A thoroughly Jesuit pope: one unafraid of discernment, of encouraging people to use their consciences, of trying something new. Daily I pray for my brother Jesuit, this former provincial superior, and now my earthly boss, not simply for his continued health and presence among us, but for the church he shepherds, and for the church he calls to new life in new forms with new ways of thinking and being.
The Rev. James Martin, S. Oh, such a nice article! No pomp here is there? Madison Avenue would be proud of this commercial and do not dare question the content The next book should be entitled, "The selling of Jesus in " by Francis, with the subtile " How to never judge those with whom you agree and win the hearts of the world through selective love" Let us all go forth to show our Christian love for anyone on the all important Hot Topics List I need give certain people credit, winning isn't everything as it's the only thing.
Not hatred nor unchristian, the Body of Christ is supposed to speak out against misguided and self serving leaders. To speak of preferential love of one group over another is not Christian. To ignore the cries of the abused until forced to do so by the media is not Christian. Not hatred at all but Francis is a media savvy charlatan. Christian love does not call one to support the Scribes and Pharisees now does it? I should pray for his many errors but I will support neither his earthly power nor his hypocrisy.
You sound like someone who has also been hurt by this church and felt let down by Pope Francis. I get it. I was called to priesthood in my teens and none of the women like me has ever known the love of any recent pope. I am often jealous of my brothers on the altar - what it must feel like to be wanted by our leadership half as much as they are and by the laity too after our leadership coaxes them to be happy with glee they decided to serve us as priests.
I do believe he cares genuinely more than the two which came before him but you are right, it almost hurts more to be led on in some ways. I had high hopes for this pope. I still do, to some degree, but those hopes are wilting more and more. It is our job, the laity, to demand more. So I won't lash out at you as you are not being dishonest in your complaints.
Some people only seem to care that this pope was better than the last by some amount. When did our expectations become so low? Peace Brother - please do not leave as others have done. This battle for a church which truly reflects the Kingdom of God can really only be changed from the inside, or so God has led me to believe.
Don't give up on us. Neither self worshipers nor women nor women who are also self-worshipers have ever been "called" to the priesthood no matter how tall the Mt. Everest of self-delusion they live on. Great article father Martin. I just want to clear a small mistake. You write: "So who would it be? Pope Francis has been a breath of fresh air in a church that badly needed it.
I am grateful for his papacy. Many things that I can hail with this writer regarding our beloved Pope Francis. However, the issue he is weakest on and the one I feel is self-destructing our church the most over all other problems is sexism and the unequal and unjust treatment and exclusion of women from Holy Orders. He needs to fix this problem and not with deacons. He needs to ordain a women to priesthood publicly and quickly, this year, and he needs to make women cardinals and quickly, and set the precedent that we no longer discriminate between genders.
We can no longer afford keep sacraments away from women who are equally called by God, are equally sacred and worthy in the flesh, and qualified to lead as their brothers. Until he abolishes our rules of misogyny and patriarchy he is an over-all failure as a pope for me.
Sexism is directly connected to child abuse, poverty, violence, abortion, terrorism, and so many other horrible global ills. We support those ills as long as we are global representatives of this hatred and bias. There is one answer to our current weak state and only one. We must repent of our misogyny and harm done to all women in the past, own it for the hatred it is and always has been, and ask as a church for forgiveness from God for the damage that we have done to the Body of Christ while we rectify our ways with action and ordination of women in large numbers to priesthood.
We laity and priests must demand this of Pope Francis or we are equally to blame for the injustice and continued harm to our church. Work for Women Deacons. Work for Married Priests. Once the Married Priests become Bishops and the laity is used to Women Deacons then the step to Women Priests will not seem so radical. That is the lie of misogyny.
Francis also asks Cuba to allow for more religious freedom as the communist country prepares to build the first Catholic Church since the Cuban Revolution. September , - Francis becomes the fourth head of the Church to visit the United States.
Pope Paul VI made the first visit by a pontiff in October April 8, - Urges priests around the world to be more accepting of gays and lesbians, divorced Catholics and other people living in what the church considers "irregular" situations. May 13, - Says the Vatican should study the possibility of ordaining women as deacons, answering a call that women, particularly in the United States, have been asking the church to address for decades.
June 26, - Says Christians owe apologies to gays and others who have been offended or exploited by the church , remarks that some Catholics hail as a breakthrough in the church's tone toward homosexuality. November 21, - Extends indefinitely the power of Catholic priests to forgive abortions.
