A progressive pope?
by MAHIR ALI
BEFORE going in for heart surgery, a “rather vain Jesuit” asks God whether this is the end, and is informed that he would live for another 40 years. Delighted, he subsequently goes in for “a hair transplant, a facelift, liposuction, eyebrows, teeth”. Emerging from the clinic, he is run over by a car. It proves fatal. He is incensed upon meeting his Maker. “Oops, sorry!” Is the divine response. “I didn’t recognise you.”
This joke is borrowed from a guest essay published in The New York Times last December, credited to none other than Pope Francis. It was adapted from his autobiography, published the following month. It is hard to imagine any of his three immediate predecessors publicly sharing a similar quip.
Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s sense of humour was among the more endearing features of his dozen-year stint as the Bishop of Rome. The Argentinian child of Italian immigrants was an unexpected choice when Benedict became the first pope in almost 600 years to resign. He took his name from the 13th-century Italian friar Francis of Assisi, best remembered for his devotion to the poor, to animals, and to the environment.
As pope, Francis honoured the legacy of his namesake to a considerable extent, but frequently fell short of progressive expectations, while consistently attracting the wrath of conservative Catholics, especially from the US. Many of them saw him as a heretic, notwithstanding the notion that all popes are divinely ordained. The conservatives were wary of his overtures to LGBTIQ+ conservatives and to women (who remain excluded from the clergy), but equally angered by Francis’ empathy for refugees, and his revulsion over deportations from Europe or North America.
During a visit to Mexico in 2016, the pope decried those talking about building walls rather than bridges. “This is not the gospel”, he noted. The thin-skinned Donald Trump, not yet president, dubbed the comment “disgraceful”, adding that “No … religious leader has the right to question another man’s religion or faith.” Now the re-elected US president intends to attend the pope’s funeral. “Rest in peace Pope Francis! May God Bless him and all who loved him!” Trump declared on his Truth Social feed, the exclamation marks barely concealing his delight.
Francis leaves behind a complicated legacy.
Trump’s vice-president, J.D. Vance, a self-described “baby Catholic” was seemingly the last foreign visitor to receive an audience with the pope, albeit only for a couple of minutes. There’s little scope for any conspiracy theories, mind you, given that Francis suffered a near-death experience in February, but after his apparent recovery was keen to be seen as remaining in charge.
On his last full day on earth, Francis’ final Urbi et Orbi message delivered in St Peter’s Square on Easter Sunday decried the “contempt stirred up at times towards the vulnerable, the marginalised, and migrants”, calling for trust in those “who come from distant lands”, because “all of us are children of God”.
Francis came to the papacy at a time when all too many Europeans were revolting against immigrants, and pointed to common humanity as a guiding path. His well-meaning endeavours have, in the final analysis, made little difference. More broadly, his description of capitalism as “the dung of the devil” deserves to be appreciated. His 2015 encyclical Laudato Si focused on climate change and those who would suffer most from it. “Capitalism,” he recognised therein, “is a global problem with grave implications: environmental, social, economic, political and for the distribution of goods. It represents one of the principal challenges facing humanity in our day.”
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Opinion | An Elegy For A Beloved Pope
by SHASHI THAROOR
I join the rest of the world in mourning the passing of Pope Francis, a figure of profound compassion and unwavering dedication to the human spirit. His departure leaves a void, not only within the Catholic Church, but across the vast landscape of humanity.
He was, above all, a shepherd who walked among the poorest and weakest of his flock, understanding their struggles with a rare and genuine empathy.
Pope Francis possessed a remarkable breadth of knowledge, encompassing theological scholarship, historical awareness, and a keen understanding of contemporary global issues. His wisdom, however, was never confined to academic circles. Thanks to his long years of experience serving in difficult conditions in Argentina, he translated complex realities into accessible truths, speaking directly to the hearts of the marginalized, the forgotten, and the dispossessed.
From Buenos Aires To The Vatican
His depth of experience, gleaned from a life lived in service, from the streets of Buenos Aires to the Vatican, imbued his leadership with a unique authenticity. He understood the pain of poverty, the fear of displacement, and the yearning for justice. He brought this lived experience to the forefront of his papacy, challenging the powerful and comforting the vulnerable. It is striking that his final pastoral message on Easter Sunday was in defence of freedom of expression, freedom of religion, and the human rights that are under threat in so many authoritarian systems.
On a weekend that speaks to the spirit of the resurrection of hope, Pope Francis left us a positive message of determination to stand up for the right and to resist the wrong.
