In the spring of 2013, I was putting finishing touches on a book titled, Unfinished Pentecost, about men and women who studied in Rome in the 1960s during the Second Vatican Council and how it changed their lives.
I thought the book was done. Then Pope Benedict retired, and the ensuing conclave chose a relatively obscure cardinal from Argentina to succeed him. So I added an epilogue to my book.
Twelve years later, with Pope Francis’ death and another conclave soon to begin, I decided to revisit what I wrote back then about the pope who turned out to be the true successor to John XXIII:
Oh my. What have we here? Do we dare get our hopes up?
When Cardinal Bergoglio of Argentina, the newly elected pontiff, announced he was taking the name Francis, hearts leaped. There’s a reason no pope before him has dared to take that name. It raises the bar — considerably. Calling yourself Francis is a commitment. Francis of Assisi is to Catholicism as Lincoln is to the U.S. presidency — the standard.
The Gospel (aka “the good news”) tells the story of an itinerant visionary who preached a radical message of love and mercy, and Francis of Assisi, more than any other saint in the Catholic pantheon, lived that message. He famously said, “Preach the Gospel at all times. If necessary, use words.” So this new Francis has some serious shoes to fill — presuming Francis of Assisi even wore shoes, which I doubt.
Reportedly, Bergoglio was sitting next to Cardinal Hummes, archbishop emeritus of Sao Paolo, Brazil, when he learned he had been elected pope. Hummes told him, “Don’t forget the poor.”
“Right away,” the new pope later told the media, “thinking of the poor, I thought of Francis of Assisi. … For me he is the man of poverty, the man of peace, the man who loves and protects creation. These days, we don’t have a very good relationship with creation, do we?”
He described Francis of Assisi as “the poor man who wanted a poor Church.” Then he said the words that many of us thought we would never hear from a pope: “How I would love a Church that is poor and for the poor.” That probably doesn’t mean he’s going to sell off the Vatican treasures and redistribute the wealth. What it means is … well, we’ll see what it means.
The new pope also had some remarkable things to say to the media. Journalism, he said, “demands a particular concern for what is true, good and beautiful. This is something we have in common since the Church exists to communicate precisely this. It should be apparent that all of us are called, not to communicate ourselves, but this existential triad made up of truth, beauty and goodness.”
At President Obama’s second inauguration, Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, who co-chaired the ceremony, briefly addressed the assembled multitude, beginning with: “The novelist Alex Haley lived by six words: Find the good and praise it.”
Good words to govern a Church by also. The last pope to live by those six words was John XXIII, the last pope who had a sense of humor and didn’t take himself too seriously, the last pope who was genuinely a “man of the people.”
“Find the good and praise it” also captures the tone of the Second Vatican Council, which Pope John XXIII called and, contrary to what its detractors and dismissives seem to believe, will eventually save this Church.
By beginning humbly, Pope Francis has already raised the bar of expectations high. Can he sustain this? Can he return a corrupt Church to holiness? You can bet the unholy connivers in the Curia (the Vatican bureaucracy) and elsewhere are already sharpening their knives.
Can the new pope reform a change-resistant institution?
If Pope Francis is the real deal, he will grow and develop and evolve as a leader. Like Lincoln, like his namesake from Assisi, he’ll have the humility to learn from experience and from listening to others.
Do we dare to hope again?
So far, so good …
Pope Francis succeeded. He helped me believe the Catholic Church could be relevant again — for the first time since Vatican II. Here’s what he said about the Second Vatican Council in one of his early homilies:
The Holy Spirit annoys us. It moves us, makes us walk, pushes the Church to move forward. … The Council was a beautiful work of the Holy Spirit. But after 50 years, have we done everything the Holy Spirit in the Council told us to do? No.
We celebrate the anniversary, but we don’t want it to upset us. We don’t want to change and, what’s more, there are those who wish to turn the clock back. This is called stubbornness and wanting to tame the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is the strength of God. It’s what gives us the strength to go forward, but many prefer the comfort of the familiar.
Pope Francis’ papacy was a great beginning, but there must be a succession of Francises. No one pope can do it alone. His legacy will live on only if the cardinals are wise enough to choose a successor from the same mold, who can guide the Church further along the path of necessary change.
