
healing so desperately needed in our world today. Almost single-handedly
he is changing the way in which people view Catholicism, not by
changing Catholicism, but by retrieving many of its own treasured
traditions and putting them out front.
His
strategy comes from his view of the Church and it is not secret. It is
simple, and he stated himself clearly. He sees the Church as a field
hospital after a battle.
“The thing the
Church needs most today is the ability to heal wounds and to warm the
hearts of the faithful,” he said. “It is useless to ask a seriously
injured person if he has high cholesterol and about the level of his
blood sugars! You have to heal his wounds. Then we can talk about
everything else. Heal the wounds.”
Heal the
wounds, yes. And then awaken society to the greatest resource of all:
the human person. That is the path out of poverty.
This post originally appeared in The Detroit News.
