By Leonardo Boff
Pope Francis chose the right day to meet the Lord: Easter, the beginning of the new and a small anticipation of the good end of history.
I am partially reproducing an article I wrote on 1/2/2020, “Pope Francis, a New Genealogy of Popes?” I believe it expresses the desire of many Latin American Christians. Our perspective is that Pope Francis emerges as the initiator of a new genealogy of Popes who come from outside the old European Christendom.
Only 25% of Catholics live in Europe. In the Americas, it’s 65%, with the rest spread across other continents. European Christianity is in decline. Churches are closing because no one attends them. In the Americas, a source Christianity is being consolidated, no longer a mirror of the Europeans. After over 500 years of Christian presence, new faces of the Church have emerged: the Church at the base of the faithful, bishops who live among the people rather than in palaces, priests who live on the peripheries, a large number of lay movements assuming their autonomy, and many nuns who live in the heart of the Amazon. We rightfully say that an ecclesiogenesis is taking place here, that is, the genesis of a different kind of Church. While much of the old Roman-style Church still persists, it is not the one that leads to the future; it does not characterize a new style of Church different from the strictly traditional.
I see the following characteristics in Pope Francis’ papacy. First, Francis is not just a name but a Church project: poor and especially for the poor, a Church proclaiming peace against all types of wars in the world, denouncing an economic system that kills, practicing two injustices: destroying nature and oppressing the majority of humanity, a Church that cares for creation as our Common Home. He wrote two beautiful encyclicals: Laudato Si’ on the care of our Common Home (2015) and Fratelli Tutti (2020). Especially in the latter, he presents an alternative to the modernity paradigm based on power/dominance and the human being above and outside nature. As an alternative, he presents universal fraternity and social love, the human being within nature and brother and sister to all other beings, especially fellow humans. He sees this as the possible salvation of life on Earth: “we are all in the same boat, either we all save ourselves or no one is saved.”
Pope Francis, following the example of St. Francis of Assisi, does not live in papal palaces. He chooses a guesthouse, Santa Marta, lives in a simple room, and another to receive people. He is closer to the cave of Bethlehem than to Herod’s palace. He is a man among other men. He says that first he is the Bishop of Rome, then the Pope, and he wants to lead the Church with love, not with canon law. He asks bishops, a once unheard-of request, for a pastoral approach of tenderness and welcome without restrictions.
Pope Francis “comes from the ends of the earth,” from Argentina, with a different image of the Church, unlike that of his predecessors, a Church that is not a castle, turned inward with its orthodoxy and discipline, surrounded by enemies of modernity, but a “Church in mission” toward those on the margins, those who suffer, and those who feel excluded. He says he wants “a field hospital Church” that welcomes all the wounded, regardless of their religion or morality, as long as they are human and in need.
Pope Francis is not a Pope focused on orthodoxy, dogmas, and strict discipline. He respects these but openly says that with these things, we don’t reach the human heart. We must approach with kindness, compassion, and tenderness. It’s not about converting others, but seducing them with the humanitarian message of Jesus. He repeated many times: Christ came to teach us how to live unconditional love, solidarity, compassion, forgiveness—values that make up his Kingdom of God project.
Pope Francis is part of the liberation theology tradition in the Argentine style: liberating the silenced culture and the oppressed people. As a young student, he embraced this theology, associated with a promise he made to himself: to visit, on his own, every week a “villa miseria” (slum), enter the houses, talk with the people, encourage them, and bring them the truth that God especially loves the poor, for God is alive and prefers those who have the least life. He warmly welcomed the founder of liberation theology, Gustavo Gutiérrez, Jon Sobrino, Pepe Castillo, and he was eager to meet me. Importantly, he interrupted the synod to commemorate the death of Gustavo Gutiérrez, 96, a great servant of the poor. We agreed to meet several times, but due to internal Vatican issues, it was not possible. However, I have affectionate letters from him and a photograph together when we were in Buenos Aires in 1972 giving lectures.
Once made a cardinal, he lived alone in a small apartment, cooked his own meals, gave up the palace and the car. He walked or used the subway or bus, and went out to buy his newspaper.
A central theme of his preaching is the infinite mercy of God. He says that condemnation only exists for this world because God cannot lose any child or daughter that He created out of love, as no one can impose limits on His mercy that surpasses justice. He insists: do not preach the Gospel with fear or the threat of hell. Christ said in the Gospel of John: “if anyone comes to me, I will not turn them away.” He accepts everyone, regardless of their sexual condition. A child who reveals to the Pope that he is homoaffective hears this response: “God made you this way. God loves you, and I love you too.” Indeed, he makes the Christian message a liberating reality that humanizes and brings joy to life, not a nightmare filled with fear of hellfire.
I dare to think that, since most Catholics live outside the European galaxy, future Popes, after Pope Francis, will come from the new Churches, capable of dialoguing with other religions and living the new situation of humanity, inhabiting the only Common Home.
Who knows if the only bishop of the Amazon, Cardinal Leonardo Ulrich Steiner, a Franciscan, could be the great surprise, named Pope with the name of Francis II? In any case, along with other spiritual paths, he will help keep the inner flame of natural spirituality burning, nourish it, cultivate it, and prevent the most sacred part of the human being from succumbing along with our Common Home.
Leonardo Boff has written “Francisco de Asís y Francisco de Roma: una nueva primavera en la Iglesia” (Madrid, Trotta, 2013).
