When on the afternoon of March 13, 2013, Jean- Louis Touran He left the central balcony of the Basilica of San Pedro and announced that Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio had been the chosen new Pope of Rome, the world He knew that an earthquake was coming.
Now 12 years later and just after his deathIt is time to evaluate whether that tremor even occurred.
The Pope of the end of the world. This was the aforementioned Francisco before a completely crowded San Pedro square: “You know that the duty of the conclave was to give a bishop to Rome. It seems that my cardinal brothers have gone to look for him to the end of the world. But here we are.”
A month ago, Benedict XVI had resigned from the position exhausted by the amount of existential problems that harassed the Church and what everyone expected were changes. Ratzinger’s papacy had understood himself as a transit solution: as a church that won time to prepare for the challenges that the 21st century was raising.
In the light of the headlines we are seeing in these hours (“A social and reformer gale“), we would run the risk of thinking that Francisco gave that battle and won it. But shortly we examine in detail his pontificate we see that it was not exactly like that.
A change radical of ways. This is the first thing that caught the attention of Francisco’s arrival to Rome: the change in forms. Live in the residence of Santa Marta (instead of in the pontifical apartments), their simple clothing, its animosity, slyness and vitality … As I said in July 2013 British conservative journalist Andrew Sullivan: “What impacted is not which He said, but as He said it: kindness, humor, transparency. “
That raised endless expectations (Sullivan’s article is called, in fact, “This extraordinary Pope“). Francisco’s big problem is that these expectations have not been met – or not at all.
Because? Well by What Sullivan said: “I have waited a lot of time to listen to a Pope to speak like this: with kindness and frankness, reaffirming established dogmas with sudden and radical exceptions that are not exactly exceptions, although, without a doubt, They sound as such “. In that”Sound as such“Everything was.
Who expected something much more transformative, I was waiting too much.
A very aesthetic papacy. In fact, an aesthetic ‘too much’ papacy. Francisco was 23 when the Second Vatican Council began, he had been in the Seminar for two years. It is, in a lot of sense, the generation that was formed with the council and that have integrated into their way of making the touchstone of the century: the Vatican II was a pastoral and non -doctrinal council. The center of the council was how to take the message from the Church to the twentieth century and not if that message should change.
Francisco has made exactly the same in his papacy. He has been a very aesthetic pontificate, with good intentions and facing the gallery: but he has also radically failed in his deepest changes.
A theological shipwreck. A clear example is that of the death penalty. On August 2, 2018, the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith announced a change in catechism of the Church around this matter: what “for a long time (…) was considered an appropriate response to the seriousness of some crimes” became “inadmissible, because it threatens the inviolability and dignity of the person.”
Until that time, especially with John Paul II and Benedict XVI, the Church had had a huge role in the abolition of this type of penalty. However, the catechism had not been modified because a) it was understood that there were historical circumstances (very rare and very few) in which this penalty could be justified yb) because it was very difficult to justify that ‘inadmissibility’, theologically speaking.
Therefore, when the change was announced, the key doubt was justification. And, many years later, the answer is that there has really been none. It is something that has repeatedly apson: with The sacraments for divorced in Amoris Laetitiawith The blessing for homosexual couples in Supplicans fiducia or with The Latin Mass in Traditionis Custodes. Francisco has taken many steps, but has not achieved theological anchors that will develop doctrine in that sense (in large part because “progressive” theology is a wasteland right now).
A papacy less and less clear. Little by little, that frankness and clarity of Francisco has disappeared from ecclesial documents. His great projects (such as Sinodality) They have remained nothing and the division of the Church is increasingly deep. Thus, the statements of Rome that have always been characterized by their clarity, began to become ambiguous so that each group could consider it a compromise solution.
A legacy to the search for a successor. So much so that the next conclave will be the one who Decides Francisco’s real impact. Almost all its reforms can be reversed in an eye open and close. If your successor follows your steps, it is very likely that the changes begin to permeate deeply. With great problems and on the edge of the schism, but they can permeate.
If the next Pope does not follow Bergoglio, only one thing will have changed: the hope that things can change. It will be very difficult to believe in it.
Image | Korea.net / Korean Culture and Information Service
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