Pope Francis by Paul Vallely

Pope Francis by Paul Vallely

Author:Paul Vallely
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781632861160
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2015-06-19T07:30:43+00:00


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The wind of change was blowing through the Vatican. Yet still no-one could be quite certain which way it would take the Church. As these last two chapters have shown, the new Pope in his first year was sending out signals and also using words that spoke of disturbance and renewal – two fruits that Christians see as characterizing the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Francis was indeed a pope of surprises, conservative on doctrine but distinctly the opposite in style.

Some were contemptuous of this. One prominent secularist described the new head of the Catholic Church as ‘business as usual, with smiles’. But those who thought about the Church more deeply knew that something seismic was stirring. ‘The little tiny things that are terribly important,’ said Father Timothy Radcliffe, the former Master of the Dominican order. ‘The gestures of the Pope – washing the feet of the prisoners, especially the Muslim girl, and hugging that chap with those terrible tumours on his skin – they changed our perception of the world. And this is a very Catholic way of changing things because at the centre of our faith is a great gesture – taking the bread and breaking it. Gestures are pregnant. They say more than we can say in words.’

This is profound. And it answers the questions of those who asked whether Pope Francis was all style and no substance. In a Church which has at the heart of its tradition the idea of sacrament – an outward sign of inward grace – for a Pope to so radically transform a monarchical papal style, hardened by centuries of history, was itself revolutionary. Sacrament insists that outward signs are freighted with a deep internal significance and a reality of a different order which makes the distinction between style and substance artificial. As befits a Church in which sign and symbol are far more than mere emblems, and which has as its core the idea that God was incarnated as a human being, the semiotics were substance. As another perceptive priest and theologian, Father James Alison, in Brazil, put it: ‘what Francis has essentially shown is that witness matters more than message. Or rather that witness is message. With him it’s always been the little castaway phrases rather than the formal messaging that makes the difference. And that’s what you would expect in Christianity. Christianity is a religion of witness and when people see someone happily doing something good – and not being particularly bothered about what the media or their critics say – that is a very way effective way of communicating their mission.’

All this was deeply disturbing to those – on all sides – who had become steeped in the old expressions of how the Church should behave. They were unsettled by Pope Francis’s suggesting that the ways they took for granted – and found comfortable or beautiful – had become stale and ineffective. ‘It is very challenging from a theological point of view,’ said Father Augusto Zampini, a priest and theologian from Buenos Aires.



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