Images from the first three weeks of Pope Francis’ pontificate have
been largely positive, if not downright jovial: The new pontiff wearing
simple vestments, kissing babies, and embracing adorers in full-on,
two-armed hugs.
With such effusive imagery, comparisons to other genial and jovial
popes are already abounding. The one comparison being talked about in
somewhat hushed tones, as if not to curse the moment?
Francis’ possible similarities with Pope John XXIII, the pope of the
late 1950s and early 1960s and a beloved figure among some U.S.
Catholics for his decision to open a 1962-65 worldwide meeting of
bishops to consider nearly all aspects of the faith.
“This is like being back in the ’60s and John XXIII,” Sr. Janice
Farnham, a member of the Religious of Jesus and Mary and a retired
professor of church history at the Boston College School of Theology and
Ministry, told NCR Monday.
“For some of us, we never thought we were going to get back here again. It’s quite fascinating and attractive.”
Jesuit Fr. John O’Malley, a prominent U.S. church historian who has
written extensively on that meeting of bishops, known as the Second
Vatican Council, likewise said Francis’ actions so far are “projecting
precisely” the image of the church imagined by the council.
O’Malley pointed specifically to Francis’ decision to host last
week’s Holy Thursday evening services at a Roman youth detention center
instead of St. Peter’s Basilica.
Bending to his knees as he washed the feet of twelve young adults —
including two women and two Muslims — one-by-one March 28 at Rome’s
Casal del Marmo prison, the pope also kissed their feet and told the youth he was at their service as their priest and bishop.
“This is a symbol, it is a sign — washing your feet means I am at
your service,” the pope told the youth during a brief, off the cuff
homily.
“Help one another,” Francis continued. “This is what Jesus teaches
us. This is what I do. And I do it with my heart. I do this with my
heart because it is my duty; as a priest and bishop I must be at your
service.”
“The council was about reconciliation — with non-Western cultures,
with ‘the modern world,’ with non-Catholic Christians, and with the
non-Christian Other,” said O’Malley, a professor of theology at
Georgetown University and author of What Happened at Vatican II.
“Washing the feet of the two Muslims was a gesture of love, as he
himself told them, but also a gesture of reconciliation,” wrote O’Malley
in an email.
“In that regard, I think of Pope John XXIII's hope for Vatican II
that he expressed in his allocution to the council on its opening day,
Oct. 11, 1962. He wanted the council to show that the church was ‘the
loving mother of all, benign, patient, full of goodness and mercy toward
the children separated from her,’” O’Malley continued.
“It seems to me that through word and gesture Pope Francis is projecting precisely that image of the church.”
Yet, despite the obviously positive optics from the first few days of
Francis’ papacy, each of three church historians who spoke to NCR about the new pontiff’s impact said what we see so far are words, style, and symbols.
The question remaining, they said, is just what changes the pontiff
will make on issues of substance — like in the appointment of bishops,
or his handling of the Vatican bureaucracy.
“One of my thoughts as a historian is that this is all lovely, but it’s all about style,” said Farnham,
“When substance begins — and there will be substance, for sure — then
we’ll see where all these people who are so enamored of the style,
including me, will be.”
As focus on Francis shifts from his style to how he handles issues of
substance, another church historian said he was waiting to see
especially how the new pope makes decisions.
“We had two top-down papacies in terms of decision making,” said
Christopher Bellitto, a widely cited church historian and the chair of
the history department at Kean University, Union, N.J., referring to the
styles of Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI.
One question, said Bellitto, is whether Francis will allow more
decision making in the church to come from a more local level, perhaps
from national bishops’ conferences.
With the 50th anniversary of the closing of the Second Vatican
Council in 2015, Bellitto said he hopes Francis will “call for a
worldwide discussion on how we’re doing in implementing Vatican II, but
allow that discussion to take place beginning at the lowest level…and
then bubble up, so that the ideas flow from the periphery to the
center.”
Noting that both Pope Francis’ namesake, St. Francis of Assisi, and
the head of his Jesuit religious order, St. Ignatius of Loyola, were
seen in their time as outside the mainstream, Bellitto said “if reform
is going to take place, the best ideas bubble from the periphery and
come to the center.”
“When Francis of Assisi showed up, he was on the periphery,” Bellitto
said. “They thought he was some crazy itinerant preacher. Ignatius is
investigated by the Inquisition. Those are perfect examples of reform
coming from outside, from the periphery to the center.”
Farnham said that no matter what directions Francis chooses to take
on issues of substance, he may be looking to move quickly. Noting that
Bergoglio was elected pope at age 76 and John XXIII at age 77, Farnham
said “I’m sure [Francis] knows he is not going to be around for long.”
“And so what he will do, he will have to do quickly,” she continued.