2013-07-14     Many thanks for quick translation: 
Fr. Alberto Rossa, cmf,  Macau  www.bibleclaret.org

Just…BERGOGLIO

By Msgr. Victor Manuel Fernández

(Now named bishop, 13, may 2013, by Pope Francisco).

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These past days I wrote several things by insistent requests from journalists and it seemed to me that those notes could help the people of God to value with hope the figure of the new pope. Now, thinking more about the pastoral agents, I'd go into other considerations. However, I anticipate that I will not do it from a critical perspective, but from the heart and at the same time from well rooted personal convictions.

Innovations that Bergoglio as Pope can bring

I prefer to say "Bergoglio" as he always presented himself, but I do it to highlight things that have to do with caracteristics that he always had. Because without a doubt, in this new mission God will providentially converge that personal history.

• Deep sense of the popular

The word "people" is one that Bergoglio uses with glitter in his eyes. He appreciates the people as a collective subject, which should be in the centre of the concerns of the Church and of any power. This is not a small thing to say, when in some sectors of society and the Church people are only considered as a mass full of defects, which must be restructured, with the norms of the "wise and prudent." We cannot ignore that, as a bishop, he always insisted to priests not only that they be merciful, but also able to adapt themselves to the people, that they would not support neither a moral nor rigid ecclesiastical practices, that would not complicate the life of people with norms commanded authoritatively from above. "We are to give the people what people needs," is a conviction he expressed repeatedly. I am convinced that this is not an opportunistic populism (although it can be called as you like), but the certainty that the Holy Spirit acts in the people, and does it so with schemes and categories often difficult to digest for the illustrated or upper class sectors that, with their lack of understanding, tend to show the same irrational authoritarianism that they criticize.

• Constant and heartfelt appreciation of popular piety

Most of the Argentine people express their faith by "popular religiosity," which does not always coincide with the proposals of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, and that creates, with an original dynamism, its own forms of expressions. Bergoglio endorsed this positive assessment of the popular faith, understood as the result of the mysterious and free action of the Spirit. When we were in Aparecida [gathering of the Latin American Bishops], one night he told me that what most interested him was that the conclusive document affixed in a more forceful way that valuation. He asked me a brief but well oriented text on that line. He then pointed out some adjustments and guided me to complete it and enrich it. In Buenos Aires he showed in many ways this conviction, pointing out that pastoral agents are at the service of that life that runs through the bowels of the people, that no one is owner of that dynamism and that, rather than criticism and limitations, one has to accompany it and offer proper channels.

• Option for the poor

His preference for the poor is part of his life. Being archbishop he oriented it giving special support to priests living in the squaters and poor neighborhoods. But it is an option that is understood in the framework of the two previous points. The poor are not only the object of a speech, or even a mere assistance, and also not exclusively of a "promotion" that frees them from their ills. The option for the poor is all that, and more. Because it is listening to them, treating them as people who think, have their own projects, and also the right to express the faith in their own way. They are subject, active and creative from their own culture, not only objects of a speech, a thought or a pastoral action. Anyway, no one can say that he (Pope Francis) has not raised a criticism of the structural causes of poverty. He did it in different ways and on many occasions.

• Poverty and personal austerity

His personal poverty is not opportunistic or for the media. Everyone knows that he was always like that. Austere to the sacrifice. Because one has to recognize that when one has important responsibilities one tries to use the means that enable to optimize the use of time. But Bergoglio is consistent with his heartfelt choice of a poor life. He never felt worthy of being served and his gestures of simple service, avoiding showing himself as superior are well known.

• Evangelical simplicity

The taste for simplicity is another aspect that can upset practices and traditions of the Vatican. Simple not only in clothing and in the spoken language (away from from abstract speeches) but in manners, which seems now difficult that he be capable of supporting long palatial lifestyle, some rites and formalities which he rather hates, because they do not reflect the simplicity of the Gospel of Jesus.

• Hierarchy of truths and virtues

While Bergoglio is not strictly progressive, and feels a serious respect for the traditional teachings of the Church and of the earlier popes, it is clear for him that there are some things most central and important (love, justice, fraternity...) and others that are just secondary. Without downplaying anything, he understands that preaching should maintain a healthy proportion where the insistence on important things should not opaque the brightness of the most important ones, those that more directly reflect the Jesus of the Gospel.

• Ecumenical commitment and friendship with the Jews

As Archbishop of Buenos Aires he dedicated a lot of time to talk with non-Catholics. Once again I want to emphasize that it is not a diplomatic strategy. It is not often that someone who is filled with commitments dedicate to the "different ones" so much quality time for just gratuitous meetings. Last year he spent several days locked up with a group of Protestant pastors, sharing with them a retreat. He also mixed with the people at the meeting of Pentecostal groups at Luna Park. I remember also, just to mention something that is rather well known, his prolonged conversations with Rabbi Skorka and the joy with which he conferred the doctorate honoris cause to Skorda in the UCA [Catholic University of Argentina] despite the criticism that this caused him. If this is not an open and dialoguing face of the Church...

