In an article published in both La Civiltà Cattolica and L’Osservatore Romano,
Father Allan Figueroa Deck, a Jesuit at Loyola Marymount University,
discussed the influence of an Argentine theologian on Pope Francis.Father Rafael Tello (1917-2002), writes Father Deck, was “a systematic theologian, solidly Thomist, first of all convinced that all theology is in the end pastoral.”
Urging the Church to become the “house of the poor,” Father Tello emphasized that love consists more in deeds than in words and that the Church needed to “a true pastoral-practical program” that attends to human needs — from which theological reflection could then arise.
Father Tello was “obstinately faithful to the teachings and traditions of the Church,” Father Deck adds, and was especially attentive to the pueblo—the people of God with a shared common life, in which the poor are “privileged mediators of the presence of God, the face of Christ in the world.”
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