March is a wet month in Rome.
It was raining when Pope Francis was elected on 13 March 2013, and it was pouring raining again when I was back there last week in preparation for his first anniversary.
But nothing seems to dampen media enthusiasm for Francis and his approach to what he calls his role as Bishop of Rome.
Catholics committed to the renewal initiated by Vatican II feel that he has given them a new lease of life, and the well-informed, Rome-based journalist Robert Mickens, who writes for The Tablet, told me that Francis has already come ‘too far’ to retreat now to a more cautious stance.
Certainly he has already decisively changed the pattern established by his predecessors.
No longer is the emphasis on the dangers of secularism and relativism; he has also shifted the focus of the Church away from the ridiculous ‘culture wars’ between false dichotomies which saw Vatican II either as a ‘rupture’ with the past, or as eternally unchanged ‘continuity’.
Francis’ emphases are in tune with the genuine Catholic tradition focusing on God’s mercy, the love of Jesus, conscience, and the Church’s pastoral care for the vulnerabilities and sins embedded in the human condition. Continue reading.
Paul Collins is a writer and broadcaster.
Source: Eureka Street
Image: paulcollinscatholicwriter.com.au
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