Jorge Bergoglio: being the Holy Father in the 21st century

By Sara Angioletti

The Pope’s attempt to change the Catholic Church

Pope Bergoglio has often rocked the clergy and the entire Catholic community with his speeches and gestures: a persona so different from his conservative predecessors, an opportunity for the Catholic Church to renew itself. From Twitter to climate change, from terrorism to same-sex unions, can his statements, therefore, be considered as a mental shift of the Catholic Church to survive in the 21st century?

“ After making my confession I felt something had changed. I was not the same. I had heard something, like a voice, or a call. I was convinced that I should become a priest”.

Jorge Mario Bergoglio, born in Buenos Aires in 1936, was a chemist and used to work in a laboratory before receiving the “call” that led him to join the Jesuits in 1958. After fifteen years of training, he took his final vows in April 1973, without knowing that his faith would lead him directly to Vatican City, to hold the highest ecclesiastical office of the Catholic Church.

An ordinary Argentinian who decided to dedicate his life to God and others, inspired by a spiritual calling. His closeness to the most suffering and the most marginalized and the rejection of material wealth for a fairer and more just world, have allowed him to distinguish himself. So much that he was named Argentina’s provincial superior of the Society of Jesus at a surprisingly young age, and appointed successor of Antonio Quarracino, Archbishop of Buenos Aires. Only ten years later he became the spiritual guide of the city he served and loved so deeply.

After being appointed cardinal by Pope John Paul II in 2001, he has faced some of the most challenging times for Argentina in recent decades. During the riots of the same year, Bergoglio led the Argentinian Catholic community through a political, economic and social crisis, always standing by the side of the poorest and most forgotten. In such a way that the administration of Nestor and Cristina Kirchner saw him as a political opponent.

But his true revolutionary nature showed up after his election as the successor of Pope Benedict XVI, as bishop of Rome. To great surprise, the conclave, after two days of closure, elected him the new Pope, head of the Catholic Church. A persona, so different from his conservative predecessor, an opportunity for the Catholic Church to renew itself. Starting from the luxury and privileges that have always accompanied members of the Catholic clergy and rose numerous discussions among the Catholic community, as they are far from the principles of humility and charity that the Catholic faith promotes.

In fact Pope Bergoglio chose “Francis” as his official name, a name never used before by any of his predecessors. St. Francis, one of the best known figures in Catholic Christianity, symbolizes humility and detachment from earthly goods. Son of a rich merchant, St. Francis left everything he owned to live a milder life in the name of earthly poverty, but rewarded by spiritual wealth.

“ The Lord comes to inaugurate his kingdom with his humility, removing us from every comfortable dream of ecclesiastical power and vanity” were his words during one of his speeches to the Catholic community in Buenos Aires.

But this was only the beginning of his attempt to change the rules of the Catholic Church: his speeches and gestures have often rocked the clergy and the entire Catholic community, sometimes receiving great approval from the public but also strong opposition from the more conservative ecclesiastical members. Pope Francis, even after his election, did not let the weight of his role darken his personality and silence his ideas of change and modernity.

“Homosexual people have a right to be in a family.”

For example, his Twitter profile @Pontifex, with more than 18 million followers, is one of the most followed in the world: “communicating is perhaps the challenge that we have with young people,” the Pope said. Priests, pastors, bishops, even Popes have to learn how to speak with the youngest members of the community because “the church grows through attraction, not proselytism”, he added.

His social profiles were just one of the means through which Pope Francis launched his messages and often also some provocation. TED conferences, speeches at the United Nations General Assembly or the U.S Congress: Bergoglio has never lost an opportunity to make everyone hear his voice and take a stand on the most current problems of society.

© Alfredo J G A Borba

In 2015 Pope Francis discussed migration at a U.S. congress assembly: “the people of this continent are not fearful of foreigners because most of us were once foreigners”. The following year, after President Trump’s decision of building a wall to divide the U.S from Mexico due to the unstoppable flow of migrants that tried to enter the country illegally, he remarked his position once again. He pointed out provocatively that “a person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian”.

In 2016, when the migrant crisis was at its peak in Europe, Bergoglio visited the Greek island of Lesbos, where there is one of the largest refugee camps in the country, which shelters migrants from the Middle East who try to reach Europe by crossing the Aegean Sea from the Turkish coasts. He returned to Vatican City accompanied by 12 migrants from Syria: in a statement published in the bulletin of the press office of the Holy See, he spoke of a welcoming gesture towards them and all the others that risked their life looking for a better future. Gestures and words that wanted to be an example for other European countries that have not found an agreement on how to manage the flow of migrants from Asia and Africa yet.

Also in 2015, following the terrorist attacks in France, Bergoglio stood up for Islam, criticised by many as a foment of fundamentalist groups: “I don’t think is right to identify Islam with violence. This is not just and is not true”.

Worried about the world’s environmental situation, Pope Francis also expressed his opinion on climate change. During his opening speech at the 2019 Climate Action Summit, he said: “while the situation is not good and the planet is suffering, the window of opportunity is still open. Still. We are still in time”. He urged rulers and private companies to do more in the fight against global warming as the results expected after the signing of the Paris agreement had not been at the height of expectations.

Bergoglio also spoke on the shocking events of the last year, the COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdown. At the General Assembly of the United Nations in 2020, he gave a speech during which he remarked how much the pandemic had shown the fragile nature of men.

With his words, he underlined one of the most discussed aspects of the response to the pandemic, the lack of access to medical care for all. COVID-19 has highlighted the social gap between the wealthiest segment, that can pay for analysis and medical treatments. And the poorest, that often don’t even have the resources to get masks or soap. “The pandemic has highlighted the urgent need to promote public health and to make every person’s right to basic medical care a reality”.

Homosexual people have a right to be in a family. [...] What we have to create is a civil union law. That way, they are legally covered. I stood up for that.”

But it was only a few days ago that Pope Francis shocked the world for the umpteenth time with a statement that one would never have expected from the head of the Catholic Church.

His words came in an interview in a documentary film titled “Francesco”, which premiered at the Rome Film Festival on the 21st of October. It is probably the most explicit comment on same-sex unions ever made by a pontiff. This comment has raised many doubts, especially among the more conservative members of the Catholic clergy.

“ The feature-length film, directed by Evgeny Afineevsky, tells the story of Francis’s papacy over the past seven and a half years, covering many of the trips he made before the COVID-19 pandemic and his handling of the sexual abuse scandals that have engulfed the church” explains The Guardian.

However, the position taken towards same-sex unions does not imply acceptance of gay marriage for the Catholic Church: the Pope, in fact, speaks about legal protection, the creation of a law that protects same-sex couples, not of the opening of the institution religious marriage to same-sex couples.

Despite this, the Pope’s comments are certainly a leap forward in modernity: Bergoglio himself in fact in 2010, when he was still in Argentina, opposed to the plan of Nestor and Cristina Kirchner to legally allow homosexual unions saying that “every child deserves a mother and a father”.

Considering all his statements, is the Pope doing his best to overcome the bigotry that for some characterizes the Catholic Church to make it more inclusive?

“ Each of you, dear friends, carries a life story that speaks of drama and war […]. But each of you carries above all a richness of humanity and religion, a richness to be welcomed, not feared. We must not be afraid of the differences!

Pope Francis