We are grateful to be able to bring you this special guest article upon the death of Pope Francis, from an Australian Catholic.
Picture: Marcela from New York, NY, USA, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
It was a bit of a shock when Benedict XVI announced his retirement from the papacy. No pope had retired since Gregory XII in 1415. Still for all his intellect and erudition Benedict’s reign was not going well. The sexual abuse scandal continued to grow, even in his homeland of Germany. He did not have a good record as an administrator. He had a very Euro-focus for the future of the Church which was increasingly global. He sensed his time as pope had come to an end.
Catholics always approach a conclave with a mix of anxiety, concern, and openness to what the Spirit might bring us. Nothing really prepared us for what was to come. From his first public appearance as pope where he appeared, simply dressed, tentative, and asking the crowd to pray for him, we knew something different was happening. We started to hear rumours of his pre-conclave speech where he criticised the Church for being inward looking. He spoke of the dangers of a Church becoming “self-referential” and “sick.” He warned of the dangers of a “theological narcissism” overtaking the Church. He referred to the Gospel image of Jesus knocking on the door wanting to enter our lives. “But think of the times when Jesus knocks from within to let himself out. The self-referential Church seeks Jesus Christ within and does not let him out.”
As often as I have read this, I can only see it was a rejection of the direction taken under Benedict. Francis eschewed the pomp and ceremony that was on the ascendent under his predecessor. He refused to move to the papal palace, choosing instead to stay in a boarding house close to the Vatican, taking his meals together with pilgrims to the eternal city. Stories abounded of him making sure the Swiss guards outside his room were comfortable and well fed, of his not sitting in the same chair in the dining room lest it become “his” spot, of paying his own bill on his departure from the hotel where he was housed for the conclave. This was something new.
Pope John Paul II was a pope of grand theatre, Benedict of erudition and formality; Francis became a pope of the small and intimate gesture: an embrace of a disfigured man in the crowd; holding the hand of a Down’s syndrome child while giving a papal address; the washing of the feet of prisoners on Holy Thursday, men and women; people receiving personal calls from the pope in times of distress. Like his namesake, St Francis of Assisi, everyone was important, everyone deserving of his time and tenderness. His vision of the Church was inclusive, open doors and windows, reaching out to those on the margins of the Church, the divorced and remarried, the gender diverse, and in time, the victims of clergy sexual abuse.
There are so many things where he made his mark: an increasing rapprochement with the Eastern Orthodox; his focus on the plight on immigrants; his faltering steps to include women in the highest offices of the Vatican; his internationalisation of the cardinalate; his promotion of interfaith dialogue; his insistence that facts are more important than ideas. However, there are two things in particular that I want to highlight.
The first is his commitment to caring for the earth itself. While both John Paul II and Benedict XVI had made occasional comments on the environment, Francis dedicated an encyclical, the highest instrument of papal teaching, to environmental questions. His letter, Laudato Si,’ pushed the boundaries of Catholic Social Teaching to include a full range of environmental issues: biodiversity; clean air and water; rising sea levels; global warming; toxic pollution. He made crystal clear that the Genesis text on “subduing” the earth was not a license to unbridled exploitation. He called on us all the listen to the “cry of the earth and the cry of the poor.” Coming from the Latin American church he was painfully aware that it is the world’s poorest who pay the highest price for the environmental vandalism of the developed world. He boldly stated, “Living our vocation to be protectors of God’s handiwork is essential to a life of virtue; it is not an optional or a secondary aspect of our Christian experience.” For too many Catholics this is a clarion call that has still not been heard.
As a papal encyclical, this is now an irrevocable part of the patrimony of Church teaching. In my estimation its stature parallels that of Pope Leo XIII’s famous encyclical Rerum Novarum which served to give papal endorsement to the nascent labour union movement in the end of the 19th century. Laudato Si’ staked out new territory and gave a papal blessing to the global environmental movement.
Less secure but no less important is his attempt to take the Church along the “synodal path.” Based on the Jesuit notion of discernment of spirits, Francis drew the whole Church, inasmuch as that was possible, into a global process of dialogue, turning the Church not just into a teaching church, but a listening church. The most recent synodal meeting in Rome in October 2024 had cardinals, bishops, members of religious orders and laity, male and female sitting at a round table as equals, all given equal speaking time, all called to listen. Lay facilitators would cut off cardinals and bishops if they went on too long. What was important for Francis was not so much the outcomes but the process. This process of discernment he hopes to embed at all levels of the Church’s life. Sadly, this direction could easily be changed by his successor, to the relief of those who viewed it as undermining of Church authority.
Of course there were missteps as well. He mishandled the sexual abuse issue at times, but could recognise his faults and act more decisively, notably in one case asking thirty-four bishops in Chile to offer their resignations in writing for their collective failures—seven resignations were accepted and a cardinal removed from office. Another issue of contention is the place of women in the Church. While, to his credit, he has brought women into senior positions of authority in the Vatican curia, he has stopped short on recognising women as ministers. He has sent mixed messages about the possibility of ordaining women to the diaconate and has put it off for “further study.” Perhaps he felt that the global Church was not yet ready.
Vale Pope Francis, the Father welcomes you into his eternal kingdom, the Son recognises your wounds as a mark of his own suffering for the redemption of the world, and the Spirit fills your heart with joy and blessing. Rest now, faithful servant.
Professor Neil Ormerod is Honorary Professor at Alphacrucis University College. Neil is a Catholic theologian with extensive experience across the spectrum of Australian theological education, including with the Australian University of Theology.
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