Australia and the World Past and Present

Pope Francis was a leader who achieved many firsts.

That is not such an easy thing when your institution is over 2000 years old and has had more than 200 popes.

Pope Francis was the first Jesuit pope, the first from Latin America, the first from the southern hemisphere and the first pope born outside of Europe since the 8th century.

He was born Jorge Mario Bergoglio, in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

His father was Italian. Growing up with the Italian language and having a living example of Italian culture in the house must have helped the future pope when communicating with the Italian cardinals later in his life. One wonders if this would have made some of the Italian cardinals more relaxed about making Bergoglio pope when they were having discussions on the matter in 2013.

Before donning the robes, he worked as a bouncer and at the age of 21 had part of a lung removed.

Bergoglio ordained as a priest in 1969.

In the 1960s, a movement called Vatican II was sweeping through Latin America. Its tenants included supporting human rights and conducting Mass in the local language. Bergoglio was not an outright supporter of the Vatican II movement. More radical priests found his support for the ideology deficient. At this stage in his career, many Latin American priests would have judged him as being too conservative. After he became Pope, some of the more conservative clergy saw him as far too liberal.

Working in Buenos Aires in the late 1990s, the then archbishop was a pro-life advocate and frequented the slum areas (villa miseria) to minister to the poor.

He transferred the Catholic finances in his area into regular financial institutions.

Early on, Bergoglio had had contact with priests in the Eastern Catholic Church. As a student, one of his mentors (Stefan Czmil) came from the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. In 1998 he was appointed Ordinary for Eastern Catholics in Argentina.

The Argentine economy in the late 1990s was in a bad way and Austerity was introduced. Bergoglio argued against Austerity arguing that it was exacerbating poverty.

He was not on good terms with President Néstor Kirchner nor his wife and successor, Christina. Her government was seeking to legalise same-sex marriage and Bergoglio was a leader of the movement to defeat the change.

When Bergoglio became Pope, he chose to take on the papal name Francis, after Francis of Assisi. This was another first for a pope. Francis of Assisi was known for his poverty and his concern for animals and the environment.

What were the key themes of Francis’ papacy?

He turned the Church away from a culture of clericalism towards an ethic of service.

Humility was one of his trademarks. He referred to himself as the Bishop of Rome rather than as the Pope.

He encouraged people to turn away from greed and to have greater concern for the environment.

He tried to give the laity more say in the formation of church doctrine.

He set his sights on the Vatican Bank. The Bank was infamous for its opaqueness. Pope Francis tried to do what he had done in Argentina with the Catholic finances – to apply more transparency and regular financial practices.

He knew that he would face some blow back from those who wanted to maintain the status quo. So he set up a commission to advise him on what needed to be done. He packed the commission with cardinals who had been critical of the Bank in the past.

In 2014 he removed 4 of the 5 cardinals overseeing the Bank.

Pope Francis addressed the sex abuse scandals of the Church at various times throughout his papacy. At times he apologised for abuses. At times he was criticised for not acting or not acting strongly enough. He did not always strike the right tone.

Ecumenism was a key feature of Francis’ papacy.

Francis canonised Mother Teresa, John XXIII, John Paul II and Paul VI.

A key responsibility of any pope is the selection of cardinals. Here, Francis could exercise his own discretion and his decisions would have a huge impact on the Church for decades to come. He appointed 163 cardinals from 76 countries. Under his predecessor, there had been a move to globalise the College of Cardinals. Francis continued and turbo-charged the change. He appointed few new European cardinals. He appointed cardinals from Latin America, Asia and Africa in order to give the College of Cardinals a more global look. He preferred priests who had a pastoral focus.

Unsurprisingly (and in keeping with Catholic tradition), he opposed the ordination of women as priests, but in 2021 he said that women could be acolytes and deacons.

In 2022 he addressed the treatment of Indigenous people within Catholic residential schools in Canada. In recent years there have discoveries of unmarked graves. Francis described the experience of first nations peoples in Canada as “cultural genocide”. He said, “I humbly ask for forgiveness.”

Francis had supported bishop Juan Barros who was accused of covering up sex abuse in the Catholic Church in Chile. However in 2018 he did an about-face and apologised to victims.

He issued apologies for the sexual abuse of clergy in the US and in Ireland.

The protection of the environment was a key feature of Francis’ proclamations.

His dealings with China were controversial. In 2018 the Catholic Church signed the Vatican-China Agreement. Essentially, it provided that the Vatican would consult with Beijing on the appointment of cardinals and would not appoint cardinals without Beijing’s approval. This drew accusations that he had sold out China’s 10 million Catholics (it has hard to know how accurate this figure is and it may be an underestimation given that Catholicism in China is under-reported).

Francis was a trailblazer in many respects. He did not get bogged down in doctrines, the Vatican bureaucracy or procedure. He lived simply and talked simply and pointed directly to the core Christian teachings of humility, service for others and love for all. He was a leader with a big heart who sought to tear down walls and build bridges.