The black smoke turned white, a captivating dramaturgy since 1870. And there he was on the balcony, addressing the huge crowd the way St Francis of Assisi did, fratelli, sorelle<\/i>, brothers, sisters–we are all God’s children.\u00a0 He took to the roles as Bishop of Rome and Holy Father like a fish to water, with a mild voice, becoming a mild face, the first Latin American pope, a part of the world moving South. With dark shadows from Argentinean fascism for reflection, learning.<\/p>\n
Fratello lupo<\/i>, St Francis said, Brother Wolf, the ferocious wolf of Gubbio, eating villagers, taken in by St Francis, persuaded to eat leftovers from meals instead, ends up joining the villagers.<\/p>\n
Sorella morte<\/i>, St Francis said, Sister Death, when time had come, embracing the inevitable as a part of his immense spirituality. But the Gubbio violence was not inevitable; the wolf was starving, nothing to eat, the solution was food.\u00a0 Like wolf, like poor people, people in misery, anywhere, at any time.\u00a0 The Franciscan message.<\/p>\n
Cardinal Bergoglio has taken on a heavy inheritance in his choice of name; the forgettable Cardinal Ratzinger was much more modest.\u00a0 He has committed himself not only to the poor, but to peace<\/i>, the unspoken word in the oceans of commentary, to horizontal peace between killers with teeth and arms, wolves and villagers, and to the vertical violence of starvation and misery, due to the greed of humans.<\/p>\n
But the commentary has focused on pedophilia and sex in general, on same sex marriage, on financial distress, bureaucratic disorder, on dogma.\u00a0 Look, very few believe in infallibility, the blessings of celibacy and extra ecclesiam nulla salvus<\/i>-outside church no salvation.\u00a0 They believe in the church, 1.2 billion strong, as a home providing meaning and services, hopefully doing more good than bad.\u00a0 The issues picked for commentary matter, but are petty in comparison with the St Francis challenge.\u00a0 Hold him to his name<\/i>.\u00a0 He may have high goals.<\/p>\n
The first Jesuit pope.\u00a0 The Society of Jesus,<\/i> founded by Ignatius de Loyola, was a renewal movement from the inside in 1534 after the huge outside reforma<\/i>, the protestantisms, Luther-1517 in particular.\u00a0 More than four centuries was needed to reach the top; maybe the Church changed, maybe Pope Francis is a soft Jesuit.\u00a0 Jesuits are known for being priests exercising their ministry, and<\/i> for having a second profession, often as intellectuals, and high level ones.\u00a0 Pope Francis has the same double reputation.\u00a0 Promising.<\/p>\n
“Jesuit” invariably brings up the Experimento Sagrado<\/i>, lifting the bottom up, not only Guarani<\/i> Indians in Paraguay by using their land pattern–collective ownership and private use, but use it well— but lifting up Paraguay itself.\u00a0 When liberated from Spain, using the same pattern as opposed to exporting resources to the West, it became the richest country in Latin America. Till attacked by England and its neighbors, the pope’s Argentina among them.\u00a0 Pope Francis knows this story in and out.\u00a0 Hold him to his Jesuit background<\/i>; much to lean on.<\/p>\n
Popes with considerably less to build on, popes choosing very ordinary, non-committal names, like John XXIII or John Paul II, renewed the church through Vatican II and ecumenical policies, transcending borders drawn in the catastrophic eleventh century.\u00a0 Maybe they managed because they did not challenge as much the dogmas and the curia?\u00a0 From Jesuits to Opus Dei, they are all in that same universal church, making us understand those who argue against the Catholic Church as a federation.\u00a0 As a unitary church it is certainly flexible.<\/p>\n
Archbishop H\u00e9lder C\u00e2mara of Recife, Brazil–called a saint when he fed the poor and a communist when he asked why they were poor–saw creation as co-creation, humans with God.\u00a0 That is dynamic, and opens for new vistas.\u00a0 He would have been a fine cardinal and pope, but that mantle now fits nicely on Cardinal Bergoglio’s shoulders.\u00a0 From the continent of liberation theology, Gustavo Gutierrez, Leonardo Boff as active as ever.<\/p>\n
What would catapult the Catholic Church up front in the world?\u00a0 Giving the world a sense that deep down the Church still attends to the spiritual and material needs of all with compassion and love.<\/p>\n
We all have the freedom to make lists of pious wishes:<\/p>\n
Restore the triangle of the abrahamic faiths Judaism-Christianity-Islam; not Judeo-Christianity against Islam.\u00a0 Continue the 15th century dialogues of Al-Andaluz and the work of Bishop Juan de Segovia who translated the Qur’an.\u00a0 Their christologies will differ; so be it.<\/p>\n
Make Jerusalem, West and East, the site of the capitals of two states and also the site of this ecumenical dialogue for the best in the three faiths.\u00a0 Could the Old City get a status similar to the Vatican?<\/p>\n
Expand this work for spirituality in all directions, in dialogue with all faiths and worldviews, building on the fine work by Hans K\u00fcng (what a consultant for Pope Francis!); for unity in diversity.<\/p>\n
Attend to the material needs by lifting the bottom up, following the Jesuits and that other admirer of Jesus the Christ, Hugo Ch\u00e1vez.\u00a0 Attend to the individual suffering of the poor, but also to their collective suffering, as class, peoples, nations.<\/p>\n
Attend to the other message from St Francis: he did not give alms to the hungry wolf but solved the conflict with the villagers, created togetherness.\u00a0 The Catholic, universal, church is about that.\u00a0 An argument against a liberation theology that divided the congregation of believers, making it difficult to worship in the same church.<\/p>\n
Make the church gender-neutral and let celibacy wither away.<\/p>\n
But gender is not the only faultline to be bridged; generation and race, class and nation, center and periphery.\u00a0 Pope Francis bridges the latter; he owes to all the others his full attention.<\/p>\n
And in that spirit: find a way of suspending the Bolla Papale Inter Coetera<\/i> of 4 May 1493, establishing Western colonialism as gift from the pope to the Spanish kings.\u00a0 The creation belongs to us all.<\/p>\n
______________________<\/p>\n
Johan Galtung, a professor of peace studies, dr hc mult, is rector of the TRANSCEND Peace University-TPU<\/a>. He is author of over 150 books on peace and related issues, including \u2018<\/i>50 Years-100 Peace and Conflict Perspectives,\u2019 published by the TRANSCEND University Press-TUP<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n Editorials and articles originated on TMS may be freely reprinted, disseminated, translated and used as background material, provided an acknowledgment and link to the source, TRANSCEND Media Service-TMS, is included. Thank you.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The first Jesuit pope. The Society of Jesus, founded by Ignatius de Loyola, was a renewal movement from the inside in 1534 after the huge outside reforma, the protestantisms, Luther-1517 in particular. More than four centuries was needed to reach the top; maybe the Church changed, maybe Pope Francis is a soft Jesuit. Jesuits are known for being priests exercising their ministry, and for having a second profession, often as intellectuals, and high level ones. Pope Francis has the same double reputation. Promising.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,183],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorial","category-religion-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26681"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26681\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}