OK, so let's get right to it.
The Roman Catholic Church has a new pontiff, Pope Francis the First. Francis I.
He was Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Buenos Aires, Argentina.
He is a Jesuit and is said to be a scholarly man who is extremely humble and dedicated to a life of self-effacing simplicity and prayer. Even as he appeared before the excited throngs at St. Peter's today he rejected many of the trappings of a pope and chose to appear as simply attired as possible.
In Argentina he refused to live in the cardinal's residence and chose to live in an apartment and often rode public transportation.
As a Jesuit he must be aware that the Society of Jesus is one of the most liberal orders of clergy within the Chruch. Jesuits often break from tradition and are known for their commitment to what they perceive as the "social justice" mission of the Church. Often this translates into re-ordering society and/or redistributing the wealth. Social justice has become a sort of umbrella term for those who want to transform the Church just as the word "progressive" has become a catchall for those who want to transform America. What this all means, in a word is "liberal."
Remember when we had a president who dressed in simple cardigans, carried his own luggage, eschewed the trappings of office and asked us all to lower the heat, dim the lights and live more simply? His name was Jimmy Carter and he was an abject failure.
Thankfully, the country tired of him quickly, wisely threw him out of office and replaced him with a man who looked and acted like a president; a man who accepted the office with all its trappings and its burdens; a decisive leader named Ronald Reagan.
But we can't un-elect a pope.
Well, anyway -- maybe we're jumping to conclusions.
Of course, we like the fact that Pope Francis is of Italian descent (his family immigrated to Argentina from Italy). We also like the fact that this pope is not tied to the Roman Curia which means he is free to clean up the cumbersome (and often troublesome) bureaucracy of the Church. And he did take on the brutal dictatorship in Argentina. But he had limited success with that endeavor and many feel he waited too long to confront totalitarianism and the human rights violations that accompany it. Plus, we wonder if the pastoral/scholarly side of him will take precedence over the need for a strong leader of Church operations.
And then there's the name.
Cardinal Bergoglio couldn't choose a name that had already been used (Pius, Leo, John, Gregory, Paul, Benedict, to name a few). Instead he picked a name that's never been used and no one even imagined -- Francis. The last pope to take a name that had not already been used was John Paul I. The last Italian pontiff had one of the shortest ever reigns, lasting just 33 days before he died on August 26, 1978. Not a good omen.
Whew! There's a lot to wonder about here.
Yet, even with these concerns, we've been assured that theologically the new pope is an orthodox conservative like his predecessor Benedict XVI and that no one will be expecting him to take the Catholic Church into a brave new world where priests are permitted to marry and women are ordained. We're also told that he's serious about a major overhaul of the bureaucrats in Rome.
But we don't want Pope Francis cooking his own meals and taking the bus to work. there's hardly time for that. And symbolism only goes so far.
We want him to be the Chief Missionary for Christ: Preaching the gospel in clear, level-headed terms that resonate into today's world but without mincing words or obfuscating Church doctrine. And yes, we also want him to clean up the mess inside The Vatican.
It's good that the Church now has a leader from the developing world, where the vast majority of the world’s Catholics live and where the Church is actually expanding. But we wonder if this might hinder him when it comes to confronting secularism in the West.
This guy is facing a huge challenge -- in fact, many challenges.
So let us end this with a prayer for Pope Francis I:
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