Fifty years after the death of Pope John XXIII, comparisons
are being invited between him and the current occupier of the Chair of
Peter.From the moment of his introduction to the world as Pope Francis, Jorge Mario Bergoglio has resembled Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, or Pope John XXIII, more than any other Pope since Pope John’s death 50 years ago.
The first resemblance is that both were 76 when elected. Roncalli’s electors wanted a short-term compromise candidate. He turned 77 less than a month after his election, reigning barely another 54 months before succumbing to cancer; yet, the much beloved Pope John unquestionably changed the lives of Catholics and of countless others.
Three months into his papacy, Roncalli stunned the cardinals who had elected him, by announcing his intention to summon an ecumenical council of the Catholic Church. Only 20 such general councils had met previously.
Pope John’s Second Vatican Council greatly renewed the Catholic Church and significantly redirected Catholics towards social justice and dialogue with others.
Pope Francis, who will turn 77 in December, is indeed a man of social justice and dialogue, thoroughly formed in the principles and teachings of Pope John’s Vatican II. Rumoured to have come second behind Benedict XVI in 2005, he already represents a change in direction for the Catholic Church and a correction of the immediate past, as did Pope John XXIII.
Pope Benedict had just turned 78 when he was elected, but his papacy, by contrast, is already judged as eight additional years to the long papacy of John Paul II.
Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli signalled big changes ahead when he chose “John,” breaking a 175-year pattern of usual names like Pius, Leo, Gregory and Benedict. There had even already been a John XXIII, who convoked the Council of Constance (1414) that later had to depose him in a show of conciliar power over papal authority.
Jorge Mario Bergoglio broke two even larger traditions by being the first Jesuit Pope and by selecting “Francis”. No one had ever felt brave or worthy enough to choose the name of the universally beloved 13th-century saint, venerated for his poverty, humility and simplicity of service to anyone in need.
From the moment Pope John XXIII made public his intention to call a council, he declared that he wanted it to be “an invitation to the separated communities to seek again that unity for which so many souls are longing in these days throughout the world” (L’Osservatore Romano, 26 January 1959).
Pope John had in mind an end to disunity among Christians. By 1960, he added “something for Jews” to this initiative. By 1964, and after Pope John’s death, the council fathers of Vatican II decided to include interreligious dialogue, especially with Muslims, in this new and important ministry of dialogue for reconciliation.
On 22 March 2013, nine days into his papacy, Pope Francis told the diplomatic corps accredited to the Vatican how greatly he “appreciated the presence of so many civil and religious leaders from the Islamic world” at his installation.
He declared to them his intention “to intensify dialogue among the various religions” and that he was “thinking particularly of dialogue with Islam”.
His model, St Francis of Assisi, pioneered dialogue while ignoring the call of Pope Innocent III for universal support for the Fifth Crusade, literally distancing himself from the ecclesiastical authorities accompanying its army, and crossed military lines to meet for several days in dialogue with Sultan Malik al-Kamil.
After Francis’ election, journalists and other enthusiasts scrambled to read the one available published book by the new Pope, Sobre el Cielo y la Tierra (On Heaven and Earth). Actually it is a co-authored dialogue with Abraham Skorka, a scientist and professor, rector of a rabbinic seminary and rabbi of a community in Buenos Aires.
Rabbi Skorka told the readers of The Tablet, “I think he’s going to change everything that he believes needs to be changed,” and added: “He is not a person to take on this role in a passive way. He’s not a person who stays quiet when he knows that there is work to be done.”
Such was the way John XXIII acted too, beloved still by Catholics who recall those heady days of Vatican II and its aftermath. He was the first Pope to address an encyclical, Pacem in Terris to “all men of good will”.
It followed six months after the Cuban Missile Crisis and the near miss of global nuclear war.
“Peace on Earth”, promulgated on 11 April 1963, applied human dignity – a philosophical principle that appealed to atheists and a theological principle acknowledged by believers – to all human relations, especially relations among states for world peace.
Dialogue with others, believers, agnostics and atheists, was now on the agenda of the Catholic Church and encouraged as essential to Catholic life. Pope Francis spent an hour after his inauguration in private conversation with the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, the head of Eastern Orthodoxy.
First, it was unprecedented that the Patriarch of Constantinople would attend the inauguration of the Bishop of Rome. Armenian Catholicos Karekin II was there at the installation as well, another ecumenical first.
Two months later, when Pope Tawadros II of the Coptic Church arrived on an official visit at Domus Sanctae Marthae, the guest house where Pope Francis has chosen to remain rather than moving into the papal palace, the Pope himself was at the door to greet the Coptic Patriarch of Alexandria. I am told reliably that this was another first.
If Patriarch Bartholomew and Pope Francis did speak privately for an hour in March, they had much to review on managing far-flung communions of Christians. They also raised the idea of commemorating the upcoming fiftieth anniversary next January of the historic embrace between Patriarch Athenagoras and Pope Paul VI, Pope John’s successor, on the Mount of Olives outside Jerusalem.
Francis has already shown that he likes such public gestures.
Stories and testimonies of him as Archbishop of Buenos Aires circulated quickly after his election. One in particular recalled how he knelt down at a huge public gathering and received a blessing from Luis Palau, an Evangelical preacher and television celebrity. He has the right spirit for Catholic-Jewish dialogue too, as evidenced by his book and the testimony of Jewish leaders.
And the picture shown to the world on Holy Thursday of Pope Francis bowed down before a young incarcerated Muslim woman and washing her foot sent a clear message of service not only to members of other religions but to all who live beyond the margins of power and affluence.
In his book with Rabbi Skorka, the then future Pope Francis remembers being five or six and accompanying his grandmother, when two Salvation Army women passed by. He asked her if they were nuns. “No,” she replied, “they are Protestants, but they are good.”
Though he was propagandised that all Protestants were going to hell, being raised in a country inextricably linked with Catholicism, Bergoglio reflected back on the incident as archbishop of the capital city and praised his grandmother’s “wisdom of true religion”.
John XXIII arose from humble origins in a village near Bergamo, Italy, never forgetting his roots. His chauffeur secretly slipped him away from the Vatican for a surprise visit to a dear friend in hospital in Rome.
Pope John seemed to interact best in private conversations and offering encouragement with simplicity and humility in contrast to the high pageantry surrounding the papacy.
He knew how to exercise papal authority but he preferred to trust his fellow bishops to take charge of his council and engage the modern world.
Pope Francis has the same preferences. He does not stand on ceremony, and prefers a simple style of liturgy. His daily homilies are how he communicates best. He pleased his electors by forming a new collegial body of eight cardinals to assist with major deliberations.
Restoring consultation and collegiality throughout the Church, he will most remind us of Pope John. He has complained more than once about careerism, linking it to clericalism.
The stories of him living a less than princely life as a bishop in Argentina demonstrate that he is personally dedicated to Catholic Social Teaching. Indeed, on 8 May, he told a worldwide assembly of women Religious: “A theoretical poverty is no use to us.”
There is much to like about Pope Francis, especially if he continues on the present course implementing the initiatives of Vatican II.
* John Borelli is special assistant for interreligious initiatives to the president of Georgetown University. He previously promoted ecumenical and interreligious dialogue for the United States Bishops’ Conference and was a consultor to the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue.