Against all expectations, a South American and a Jesuit had been elected as Pope of the Roman Catholic Church.
Not surprisingly, the international media screened all the possible sources of information about the Argentinean whose name few people could spell out or pronounce.
They found he was not an ecclesiastical nobody, but a respected and much loved Archbishop of Buenos Aires and leader of the South American Catholic Church who had actually been one of the most voted Cardinals in 2005 when Benedict XVI had actually been elected.
Much had already been written about him, in Spanish, including this book. It has been quickly translated and offered to us in English. The hurried translation is in need of revision.
The two authors are known journalists in Argentina, who naturally took pride in the personality and work of the son of an Italian immigrant who was leading the Latin American Church.
Their aim is not to offer a critique of the person or even of the thought of Cardinal Bergoglio, but to present his personality, above all his ideas, through his own words.
For this they decided on interviews which they planned and pursued for several months. The outcome is an attractive portrait of the new Pope shown as a simple but quite cultured Jesuit, someone ready to listen to the “other” with respect, but holding firm to the faith and moral principles of his church.
No intelligent reader, I guess, would expect the new Pope elected by 117 Cardinals from all over the world to have ideas that would change the basic doctrinal stance of the Church.
Yet, in the few months as leader of the Catholic Church, he has shown himself such a remarkable “traditional revolutionary” that some critics think might radically change the style of leadership in the Church.
This book shows that the seeds of that non-conformist strain can be found in his early life and activity, seeds that sprouted in the few years of his quick rise to leadership as a sexagenarian bishop (1996), leader of the Latin American Church and Cardinal (by choice of John Paul II, 2001). His first gestures as Pope changed the image of the Church.
As the newly appointed bishop of Rome he greeted his new flock with an Italian “bona sera” (good evening!) and joked with them as if they were old friends.
He then refused to shift from his temporary residence at St. Martha’s Hotel to the Vatican papal quarters, as he had refused to occupy the Episcopal palace in Buenos Aires: social interaction is essential to his Italian and South American upbringing.
This explains why as archbishop and Cardinal he preferred to use public transport to private cars, and buses to metros, because “in the bus he could see the street”.
What soon attracted world attention was the simplicity of his life and his personal humility: as human beings we are all equal and can learn from one another.
“Everybody has something to offer and everyone can receive something,” he says answering the question, “How can we move toward a culture of cooperation?”
There is a basic humanism underlying his Christian theology: we need universal love and mutual forgiveness, without which we cannot build a new world.
The 15 chapters of this book may be seen as roughly divided into two parts, the first dealing with the personal story and convictions of Jorge Bergoglio, the second a reflection and analysis of the problems of Argentina and, by extension, the world at large.
But in Chapter 12 a delay in the planned interview caused by an intrusion of a humble family who needed his help made the journalists change tack and try a kind of X-ray of his personality through a series of quick questions.
The replies comes fast and short:
“I am Jorge Bergoglio, a priest. I like being a priest”.
“I am a homebody: I love home, I love Buenos Aires”.
“My grandmother”.
“Read newspapers, radio, classical music”.
“Girlfriend? Yes, part of dancing group”.
“Enjoyed dancing tango very much”.
“I discovered my religious calling”.
“Hobbies? Reading, music”.
“Poetry of Hölderlin, Manzoni, Dante, Dostoevsky, J. Marechal… Borges”.
“Films of Tito Marello and Italian neorealist films”, etc...
There’s no identity for a Latino or an Italian without “belonging” to a football club: His favourite club is Buenos Aires’ San Lorenzo!, of course, and in his personal exchanges with his friend, Buenos Aires’ Rabbi Abraham Skorka who writes the book’s foreword, they discuss their respective favourite teams.
Altogether we get a picture of a fairly high level of culture, not excluding popular culture.
Jorge Bergoglio can manage Spanish, Italian, some French and German… “the hardest one for me has always been English — above all, the pronunciation, because I don’t have an ear for it”.
Pope Francis is not a politician.
Basically he is a simple man rooted in his culture, and we are not yet sure whether he will be able to steer the bark of Peter through the rough waters of international politics and pressures (not to mention the storms within the Church itself) when tough decisions have to be made.
Many will think that his solid doctrinal baggage will make the navigation difficult if not impossible. For those whose ethical or religious views differ radically from his faith, this baggage will kill the potential reformist of the Church.
Those who personally share in his faith hope that his sense of humanity, his central concern about the welfare of the poor, his ability to spell out the humanistic core of the Gospel, will bring fresh air into the Church, not unlike the way Pope John XXIII did 50 years ago.