I was brought up in a Liberal Protestant home. I am the grandson of a minister in the Congregational Church, one of the sources of the spread of democracy in this country. As such I instinctively recoil from the whole idea of the Papacy – the idea that one man can tell a whole church of millions of people worldwide what to think and do. And yet….
The death of Pope Francis has made me think about some of the benefits of having a hierarchical church where one person can speak as the voice of a whole church community. Of course that is an awesome responsibility to place on the shoulders of one man – to be God’s representative on earth. And of course all Popes are fallible human beings. But It seems to me that the man Jorge Mario Bergoglio used his office to do a lot of good in the world.
From the moment of his election, when he chose the name Francis for his papal name, in honour of St. Francis, he set out his stall as an advocate for the poorest and most marginalised people on earth. This was a powerful reminder to all clergy, and indeed all Christians, that we follow one who was always on the side of the poor – that our God is always on the side of the poor, the marginalised, the outcasts, the unclean. In this sense I believe Francis tried to follow in the steps of his master and was guided by the Holy Spirit.
From the beginning of his Papacy Francis tried to live this out in his actions. His choice to make his first Papal visit to the island of Lampedusa, home to many refugees fleeing North Africa for Europe, set the tone. He was consistently a powerful advocate for refugees and homeless and displaced people. He challenged the temerity of the US Vice-President, a recent Catholic convert, who tried to teach him about Catholic doctrine. Vance wanted to say that Catholic teaching led us to prioritise family and then community and nation over outsiders. Francis wrote: “The true ordo amoris that must be promoted is love that builds a fraternity open to all, without exception.”
Francis expressed his solidarity with the victims of war, whether in Ukraine or Gaza or elsewhere, who are also the people who most often become refugees. Until his death he made a daily personal phone call to the Holy Family church, the only Catholic parish in Gaza. It is often forgotten that there are many Christian Palestinians living alongside their Muslim brothers and sisters. In his final message Francis expressed his solidarity with the “suffering people” of both Israel and Palestine.
Of course Francis’ Papacy failed to live up to the hopes and expectations of many. As a priest and a bishop he shared the instinct of many church leaders to “cover up” the issue of sexual abuse by clergy and to deal with it in house. He was slow to listen to the voices of victims and their cries for justice.
Many of us hoped he could have gone further with reforms of the church to be more inclusive of women and LGBTQ+ people. And it seems to me that instinctively Francis himself would have gone further. But he faced significant push back from conservative elements in the church, who now seem to be lobbying hard to “take back control” of the church through the next Pope.
In this social media age we hear a lot about the role of “influencers” on Tik Tok, Instagram, X, Facebook and so on. It seems to me that the role of Pope, with 1.4 billion followers worldwide, is the ultimate influencer position. It seems to me that Francis used that position to be an “influencer” for good. I am praying that the next Pope will do the same.