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Pope Francis’ legacy of inter-faith diplomacy
by ELDAR MAMEDOV
After similar outreach to Sunnis, the pontiff’s 2021 meeting with Shia’s Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani transcended boundaries and fostered co-existence
One of the most enduring tributes to Pope Francis, who passed away this Easter, would be the appreciation for his legacy of inter-religious diplomacy, a vision rooted in his humility, compassion, and a commitment to bridging divides — between faiths, cultures, and ideologies — from a standpoint of mutual respect and tolerance.
Among his most profound contributions is his historic meeting with Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani in Najaf, Iraq, on March 6, 2021. What made this meeting a true landmark in inter-faith dialogue was the fact it brought together, for the first time, the spiritual leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Roman Catholics and one of the most revered figures in Shia Islam, with influence on tens of millions of Shia Muslims globally. In a humble, yet moving ceremony, the meeting took place in al-Sistani’s modest home in Najaf. A frail al-Sistani, who rarely receives visitors and typically remains seated, stood to greet the 84-year-old Pope and held his hand, in a gesture that underscored mutual respect.
The visit to Najaf was part of a broader Vatican diplomatic outreach to the world of Islam. Pope Francis previously engaged with Sunni leaders, signing in 2019 the Document on Human Fraternity with Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb from Al-Azhar University, the pre-eminent scholar of Sunni Islam. The meeting with al-Sistani extended this outreach also to Shia Islam, the second principal branch of Islam. Najaf is a spiritual center of Shia Muslims, home to the tomb of Imam Ali, the pre-eminent saint of Shia Islam, and the Hawza seminary, led by al-Sistani.
That outreach was particularly meaningful as al-Sistani represents a community often misrepresented in Western discourse as inherently menacing through vague but sticky metaphors such as “Shia Crescent,” fueled by media sensationalism and geopolitical tensions driven, in part, by evangelical groups like Christians United for Israel who often conflate Shiism, Iran and hostility to Christians and Israel.
Pope Francis took a different approach: he went to Najaf not to proselytize, not to hold theological debates, and not to issue political demands, but to engage in conversation marked by shared concern over the humanity’s future, peace, justice and dignity for all people. Francis, as a Jesuit with a history of activism against the fascist dictatorship in his own home country, Argentina (1976-1983), was particularly well-suited for this role. His meeting with al-Sistani sent a bold message: in a world scarred by conflict and bloodshed, leaders of faith should unite to reject violence and promote co-existence.
The context of that visit was particularly significant as it also sent an equally strong political message: it took place in Iraq, a nation ravaged by war, particularly the U.S. invasion in 2003, driven by neoconservative fantasies of turning the Middle East into a paragon of liberal democracy, subsequent sectarian strife and rise of ISIS which treated both Shiites and Christians as enemies and apostates.
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Remembering Pope Francis on Earth Day: How He Linked Capitalism, Climate & Catholicism
As the Vatican prepares the funeral for Pope Francis and church leaders begin to consider his replacement, we look at the late pontiff’s environmental legacy. Pope Francis frequently called for action on the climate crisis and urged his followers to be good stewards of the Earth. He also openly criticized the role of wealthy nations and capitalism in causing the climate crisis.
“He brought together the riches of Christian and Catholic tradition to bear with the prophetic work of social movements around the world in confronting a global crisis,” says Nathan Schneider, professor of media studies at the University of Colorado Boulder. Schneider is also a contributing writer at America, a national Catholic monthly magazine published by the Jesuits, where he has been covering Catholic engagement with climate change and the economy.
Pope Francis argued that “our relationship with the Earth depends on justice among people, and that in order to address this environmental crisis, we need to also address the crisis of disposability, of treating not only the planet, but each other, as disposable,” says Schneider.
AMY GOODMAN: The Vatican has announced the funeral for Pope Francis will take place Saturday in what is expected to be a scaled-down ceremony. In his will, Pope Francis asked to be buried in what he called a “simple tomb” at Saint Mary Major Basilica. Cardinals around the world are heading to the Vatican for the funeral and then to pick the pope’s successor. Pope Francis died Monday at the age of 88 of stroke and heart failure. He made his last public appearance on Easter Sunday, when he repeated his call for a ceasefire in Gaza.
Today, on this Earth Day, we look at Pope Francis’s long record calling for action on the climate crisis. On Monday, the top United Nations official on climate change, Simon Stiell, remembered Pope Francis as a, quote, “towering figure of human dignity, and an unflinching global champion of climate action,” unquote.
