I was visiting Canberra’s splendid Arboretum the other day and I ran into an historian who is not one of us.
He greeted me: “That new pope of yours is doing quite well, isn’t he? I don’t know that he will show us the road to paradise but he has definitely opened a few doors out of the wilderness.”
I told him that I would use this line shamelessly but he insisted that I honour his anonymity – and I do.
I think Pope Francis is doing quite well. My thesis is that Francis makes no pretence to be the world’s greatest theologian, economist, politician or climate scientist.
His humble boast is that he is a pastor with the smell of the sheep, not afraid of dialogue, aware that there is often a chasm between dogma and pastoral practice, knowing there is a place for prophetic utterance though it is for others with democratic legitimacy, professional competence and accountability to deliver the strategies and compromises which need to be tempered according to the culture of the people.
He knows there are all sorts of issues inside and outside the Church, where for too long people with power have tried to keep the lid on, in the hope that the problems and complexities will go away, often by parodying those who see the problems or complexities as ideologues, small “l” liberals or cafeteria Catholics.
Francis delights in being joyful and troubled while contemplating big problems, calling people of good will to the table of deliberation reminding them of the kernel of the Christian gospels.
He has the faith and hope needed to lift the lid without fear and without knowing the answers prior to the dialogue occurring.
He faces criticism inside the Church for daring to insist on transparency and deliberation even about matters of pastoral complexity in relation to which the doctrine has been said to be well settled by enforcement during recent papacies. Continue reading
- Father Frank Brennan, S.J. is Professor of Law at the Australian Catholic University. His most recent book is No Small Change: The Road to Recognition for Indigenous Australia.
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