This follows a special dispensation during the Year of Mercy, which ended November 20, , and allowed all priests, rather than just bishops and specially designated confessors, the power to absolve the "sin of abortion.
July 16, - Dozens of conservative Catholic scholars and clergy send a letter to Francis accusing him of spreading heretical positions on marriage, the moral life and the Eucharist.
October 11, - During a Vatican conference, Francis argues to change the official church teaching on the death penalty. The Catholic church currently teaches that recourse to the death penalty is permitted. The Pope says the death penalty is "inadmissable," and that official Catholic teaching should reflect that. November 27, - Francis becomes the first pope to visit Myanmar, a majority Buddhist country. During a four-day trip, the Pope meets with Myanmar's cardinal, the military's most senior general.
While in the country, he avoids using the word "Rohingya," a term the government rejects. January 18, - Defends Chilean bishop Juan Barros, who is accused of covering up sex abuse for decades.
April 8, - Francis says he made "grave errors" in handling a Chilean sex abuse scandal in a letter to the bishops of the Episcopal Conference of Chile. June 11, - Accepts the resignation of three Chilean bishops, including Barros.
The three bishops submitted declarations of resignation after meeting with the Pope from May August 20, - The Vatican releases a letter from the Pope that directly addresses the latest accusations of sexual abuse by priests. In part, he writes: "With shame and repentance, we acknowledge as an ecclesial community that we were not where we should have been, that we did not act in a timely manner, realizing the magnitude and the gravity of the damage done to so many lives.
We showed no care for the little ones; we abandoned them. September 13, - The Pope meets in Rome with leaders of the Catholic Church from the United States to discuss a deepening crisis related to sex abuse scandals. February 3, - Francis arrives in the United Arab Emirates, making him the first pontiff to visit an Arab Gulf state. February 5, - Francis becomes the first pontiff to celebrate Mass in the Arabian Peninsula, the birthplace of Islam, delivering an address to tens of thousands of people in Abu Dhabi.
The money will be used for housing, food and necessities for the Central American migrants. The funds will be split among 27 projects in 16 Mexican dioceses and religious congregations. May 9, - Francis issues new global rules for reporting sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, mandating for the first time that all dioceses set up systems for reporting abuse and coverups.
The new rules require all Catholic dioceses around the world to have a "public and accessible" system in place for reporting abuse by June 1, October 5, - Francis appoints 13 new cardinals during a ceremony at the Vatican. November 23, - Francis begins a four day tour of Japan. This trip is only the second papal visit to Japan and the first in nearly four decades.
December 17, - Francis abolishes Vatican secrecy rules for cases of sexual abuse , effectively allowing the Catholic church to share documents and information with civil authorities, and allow victims to be updated of the status of their cases. On May 20, , Bergoglio was named titular bishop of Auca and auxiliary of Buenos Aires; he was ordained into that post a week later.
In , he was named president of the Bishops' Conference of Argentina, serving in that position until On March 13, , at the age of 76, Bergoglio was named the th pope of the Roman Catholic Church — becoming the first citizen from the Americas, the first non-European and first Jesuit priest to be named pope, and adopting the name Pope Francis he took the title after St.
Prior to the papal conclave, Pope Francis had served as both archbishop and cardinal for more than 12 years. The tone of his papacy, which has become admired globally, was established long before his elevation to the church's highest position; however, when he was named to that post, the media quickly picked up on stories of his humility.
News circulated about the fact that he returned to the boarding house where he had been staying to pay his bill personally, rather than send an assistant, and that he would choose to live in a simple two-room apartment rather than the luxurious papal accommodations in the Vatican's Apostolic Palace.
In choosing to live more simply, Pope Francis broke a tradition that had been upheld by popes for more than a century. Addressing a crowd of tens of thousands in St.
Peter's Square, in the Vatican City in Rome, Italy, after his selection by the conclave, Pope Francis stated, "As you know, the duty of the conclave was to appoint a bishop of Rome. It seems to me that my brother cardinals have chosen one who is from faraway. Here I am. I would like to thank you for your embrace.
After the results of the papal conclave were announced, U. President Barack Obama issued a statement about the new pope: "As the first pope from the Americas, his selection also speaks to the strength and vitality of a region that is increasingly shaping our world, and alongside millions of Hispanic Americans, those of us in the United States share the joy of this historic day.
It was not long after assuming the papacy that Pope Francis began offering more nuanced views and interpretations on key social issues about which the church holds pronounced doctrinal views. There, he was greeted by Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff in a welcome ceremony and later circulated in downtown Rio in order to be "close to the people.
More than three million people attended the pontiff's closing mass at the event. On his way back to Rome, Pope Francis surprised reporters traveling with him regarding his seemingly open stance on gay Catholics.
According to The New York Times , he told the press: "If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge? In September , Pope Francis called for others to join him in praying for peace in Syria. The pontiff held a special vigil in St. Peter's Square on September 7, which was attended by an estimated , people. According to the Catholic News Service, Francis told the crowd that "When man thinks only of himself The pope implored those involved in the conflict to find a peaceful solution.
He explained that religious dialogue must be broader in scope, not simply focused on such issues as homosexuality and abortion.
It is from this proposition that the moral consequences then flow. While he does not believe women should be ordained as priests, Francis considers women an essential part of the church. He also continued to present a more accepting attitude toward homosexuality than previous pontiffs, saying that "God in creation has set us free: it is not possible to interfere spiritually in the life of a person," according to The Guardian. Several years later, a Peruvian priest named Gustavo Gutierrez wrote a book called A Theology of Liberation , expounding on themes from Medellin.
Though it's never been condemned by the Church, liberation theology has remained a fringe movement. Ratzinger's main objection was that some theologies in the movement were utilizing Marxist class analysis, which is a philosophy Catholicism rejects.
There was also a concern in Rome that certain priests were advocating violence - they weren't. Some of them, though, were sympathetic to certain movements that sought to overthrow the power structures of the ruling elite. Rome also felt that liberation theology put too much emphasis on sin as a social condition, and too little emphasis on sin as an individual spiritual state.
Since Francis is the first pope from Latin America, some have speculated that the Church is entering a new era of openness to liberation theology. Francis invited Gutierrez to the Vatican last September for a private meeting, which many took as a symbolic gesture that liberation theology was now welcome in Rome.
Francis is also friendly to the idea of a " decentralization " of the Church, which is a concept articulated early on in the liberation movement. To be clear, Francis has never fully endorsed liberation theology. In the book El Jesuita , Bergoglio said that there are both pros and cons to it. Beginning in May , the military junta ruling Argentina began arresting left-leaning individuals with the intention of purging Argentina of communists and other subversives. This purge, which lasted from to , is known as the Dirty War.
The main accusation against Bergoglio is that during this time, he was involved with the arrest and torture of two left-leaning Jesuit priests named Orlando Yorio and Francisco Jalics. According to James Carroll's New Yorker profile on Pope Francis, the two priests "embraced a profound solidarity with the poor," which earned them the suspicion of the military junta.
Francis tried to rein in the priests, and when they continued to disobey his orders, he threatened them with expulsion. Yorio and Jalics were eventually arrested.
Since their brush with Bergoglio happened around the same time, the two Jesuits thought he had betrayed them to the military. However, Francis denies the accusation, saying that he " set the ball rolling " to ensure their release "the very night" of the arrest. Whatever happened behind the scenes, the fact remains that the two priests were eventually released after five months of torture.
Yorio died in , convinced that Bergoglio was responsible for his arrest. Jalics, however, has since denied Francis' involvement with his and Yorio's arrest, saying his original assumption of Francis' complicity was "unfounded. According to Andrew Sullivan , though the details remain murky, "it is fair to say that during this period, Bergoglio was no hero.
My authoritarian and quick manner of making decisions led me to have serious problems and to be accused of being ultraconservative. Benedict was the first papal tweeter. During his reign, he sent out 39 tweets, the last of which was tweeted on Feb.
When Francis took over the papacy, he also took over the pontifex handle. Pontifex means "bridge-builder" in Latin. Benedict's coat of arms as well as his tweets were then removed from the pontifex Twitter feed, but are still available to read in an archive at the Vatican. Pontifex currently has more than 10 million followers , but only follows his 8 foreign language accounts i.
This is very much a work in progress. It will continue to be updated as events unfold, new research gets published, and fresh questions emerge. So if you have additional questions or comments or quibbles or complaints, send a note to Brandon Ambrosino: brandon vox. If you really want to know about Pope Francis, read his first apostolic exhortation, The Joy of the Gospel.
The interview that America published is especially insightful. Paul Vallely's biography Pope Francis: Untying the Knots was published to positive reviews six months after Francis' election. For more information on liberation theology, read Notes for a Theology of Liberation by Gustavo Gutierrez.
On Heaven and Earth is a collection of conversations between Bergoglio and Rabbi Abraham Skorka, and highlights Francis' efforts at interfaith dialogue. In general, Thomas Bokenkotter's A Concise History of the Catholic Church is a good place to start if you're interested in learning more about the history of Catholicism.
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