In 2015, the pope issued a groundbreaking papal letter, or encyclical, on the climate crisis, where he wrote, quote, “The climate is a common good, belonging to all and meant for all.” The pope openly criticized the role of wealthy nations in causing the climate crisis, writing, quote, “The idea of infinite or unlimited growth, which proves so attractive to economists, financiers and experts in technology … is based on the lie that there is an infinite supply of the earth’s goods, and this leads to the planet being squeezed dry at every limit,” he said.
In 2015, Pope Francis made a plea to address the climate crisis when he spoke at the White House.
POPE FRANCIS: When it comes to the care of our common home, we are living at a critical moment of history. We still have time to make the change needed to bring about a sustainable and integral development, for we know that things can change. Such change demands on our part a serious and responsible recognition not only of the kind of the world we may be leaving to our children, but also to the millions of people living under a system which has overlooked them.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Pope Francis speaking in 2015.
We’re joined now by Nathan Schneider, professor of media studies at the University of Colorado Boulder, also a contributing writer at America magazine, a national Catholic magazine published by the Jesuits, where he’s been covering Catholic engagement with climate change and the economy.
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Francis, the Pope who came from the ends of the earth
by DANIEL VERDU
Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the Argentine pontiff who initiated a historic process of reforms in the Church in 2013, also unleashed an unprecedented war with the ultraconservative sector of the Catholic world
Jorge Mario Bergoglio, an Argentine outsider among the leading papal candidates, appeared on the balcony of the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace on March 13, 2013. Speaking in Italian with a strong Buenos Aires accent and exhibiting typical sacristy sarcasm, he presented his credentials to a packed St. Peter’s Square. “You know that it was the duty of the Conclave to give Rome a Bishop. It seems that my brother Cardinals have gone to the ends of the earth to get one, but here we are.”
The “ends of the earth” was not just a distant place, but also a metaphor for how far his vision of the universal Church diverged from the doctrines of his predecessors. He was announcing revolution, passion, and sweeping changes. Twelve years after his arrival, Bergoglio has died in Rome from a lung infection. Today, one might say the Holy Spirit has deemed his reforms complete. It is now up to history — and his successors — to determine the extent and permanence of the transformation led by the 266th pope of the Catholic Church.
God is not afraid of change, Jorge Mario Bergoglio always replied to his critics. He was an influential cardinal who knew how to deftly move between the hallways of power in the palace and the smell of sheep in Argentina’s slums. If it’s difficult to imagine how any of us will age, it must have been impossible for Bergoglio, then a graduate in chemistry who began working in a food analysis laboratory in the 1950s, to even remotely imagine that one day he would become the Pope in Rome.
Yet in March 1958, at the age of 21, Bergoglio opted for religious studies, entering the metropolitan seminary of Buenos Aires and beginning his novitiate with the Society of Jesus, better known as the Jesuits. When he became Pope Francis, he explained that he had joined the Jesuits because he was “attracted by their status as a forward-thinking force in the Church, speaking in a military language, based on obedience and discipline, and oriented toward missionary work.”
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Fallibility, Dirty Wars, and Pope Francis I
by BINOY KAMPMARK
The very idea of infallibility sets one up for the mighty fall. But the Pope, temporal head of all Catholics, is one such character, the papacy one such institution, arrogantly paraded before religion, faith and principle, as an individual and office hovering between humankind and God. Unfortunately for the papal record, infallibility in any spiritual sense is no guard against spotty records and stains. It certainly does not erase what came before, though good efforts are often made to reinvent it.
Pope Francis I, eulogised as the pontiff of the periphery and the oppressed, was not averse in his pre-papal iteration to courting the powerful and the authoritarian when a US-backed military dictatorship seized power in his native Argentina in 1976. That dictatorship, responsible for the forced disappearance of 30,000 people, came to be known as the Proceso de Reorganización Nacional (National Reorganization Process). In 1978, on a visit to Buenos Aires to attend the football World Cup as dictator Jorge Videla’s guest, former US National Security Adviser and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger was filled with praise for the murderous methods of the Proceso in its efforts to combat “terrorism”.
On their seizure of power, the junta were also keen to grease palms and cultivate ties with the Catholic Church. Archbishop Adolfo Tortolo obligated, urging Argentinians “to cooperate in a positive way with the new government.” Argentina’s bishops also issued a statement declaring that the security services could hardly act “with the chemical purity” expected of them in times of peace. Some freedom had to be shorn. Church figures who did not play along, such as Enrique Angelelli, the bishop of the Andean diocese of La Rioja, were murdered. In a 2012 interview, Videla expressed satisfaction at Church-state relations during his rule. “My relationship with the church was excellent. It was very cordial, frank and open.”
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