The Most Literary Pope: Requiescat In Pace, Francis

Pope Francis is dormant astatine 88, connected nan time aft Easter—an due Lenten closing for a pontiff pinch a keen consciousness of story.

60 years earlier, Francis was Jorge Mario Bergoglio, a Jesuit seminarian who taught lit and penning astatine Colegio de la Immaculada Concepciòn, a secondary schoolhouse for boys successful Santa Fé, Argentina. His students called him carucha; babyface.

The boys were successful their last 2 years of school. At their age, Francis had portion of his lung removed, contributing to a information that would past his full life. Not overmuch older than his pupils, Francis had to beryllium “distant, formal,” pinch 1 student noting he “was very polite but ne'er smiled.”

He was expected to thatch them El Cid, a Spanish epic astir nan Castilian knight Rodrigo Díaz de Viva, but for illustration different teachers, Francis was stuck betwixt program and reality. The boys balked. They wanted to publication Federico García Lorca, aliases much “racy” useful for illustration La Celestina by Fernando de Rojas.

Francis made a “risky,” but pedagogically wise, decision. They would publication El Cid astatine home. In class, they would publication nan writers nan boys liked. “By reference these things,” Francis reflected, “they acquired a sensation successful literature, poetry,” and could past observe different authors. Francis ditched nan program for “an unstructured” program, an “order that came people by reference these authors.” This spontaneous attack “befitted” him; he met his students, and nan world, wherever they were.

Once nan boys publication widely, Francis sewage them writing. He viewed lit arsenic a surviving creation form, a sensibility that would past his full life. In fact, 1 of his last awesome pastoral letters was “On nan Role of Literature successful Formation”—a missive that was primitively intended arsenic portion of priestly formation, but was alternatively directed toward each to affirm “the worth of reference novels and poems arsenic portion of one’s way to individual maturity.”

Francis sent 2 of their short stories to a chap Argentine—Jorge Luis Borges. The young coach had a connection; Borges’s caput had been Francis’s soft teacher. Borges admired nan activity of nan young writers truthful overmuch that he facilitated nan publication of stories from nan people successful a book, Cuentos Originales, for which he wrote nan prologue: “This prologue is not conscionable for this book, but besides for each 1 of nan arsenic yet undetermined bid of imaginable useful that nan young group collected present many, successful nan future, write.”

Pope Francis felt that lit “engages our actual existence, pinch its innate tensions, desires and meaningful experiences…”

In 2010, Francis reunited pinch galore of those erstwhile pupils, and told them “cuando hable de discípulos y alumnos siempre se va a estar acordando de nosotros”; that he would ever deliberation of them arsenic his students.

He remained a coach passim his pontificate. His pastoral missive connected lit affirms an incarnational imagination of storytelling. For Francis, Jesus Christ was not specified abstraction, but a man of flesh: “that soma made of passions, emotions and feelings, words that situation and console, hands that touch and heal, looks that liberate and encourage, soma made of hospitality, forgiveness, indignation, courage, fearlessness; successful a word, love.” He ended his missive pinch nan words of Paul Celan: “Those who genuinely study to see, tie adjacent to what is unseen.”

It should not beryllium astonishing that Pope Francis, who felt that lit “engages our actual existence, pinch its innate tensions, desires and meaningful experiences” would operation nan hearts of writers—including Toni Morrison. In 2015 nan Catholic person told NPR that “I mightiness beryllium easy seduced to spell backmost to religion because I for illustration nan contention arsenic good arsenic nan beauty of this peculiar Pope Francis. He’s very absorbing to me.”

Francis was preternaturally Jesuit: scholarly yet pastoral, erudite but egalitarian. He was nan first Jesuit pope, a building which feels for illustration an impossible, Borgesian occurrence.

Francis was particularly fond of “Legend,” 1 of Borges’s short tales. Cain and Abel brushwood each different successful a godforsaken afterlife. The brothers sit, commencement a fire, and eat, though they “sat silently, arsenic weary group do erstwhile dusk originates to fall.” When nan occurrence illuminates Abel’s forehead, Cain sees “the people of nan stone.” He drops his bread, and asks for his brother’s forgiveness—but adds a question: “Was it you that killed me, aliases did I termination you?”

Abel says that he could not remember, but “here we are, together, for illustration before.” And Cain responds: “Now I cognize that you person genuinely forgiven me, because forgetting is forgiving. I, too, will effort to forget.”

After he wrote nan generous prologue for nan book by Francis’s students, Borges, past 66 and blind, made nan 8 hr trek from Buenos Aires to Santa Fé. The writer told Francis that he still said nan Lord’s Prayer each night, contempt his unbelief, “because he had promised his mother he’d do so.”

One visit, Francis went to nan edifice to bring Borges to campus, but nan writer asked for thief first. Borges asked nan young Jesuit to shave him. Francis did, pinch gentleness and humility that would stay pinch him until his last day.