Over the last month, my work has intersected in a tiny and humbling way with the overall vision for the Church laid out by Pope Francis during the first 10 years of his papacy.
Dr. Emilce Cuda, the Secretary of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America and one of the highest-ranking women to ever work in the Vatican curia, approached me about co-teaching a credit-bearing university class with her on “Contemporary Ecclesiology and Synodality” across North, Central and South America, the first of four we imagine exploring the Holy father’s four “dreams” expressed in his apostolic exhortation “Querida Amazonia.”
We currently have 92 students, from eight countries, speaking three languages represented in this ongoing initiative. Such an experience has given me a unique aperture – or perspectival lens – through which to reflect upon Pope Francis’ decade as the successor to Peter since he accepted the call from his brother cardinals to serve as Bishop of Rome on March 13, 2013.
A few consistent theological themes arise from studying the current pontificate in this light.
First and foremost, one cannot but be impressed by the priority he gives to the importance of proximity in speech, gesture and pastoral activities. From his choice of accommodations – where he waits to eat cafeteria-style with those in Santa Marta – to documents like “Fratelli Tutti” and “Gaudete et Exsultate,” to his personal visits to the migrant boat cemetery of Lampedusa, typhoon survivors in the midst of a tropical storm in the Philippines, refugees over his multiple trips across swaths of Africa, Muslim and Christian voices battling extremism in Iraq, and the indigenous communities of Canada, the pope has consistently claimed and shown that a preferential option for those who suffer cannot be achieved at a distance. Rather one must “come into close contact” with our brothers and sisters, and through this relationship-building, find new insights into the triune in God, who is being-as-communion.
Secondly, the theme of accompaniment has indisputably been a central element to his time as pontiff. This has led him to long for a “poor Church for the poor” and one that is “bruised, hurting and dirty,” that is to say, not fleeing the world into a self-secured sacristy, but co-traveling the road of history with the modern world so as to genuinely share in the “joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties” of the people of our day, as the Second Vatican Council put it (“Gaudium et Spes,” 1). This takes on planetary dimensions in his call for “integral ecology” and sustainability in “Laudato Si” and elsewhere.
These two themes lead directly to a third, that of synodality. Meaning literally “to be on The Way together,” this approach is not only how the early Church first understood itself (a phrasing older even than “Christian”), but is also an indispensable manner of proceeding for the People of God today. To make decisions synodally as a Church involves both active listening and the protagonismo of dynamic agency, where believers in the Church recognize themselves to be dignified subjects as opposed to mere objects, to be creators of a shared history as opposed to passive imbibers of a prepackaged set of propositions to be memorized and parroted. Discipleship is a shared and active method of living a life in all ways formed by the Gospel of Jesus the Christ, meaning always with, among and for others.
Of course, as with any pope (or human being!), his time in leadership has included controversies, missteps, confusions, frustrations and ambiguities. Some within the Church have come to resent the pope’s attention to the peripheries and margins of both society and Catholicism, at the expense of those securely within the barque of Peter. (I cannot help but think sometimes here of the Elder Brother’s reaction to the Father who, as Edward Hahnenberg has put it, is himself the Prodigal One, if we mean “wastefully reckless and lavish” in the extravagance of his mercy).
Others have felt he has not gone far enough to purge the Church of distortive and destructive elements that obscure rather than illuminate the message of Christ. From sex abuse to financial impropriety to clericalism run amuck to moral laxity, the Church continues to suffer from the self-imposed wounds that people of faith have brought upon themselves, by fleeing the light and embracing the darkness of self-satisfaction and the pomps of worldly allures.
Lent and the Holy Father lead us to ponder anew this ever-present temptation: “You say the Lord’s way is unfair. Hear now, O House of Israel: Is it my way that is unfair, or rather are not your ways unfair?” (Ez 18:25). He leads us to ask: Are we manifesting our best and most authentic selves in how we treat others with whom we disagree, both in our nation, and even within the Church?
This papacy, like so many over the last two millennia, will undoubtedly leave its mark on the history of our community, both among believers and in the global arena beyond us. Perhaps, like his namesake – Il Poverello (little poor one) from Assisi – Francis has taken up the charge of rebuilding the Church from within. If so, each of us should be contributing with a yeoman’s effort to support the project.
Originally from Collingswood, Michael M. Canaris, Ph.D., teaches at Loyola University, Chicago.
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