Pope Francis will be remembered as the pope who built bridges across cultural, ideological, political and religious barriers.
Through synods, encounters, encyclicals, apostolic exhortations, bulls of indiction and more, Francis was tirelessly committed to bringing people together in a spirit of dialogue and encounter.
A review of his life as a young Jesuit, Archbishop, Cardinal and Pope reveals a man intent on reaching geographical and existential peripheries.
A Courageous Shepherd
During his time as Archbishop of Buenos Aires (1998) and then Cardinal (2001), Jorge Mario Bergoglio drew criticism from Argentina’s politicians due to his views on the protection of the poor, the unborn and the sanctity of marriage.
Due to his influence, the Kirchner administrations saw him as a political rival.
His respect and charity for the human person, along with his insistence that more be done for the needy, elderly and children, were often misinterpreted as allusions to politics.
In the early 2000s, Argentina plunged into governmental struggles followed by devalued currency and high unemployment rates – Bergoglio’s work for the poor and marginalised could not have been more timely.
In 2013, following the unexpected resignation of Pope Benedict XVI and just before his election to the papacy, Cardinal Bergoglio spoke to the cardinals at a pre-conclave congregation.
In this brief speech he emphasised that evangelisation implies apostolic zeal and that it ‘pre-supposes a desire in the Church to come out of herself.
“The Church is called to come out of herself and to go to the peripheries, not only geographically, but also the existential peripheries: the mystery of sin, of pain, of injustice, of ignorance and indifference to religion, of intellectual currents, and of all misery.”
When speaking of peripheries, Bergoglio alluded to both the working-class poor who are often found on the outskirts of cities, and to the many who, perhaps surrounded by richness, find themselves far from God and experience a deep ontological solitude.
Throughout his pontificate, Pope Francis identified the obstacles which prevent Christians from announcing the gospel: relativism, secularisation and de-Christianisation.
True to his pre-conclave speech, he often called for a non-static Church, a Church on the move that brings Christ to the people, wherever they may be, regardless of who they are and what they have done.
The condemnation of the modern throw away culture became one of the trademarks of his pontificate.
According to this culture, ‘human beings are themselves considered consumer goods to be used and then discarded’ he wrote in the Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium #53.
In Let Us Dream, he criticised the ‘neo-Darwinist ideology of the survival of the fittest’, stating that ‘my predecessor Saint Paul VI warned in his 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae of the temptation to view human life as one more object over which the powerful and educated should exercise mastery. How prophetic is message now looks!’
The motto chosen by Francis at his election to the papacy was the same one he used as bishop: Miserando atque eligendo, meaning “having mercy, he called him” – a fitting adage for a man whose humility and attention to the fragility of the human condition was matched by the certainty that he was chosen to shepherd the flock of God towards greener pastures.
Part III will be featured in next week’s edition of The eRecord
Dr Marco Ceccarelli is the Director of the Centre for Faith Enrichment for the Archdiocese of Perth and a Lecturer in the school of Philosophy and Theology at The University of Notre Dame, Fremantle.