Forty trips, sixty countries visited and over 400,000 kilometers traveled. The equivalent of ten journeys around the world, or one to the Moon. These figures of Francisco’s ten years as Pope help envision the scale of the bridges that he has built from the Vatican. Yet figures fall short of explaining the profile that the Argentinean Pope has attempted to bring into the Catholic Church since the conclave of March 13th, 2013, exactly a decade ago.
That day, Jorge Mario Bergoglio walked into the Sacred College of Cardinals as the Archbishop of Buenos Aires; hours later, he walked out as the first Latin American Jesuit Pope in history. To honor his Southern Hemisphere origin, he chose the name Francis (as in Saint Francis of Assisi, patron saint of the poor). That was the first of many messages of frugality he has delivered to the world.
For his first appearance in the Balcony at St. Peter’s Cathedral and going against the privileges and luxuries of the Vatican, a recently-elected Francis opted not to wear the Papal vetements and regalia (red shoes, velvet cape and gold pectoral cross) that symbolize the Princes of the Church. The next day, he was photographed paying for his hotel room in the Vatican with his own money; later that day he was seen driving the streets of Rome in his old Renault 4, instead of using the fancy German cars available to him.
These gestures have had people talking throughout Francis’s ten years as Pope. Now, when it’s time to look back, those who follow Vatican politics and diplomacy emphasize his approach of “a poor Church for the poor”. But being the first Latin American on the Chair of Saint Peter, is there any other trait of our region that the Pope from the End of the Earth (as he has called himself) has bequeathed to Catholics? Has Francis been a Latin American Pope?
Out of the sixty countries he has visited, ten were located in our region. Yet, here, where most Catholics of the world are based, the Vatican is also losing ground. “In the last thirty years, the Catholic Church has lost more than seventy million believers, almost all in the middle and lower levels of society, which have massively turned into evangelical communities,” Jorge Castro, an international analyst from Argentina, wrote in an essay published in 2103, back when Bergoglio was elected Pope. That year, 67% of Latin Americans defined themselves as Catholic, according to the survey Latinobarometro. Seven years later, in 2020, the same index had fallen to 56%. In other words, not even a Latin American Pope managed to overturn the trend.
Today, Castro (who wrote the book La vision estrategica del Papa Francisco) believes that rather than his geographic origin, the Pontiff has vindicated his Jesuit training, which has inherited the missions of the Society of Jesus in the Guarani communities in the 17th century. As Castro said to Connectas, the Pope has accentuated “the identity and dignity of peoples, a systematic effort to create cultural and spiritual foundations of a new world society based on identity and not homogenization.”
For the first time in 1,300 years, the Vatican is governed by someone who is not European. There lies another key element of Francis’ papacy: his preference for marginal places. Experts, even the most critical, such as historian Loris Zanatta, concur that his trips have favored poor, held back countries, where the Catholic Church had been questioned for its indifference and distance in the face of the most pressing social emergencies. “The Pope considers Europe to be a decadent continent and he believes that a purer religious feeling can be found in the periphery,” Zanatta stated in an interview. Adding that “as a result, he has given extraordinary thrust to the decentralization of the Catholic Church.”
In his most recent trip, in early February, the Pontiff visited the Republic of Congo and South Sudan, two of Africa’s poorest nations. This reaffirms the “disruptive” profile that journalist and biographer of Francis, Elisabetta Pique, has defined for him: “This Pope has really meant change. Not only is he a voice for the voiceless, but a global moral authority: leaders of the world listen to him.” According to the correspondent in Rome and the Vatican of the Argentinean newspaper La Nacion, “another great change implemented by Francis is giving an international nature to the Sacred College of Cardinals. Back when he was elected, it was mostly comprised by Europeans, Italians in particular – and that has drastically changed. The Sacred College of Cardinals represents all of the areas of the world, mostly the peripheries.”
El Papa lamentó la condena al obispo “rebelde” de Nicaragua y llamó al diálogo https://t.co/CHq9B8st7d via @LANACION
— Elisabetta Piqué (@bettapique) February 12, 2023
Out of the 223 cardinals that are part of that vital institution of power in the Vatican, the current Pope has appointed half, a sample of the influence that his legacy in the Church of the future. A Church, sources agree, that will be more transparent and close to its believers. In the opinion of Colombian Jesuit Jorge Serrano, who until recently was an official of Francis in the Vatican: “A heritage that has touched our souls, he says, is the tenderness with which Francis approaches people, even those who think differently than him. How he approaches victims of abuse; how he approaches people with rare and orphan diseases; the way he approaches those who have suffered the effects of war and have been left mutilated; the politically persecuted, and the gay population.”
