5 Points on Pope Francis

5 Points on Pope Francis

Pope Francis, born Jorge Mario Bergoglio, is the 266th and current Pope of the Catholic Church and was elected on 13 March 2013. As such, he is Bishop of Rome, the head of the worldwide Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State. Let us take a closer look at his journey that led to his papacy:

1. Jorge Mario Bergoglio was born on December 17, 1936 in Flores, a barrio of Buenos Aires. He was the eldest of five children of Mario José Bergoglio, an Italian immigrant railway worker born in Portacomaro (Province of Asti) in Italy's Piedmont region, and his wife Regina María Sívori, a housewife born in Buenos Aires to a family of northern Italian (Piedmontese-Genoese) origin. Bergoglio has a sister María Elena who is the pope's only living sibling.
2. Bergoglio worked briefly as a chemical technician before entering seminary; he was ordained in 1969. From 1973 to 1979 he was Argentina's Provincial Superior of the Society of Jesus, became Archbishop of Buenos Aires in 1998, and was created cardinal in 2001. Bergoglio is the first Jesuit pope; the first pope from the Americas, and the first pope from the Southern Hemisphere.

     3.     Bergoglio is recognized for having good relationship with other faith and religion:

           

• He is recognized to further close the nearly 1,000-year estrangement with          the Orthodox churches. Bergoglio's positive relationship with the Eastern Orthodox churches is reflected in the fact that Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople attended his installation. According to George Demacopoulos, this is "quite likely the first time in history" that the Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, a position considered first among equals in the Eastern Orthodox Church organization, has attended a papal installation. 
•  Gregory Venables, Anglican Bishop of Argentina, has called Bergoglio a "devout Christian and friend to Anglicans". Mark Hanson, presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA) greeted the news of Bergoglio's election with a public statement that praised his work with Lutherans in Argentina. Juan Pablo Bongarrá, president of the Argentine Bible Society, recounts that Bergoglio not only met with Evangelicals, and prayed with them—but he also asked them to pray for him.
•  Bergoglio has close ties to the Jewish community of Argentina, and attended Jewish Rosh Hashanah services in 2007 at a synagogue in Buenos Aires. Bergoglio told the Jewish congregation during his visit that he went to the synagogue to examine his heart, "like a pilgrim, together with you, my elder brothers". After the 1994 AMIA bombing of a Jewish Community Center there that killed 85 people, Bergoglio was the first public figure to sign a petition condemning the attack and calling for justice. Jewish community leaders around the world noted that his words and actions "showed solidarity with the Jewish community" in the aftermath of this attack.
•  Leaders of the Islamic community in Buenos Aires welcomed the news of Bergoglio's election as pope, noting that he "always showed himself as a friend of the Islamic community", and a person whose position is "pro-dialogue".

4. Pope Francis is known for being vocal in his opinion. Below are some of his teachings which traditionalist Catholics may find difficulty to digest.

• In his first homily as a Pope, he stressed that "if we do not profess Jesus Christ, things go wrong. We may become a charitable NGO, but not the Church, the Bride of the Lord." He went on to teach that "When we do not profess Jesus Christ, we profess the worldliness of the devil... when we profess Christ without the Cross, we are not disciples of the Lord, we are worldly".
• As cardinal he viewed morality in the context of an encounter with Christ that is "triggered" by mercy": "the privileged locus of the encounter is the caress of the mercy of Jesus Christ on my sin." And thus, he says, a new morality—a correspondence to mercy—is born. He views this morality as a "revolution": it is "not a titanic effort of the will", but "simply a response" to a "surprising, unforeseeable, and 'unjust' mercy". Morality is "not a 'never falling down' but an 'always getting up again.'
• Another theme Pope Francis emphasized in his first address to the cardinals is the new evangelization. He talked about "the certainty that the Holy Spirit gives His Church, with His powerful breath, the courage to persevere and to search for new ways to evangelize."It is a theme he has repeated in other occasions, specifically in his biography, where he spoke about "transforming pastoral modes" and "revising the internal life of the church so as to go out to the faithful people of God," with "great creativity." He observed that  the Church cannot be passively waiting for clientele among people who are no longer evangelized and who "will not get near structures and old forms that do not respond to their expectations and sensibilities." He asked for pastoral conversion from a Church that regulates the faith to a Church that transmits and facilitates the faith.

      5.  Even during the early stages of his papacy, Pope Francis has already set himself apart from his predecessors.

• Francis elected not to live in the official papal residence in the Apostolic Palace, but to remain in the Vatican guest house. He was upgraded to a suite in which he can receive visitors and hold meetings. He is the first pope since Pope Pius X to live outside the papal apartments.
•  On the first Maundy Thursday following his election, Francis washed and kissed the feet of 12 juvenile offenders, ages 14–21, at Rome's Casal del Marmo detention facility, telling them the ritual of foot washing is a sign that he is at their service. He told them to "Help one another. This is what Jesus teaches us". According to Church experts, this was the first time that a pope has included women in this ritual (there were 2 women and 10 men). Canon lawyer Edward Peters noted that this was a break with canon law, although not with any "divine directive". The twelve included two Muslims, including one of the two women. Before leaving, the pope told the detainees, "Do not let yourselves be robbed of hope".
•   On March 31, 2013, Francis used his first Easter homily to make a plea for peace throughout the world, specifically mentioning the Mid-East, Africa, and North and South Korea. He also spoke out against those who give in to "easy gain" in a world filled with greed, and made a plea for humanity to become a better guardian of creation by protecting the environment. He said that "We ask the risen Jesus, who turns death into life, to change hatred into love, vengeance into forgiveness, war into peace." Although the Vatican had prepared greetings in 65 languages, Francis chose not to read them. According to the Vatican, the pope "at least for now, feels at ease using Italian, the everyday language of the Holy See".
• On 13 April 2013, he named a group of 8 cardinals to advise him and to study a plan for revising the Apostolic Constitution on the Roman Curia, Pastor Bonus. They are Giuseppe Bertello, president of the Vatican City State governorate; Francisco Javier Errazuriz Ossa from Chile; Oswald Gracias from India; Reinhard Marx from Germany; Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya from the Democratic Republic of the Congo; George Pell from Australia; Seán O'Malley from the United States; and Oscar Andres Rodriguez Maradiaga from Honduras. He appointed Bishop Marcello Semeraro secretary for the group and scheduled its first meeting for 1-3 October. The people chosen have a track record of opposition to the status quo in the Vatican.