The pope and his spiritual fathers, Ignatius and Francis

I could write an entire series of these short columns on the pope’s most recent encyclical (and very well may someday be asked to do so). Clocking in at a whopping 45,000 words, the eight-chapter document covers a wide array of social, economic, ecclesial and political realities in our day, many of which the pope diagnoses as severely dysfunctional. 

That is not to say that it is a jeremiad lamenting the state of the world, or a condemnation of those who would disagree with his vision, as much as it is a commitment to joyful and active peacemaking across the human family.  It brings to mind the Protestant theologian Jürgen Moltmann’s insight which I return to frequently in my own spiritual life — “Hope is anticipated joy, just as anxiety is anticipated terror.”

One of the best ways of understanding the overall hopeful thrust of this pontificate is to read it through the classic bifocal lenses of understanding the complex heart and soul of the man formerly known as Jorge Bergoglio. One the one side lies the commitment to common themes of his order’s founder, Saint Ignatius of Loyola: discernment, cura personalis (or holistic care for the entire person), accompaniment as evidence through a life defined as being men and women for and with others, etc. 

But even more present here is the flip side, the Franciscan element, that takes seriously care for the common home and all peoples on it, the simplicity made manifest in a loving embrace of Lady Poverty, and the witness to peaceful coexistence called forth in ecumenical and interreligious dialogues.

Some of the encyclical’s demands can sound idealistic or unrealistic, if not downright utopian. An end to all war? The eradication of hunger? The abolition of capital punishment across the globe? An economy that refuses to see men and women as disposable? Migrants being welcomed, protected, promoted, and integrated into all of their new homes? Forgiveness replacing rancor as the dominant characteristic of our interpersonal and political lives? 

To many of us steeped in the currents of our contemporary discourse and the manifest signs of our times, much of this sounds like madness.

And that, too, is a nod to his “twin fathers,” Ignatius and Francis. Both were viewed with suspicion by hierarchical church figures of their day. The untamed wildness of their approaches, at times evidenced by long hair and nails, shabby clothes, bare feet and severe ascetical practices, not to mention their focus on the spiritual lives of the laity, was viewed as a counter-witness to the highly clerical elements of the church in their respective eras. 

I think of the approach of Dostoevsky’s Grand Inquisitor in his remarkable parable, addressed to Christ at his second coming from the perspective of a comfortable church, cozy with state power and accustomed to public autos da fe: “Why shouldst Thou now return, to impede us in our work? … But art Thou as well aware of what awaits Thee in the morning? I do not know, nor do I care to know who thou mayest be: be it Thou or only thine image, tomorrow I will condemn and burn Thee on the stake, as the most wicked of all the heretics; and that same people, who today were kissing Thy feet, tomorrow at one bend of my finger, will rush to add fuel to Thy funeral pile.” 

Ignatius and Francis dealt with some similar attitudes, though luckily both had enough allies drawn to them to prove the good fruits of their charisms, and to avoid such potential dangers in questioning the “way things are done around here.”

Francis of Assisi, in particular, came to be known as novellus pazzus, a new madman. And perhaps the Francis of our day could be described similarly. In offering us a collective examination of conscience which interrogates contemporary society’s drowsy unwillingness to take the charge to “love one another” seriously, or to call out distortions of the faith when antithetical positions on life’s worthiness, inherent common dignity, and equality for all are bedecked in quasi-Christian garb, Francis will elicit similarly passionate opposition, no doubt. But if he can call hearts and minds to conversion by offering a new and different understanding of what it means to be children of Light, and thus to be all willed siblings bound to one another in our shared human experience, my assumption is that he will not be deterred by those who say his suggestions are impractical, unsettling or unwelcome.

Originally from Collingswood, Michael M. Canaris, Ph.D., teaches at Loyola University, Chicago.