Serrano recalls an anecdote pertaining to the aforementioned. “Here in Italy, August 15th is the date to celebrate Ferragosto, a holiday in which many people go to the seaside. The Pope was going around Rome in one of the vehicles with tinted windows. He asked the driver: ‘Why is this area so empty today?’ He replied: ‘Because today is August 14th, the eve of Ferragosto, and people go to the sea’. But he saw many homeless people around Saint Peter’s Square; you know, it costs money to go to the sea even though it is close to Rome. So he said to the driver: ‘I think I must have some money, talk to whomever you need to talk and please see it that these people can have a day in the beach tomorrow: get them swimsuits, buy toys for the children, get them music, food and drinks, and rent a bus to take them there.’ That never made it to the press, but it shows coherence and a spirit of collaboration.”
Recen por mí.
— Papa Francisco (@Pontifex_es) March 13, 2014
“Pray for me,” the Pope often says. Those who know Bergoglio from his days as a Jesuit in Buenos Aires or in the last ten years as Pope, always go back to kind gestures such as this one. Which speak louder than the silences that have caused him questioning, for instance, not explicitly condemning autocrats such as Vladimir Putin and Daniel Ortega.
“Francis is not one to disqualify or use adjectives on Ortega, and he won’t support people who are being victims of some situations in Nicaragua either. His position as ‘Pontiff’ is clear, he is meant to build bridges, find common dialogue and agreement points,” explains Nestor Ponguta, an expert Vaticanist. He contributes an unknown gesture of Francis to Putin: “Once, he himself visited the Russian representation in the Vatican, where the ambassador has a direct line to the Russian big shot. He rang the bell of the embassy and said ‘Let me speak to Vladimir Putin’. He hasn’t ruled out going to Moscow or wherever he has to,” if it is what it takes to end the war in Ukraine, the Colombian expert claims.
As a religious leader who represents the world’s Catholics, Ponguta considers that his Latin American origin “is a milestone that shifts the Church’s Eurocentrism”. But he asserts that “what Francis is building is a truly Catholic Church, in other words, one that is universal, in which the periphery and the center can’t compete and can’t exist without the other.”
Con aplausos termino el funeral de Benedicto XVI y para mi esta es la imagen de hoy. pic.twitter.com/OdEmd7Mihu
— NÉSTOR PONGUTÁ (@nestorponguta) January 5, 2023
Under that impression, are there any chances of him being succeeded by another Latin American? No one can assure it nor rule it out because Bergoglio’s election opened a door that is hard to close again. To retain the power of the periphery, Ponguta mentions that the Pope appointed Edgar Peña Parra (from Venezuela) in a key position: Substitute of the Secretariat of State, a position of power within the Vatican organization at the level of an apostolic nuncio.
But beyond Latin America, Castro thinks the origin of an upcoming Pope will be in another continent. “I believe the next Pope will be Asian, probably from the Philippines,” referring to Luis Antonio Tagle, Archbishop of Manila. “In the spirit of Mateo Ricci in the 21st century”, the Argentinean analyst adds, referring to the Jesuit missionary who took Christianity to China in the 17th century.
Openness, austerity and shedding a light on the peripheries seem to be the most notable impressions left by Jorge Bergoglio in his ten years in the Vatican. As Castro says, he has molded a Church that is “less conservative, more focused on popular interests and on social sectors with less resources. Fundamentally, fixated on the world’s developing countries.”
Despite not having been the region he has visited the most, Ponguta has no doubt that his Latin American origin has left its mark on his papacy: “He is the Pope number 266, and he comes from Latin America, the continent of hope. Speaking in economic terms, the GDP in the Vatican is not measured in currency but in souls. And the Church’s largest fort is based in Latin America.”
With more conviction regarding Bergoglio’s role, Serrano says that his papacy has been a “revolution” that will gather its harvest in a few decades: “Francis is suggesting radical turns that entail cultural changes. In that sense, I believe that is one of the best inheritances he leaves to the Church in Latin America.”
