Bishop Robert Barron: The Legacy Of Pope Francis

At one of the meetings of cardinals successful advance of the conclave of 2013, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the archbishop of Buenos Aires, roseate to speak. 

In elemental but provocative language, he called for a Church that goes out from itself to the margins, some physical and existential. A Church that remains focused on itself, preoccupied pinch its ain disagreements and tensions, will be, he insisted, ineffectual.  

By each accounts, this was the speech that secured his predetermination arsenic pope conscionable a fewer days later. And it is, furthermore, the speech that set the tone for the entire Francis papacy. 

Pope Francis waves from his popemobile aft nan play Angelus prayers, astatine St. Peter's Square successful nan Vatican connected Oct. 20, 2024. (Filippo Monteforte/AFP/Getty)

In word, gesture and deed, Pope Francis consistently reached retired to those on the edges – the poor, the disenfranchised, migrants, those disaffiliated from the Church – and endeavored to bring them to the center. 

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One could consciousness this small heart excessively in the way he chose cardinals, often overlooking accepted powerfulness centers and offering the Red Hat to bishops successful places specified arsenic East Timor, Mongolia, El Salvador and even Newark, New Jersey.  

He was the pope of simplicity, a man with the common touch, aliases successful his memorable phrase, "a shepherd with the smell of the sheep." 

Just days aft his election, he returned to the rather mean priests’ residence wherever he had been lodging successful bid to salary his measure successful person; he lovingly embraced a man pinch terrible facial disfigurement; he washed and kissed the feet of prisoners on Holy Thursday; he chose to live, not in the splendid papal palace but successful a mini flat within the Casa Santa Marta; he ne'er visited the summer palace astatine Castel Gondolfo, overmuch loved by his predecessors; and he eschewed elegant limousines for an almost comically mini Fiat. 

Through all of these gestures, he was signaling that he wanted a "poor Church on behalf of the poor." At a clip when the reputation of the Church was astatine historical lows owed to the clergy activity scandals, this was a source of great encouragement to galore Catholics around the world.

He was a pope of the Earth. I recognize that successful saying this, I consequence portraying him simply arsenic a Euro-left environmentalist, but this would beryllium a gross misrepresentation.  

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Pope Francis meets pinch erstwhile Pope Benedict XVI to speech Christmas greetings, successful nan Mater Ecclesiae monastery connected Dec. 23, 2013, successful Vatican City. (Maurix/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images)

In summoning the Church to a interest for nature, which successful his building had go "a pile of filth," he was hearkening backmost to a biblical and premodern consciousness that the human play plays retired in the far wider context of God’s bully creation.  

The title of his encyclical missive dedicated to this taxable – Laudato si – came from St. Francis of Assisi’s Canticle of the Creatures, an ecstatic hymn to the beauty of "brother sun and sister moon." When one sounds through Laudato si, one is struck by the steady polemic against "modernity" and its "technocratic mentality," which makes of the environment thing but an entity for quality manipulation.  

Francis was astir surely a pope preoccupied pinch issues of justice, particularly betwixt nations. In his encyclical Fratelli tutti, he called upon the classic Catholic school regarding the universal destination of goods and was called a Marxist for his troubles. 

Pope Francis is welcomed arsenic he arrives astatine nan Apostolic Prefecture connected Sept. 1, 2023, successful Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. (Vatican Media via Vatican Pool/Getty Images)

The doctrine, sharply articulated by St. Thomas Aquinas, holds that backstage ownership is valid but that the use of what one owns should beryllium wished by a superior interest for the common good. A novelty of Pope Francis was to use this rule not conscionable to the individual but to nations, truthful that prosperous countries must consider the suffering and need of their poorer neighbors.  

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Nowhere did this school travel to a sharper constituent than in the pope’s accordant advocacy of migrants seeking a amended life.  

If I were to speculate, I ideate what he would astir want to beryllium remembered for is his advocacy of synodality. By this admittedly alternatively slippery term, he meant a Church marked by listening, accompaniment and consultation. 

Pope Francis was ever suspicious of over-centralization, and synodality successful believe is the means by which the local churches successful all of their variety and particularity are brought into the ecclesial conversation.  

This committedness to synodality was undoubtedly born of the pope’s profoundly Jesuit statement in the process of spiritual discernment, which is to say, a diligent listening to the promptings of the Holy Spirit successful advance of making a superior decision. In pursuit of this goal, Pope Francis sponsored 2 world synods on the topic, gathering 400 bishops, priests and lay group for aggravated conversations.  

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I was privileged to beryllium an elected delegate to these assemblies, and I tin attest that conversations crossed ideological, geographical and cultural boundaries unfolded. Whether this effort will person a long-lasting effect on the life of the Church is debatable.  

On the negative side of the ledger, I mightiness bespeak that, for many, the pope’s generous outreach amounted to a watering-down of Catholic civilized teaching, particularly successful respect to marriage and sexuality.  

Pope Francis places a achromatic roseate connected nan names of nan September 11 victims astatine nan separator of nan South Pool of nan 9/11 memorial successful New York connected Sept. 25, 2015. (AFP via Getty Images)

Amoris Laetitia (which astatine slightest hinted at the possibility of Communion for the divorced and remarried) and Fiducia Supplicans (which allowed for the blessing of those successful same-sex relationships) stay highly controverted documents. The latter was efficaciously vacated by the bishops of Africa. And the synodal process strikes galore in the Church arsenic a turning away from evangelical witness and a turning toward endless and finally fruitless dialogue, the Church chattering to itself alternatively than boldly announcing Christ to the world.  

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At times, too, Pope Francis could appear the master of the false dichotomy: mercy alternatively than civilized demand, going to the margins alternatively than maintaining the center, privileging laity over the clergy, etc. All of this has led immoderate to dream for a much moderate and prudent pope after the 12 years of the relatively free-wheeling Francis.  

In the end, I judge we should admit him arsenic a man profoundly marked by his Jesuit training to place with the person of Jesus Christ. And this meant, for Pope Francis, to be the bearer of the divine mercy, the one who would induce profoundly wounded souls into the field hospital of the Church.

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