Dark Church issues

In recent years there seems to have developed a style of Church which is not what Bergoglio would promote, because he is a man of the Vatican Council II. It must be clearly said that he always advocated a missionary and servant Church, not centered in herself but in the service of the people. Bergoglio embraces the old women, kisses the poor, visits anyone, attends or calls the simpler people, wastes time with people who do not hold any power, shows a church stripped and going out of herself. He got tired of asking the priests to be available for the people, to remain open to listening and dialogue, of not being ruthless judges, that they go out to the peripheries, to take care of the "disposables" of society. That has not always been the choice of some men of the Church.

Moreover, thinking that Bergoglio already was about to retire, and imagining that he would be confined to an priestly asylum, intrigues abounded to consolidate with his disappearance a power that they were amassing in recent years. I was myself in meetings where some Argentine bishops, and one important representative of the Holy See (I exclude the current Nuncio, who is a gentleman) amused themselves shamelessly criticizing Bergoglio. They questioned him for not being more demanding with the faithful, for not highlighting better the priestly identity, for not preaching enough on questions of sexual morality, etc etc. Few days ago, before the election of the Pope Francis, I was at an event where some of them—without imagining what would happen—perspired air of imminent victory. There was there another ideal of the Church, powerful, triumphant, judge of the world.

The concentration of power in some sectors of the Church, and the failure to resolve all the problems with the present Roman centralization, has given rise to an arrogance that many Argentine bishops had experienced during some visits to the Holy See (excluding the friendly and respectful treatment of the then Cardinal Ratzinger).

(…)

We know that to advance in the style of the Church that the Pope Francis wants, change and reforms are needed at least to make procedures more human and evangelical. In addition, I believe that he can do it, even efficiently. Being used to power and knowing his cunning, I believe that it will not be easy to trick him. From a good theological point of view, we know that by presenting himself from the first moment, and insistently, as bishop of Rome, he is already showing a way of understanding the exercise of the papacy. He is Pope in as much as he is bishop of a portion of the world, which indicates an exercise of power markedly descentralized, respecting procedures, options, local history and cultures.

Typical expressions of Bergoglio

Finally, I share with you a brief analysis that I published in Clarín (17/03/2013) over some expressions that Bergoglio has frequently used:

• "Self-referential." Indicates a church that is naval-gazing, locked up in intrigues, internal or worldly needs, rather than opening up, surrendering with joy and with humble service.

• "Pray for me." He always says that. He shows the awareness of his limitations, that he permanently needs the help of God and the prayer of others. So, just elected, he bowed deeply to the people asking their prayer.

• "Disposables." Expresses with crudeness how society ignores those who are unnecessary, since they are not in the logic of production and consumerism. If they do not have beauty, money, power, or youth, they are thrown as garbage to the basket of oblivion.

• "Humble yourself." It is what he tells a person who is doing much good. Because he is convinced, by his Jesuit formation, that humility is essential for the best works not to be spoiled: "Humble yourself, so that the Lord may continue to do great things." When he was offered the papacy he responded: "I am a sinner, but I accept."

• "Audacity." He uses it to give encouragement to those who become afraid or are full or worries. For him never ever is completely lost. He does not give up even in the midst of slander and attacks. He is sure that in the end the good and the truth always triumph. I myself went through situations in which I would have preferred to disappear, but he firmly sustained me saying: "Courage. Raise your head and do not allow anyone to take away your dignity."

• "Existential peripheries." He invites pastoral agents not to stay locked up and reach out to the peripheries where no one goes: "Come out of the caves, leave the sacristies... I prefer that a car runs you over than staying locked up." He calls them to get out of personal comfort or the circle of nice people, to be close to all. That is what Jesus did, who spent time with the blind man of the road, the leper, the woman sinner.

• "Apostolic zeal." He says that to encourage generous self-giving from the heart. Because he understands that no one changes the world doing things out of obligation. Those who have left traces in the ground always had a fire of interior fervor that have mobilized them. That is why he criticizes the "spiritual worldliness" of those who cling to external practices or religious appearance, but are empty of the internal strength of the Spirit.

• "Cultural exchanges." He seeks to promote everything that brings closer, unites, connects people and groups. He is an enthusiast of the common good and social friendship.

• "Take care of the fragility of people." He asks this from anyone who has any authority. Strength or power are not to obtain benefits or worldly glory, but to care for the people, to sustain and promote the weak ones. "Taking care" is, in general, a word that defines him, and that he finds embodied in the figure of Saint Joseph.

• "Let yourself be treated with mercy." He invites people who are filled with guilt and scruples to let themselves be forgiven and wrapped up in the tenderness of the Father God. As the Jesuit Ángel Rossi says: "The most fragile found in him always a father, nearly I would say going beyond the limit of what can be possible, with a magnanimity with human frailty which will mark the papacy."

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