On
March 13, we will celebrate the seventh anniversary of Pope Francis'
Pontificate, seven years of service to the Church and the world from the See of
Peter in Rome. We will look back to 2013, when, during the fifth vote of a
conclave that lasted two days, Argentine Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was
elected as the first Argentine and Latin American Pope. We will recall that,
for his Pontificate, he chose the name of Francis, as a symbol and in honor of
the poor saint from Assisi.
From the moment of his
election as the new Pope, Francis showed the world a new style, his own style
of a man, his genuine Christian, Jesuit, and Latin American style while guiding
Peter's Boat. It was a style that was prominently demonstrated and summarized
in Pope Francis’ first speeches during his first week, starting from his
election and going through the Inaugural Mass of his Pontificate, celebrated on
March 19, 2013, at the feast of Saint Joseph.
Then, on March 14, the
day after his election, in his first Mass in the Sistine Chapel, he issued a
call “to proclaim the message of Jesus Christ in order to avoid being dismissed simply as a “charitable NGO”. In addition, he
stressed “the Church’s need to move away from the secular by building on the Gospel and the cornerstone of
Christ.” On March 15, in audience with all the Cardinals of the world, he
invited them to "try to respond with faith in
bringing Jesus Christ to humanity and to attract mankind to return to Christ
and the Church."
On Saturday the 16th, in the Paul VI Audience Hall and in audience with
journalists from around the world who covered the Conclave that elected the
Pope, he told them: “Since many of you are not members of the Catholic Church,
and others are not believers, I cordially give this blessing silently, to each
of you, respecting the conscience of each one of you, but in the
knowledge that each of you is a child of God. May God bless you!” On Sunday,
March 17, he presided over the Angelus Prayer, at which he spoke of “God's
mercy that never castigates.” That same day, he wrote his first tweet:
“Dear friends, I thank you from my heart and I ask you to continue to
pray for me.” It was a petition that had already been made at the
moment of his election when he appeared on the balcony of the Apostolic Palace
for his first greeting and first blessing to the world. And on March 19, in the
inaugural homily of his Pontificate, speaking of the power that Christ granted
to Peter, Pope Francis recalled: “Let us never forget that authentic
power is service,” considering the figure of the Pope as someone who
“must enter ever more fully into that service” and “open his arms to protect
all of God’s people and embrace with tender affection the whole of
humanity, especially the poorest, the weakest, the least important”
(1).
Gospel, humanity, respect, mercy, service, welcome, the poor, and others
are all recurring daily themes in the Petrine ministry of Francis. These are
themes and emphases through which he shows us, wholly, as a man, a Christian,
and a conscious and knowledgeable Pope that we are not only in an era of
change, but also in a change of epoch (Doc. Aparecida 44)
that involves and affects all areas and dimensions of the human being and,
therefore, of all humanity. Francis is a Pope who possesses knowledge and
awareness that few have of the challenges that these changes in this change of
era presents to the evangelizing work of the Catholic Church in the world.
This change of era in which we live in this space-time
in the history of humanity and in which we pilgrimage with our Christian faith
in the world has been called the “transition from modernity to postmodernity,”
“culture light,” or “liquid modernity” (Z. Bauman). These are terms with which
we try to designate a set of changes and characteristics that are happening and
define the human being in this new way of being, of thinking, of doing, and of
behaving in the world and, within it, in all the communities of humanity at
this historical juncture.
Roughly speaking,
these changes mean a loss of the meaning of life, a “liquid” and poor (not
solid) story of a history without a future, without hope (after world wars and
the unsatisfied ideals of our modern ancestors) and, with this, a loss of work
and effort and an unbridled and hedonistic search for the enjoyment of one's
own self, which forgets the importance of everything collective, institutional,
hierarchical, and for the common good. With the search for immediate pleasure,
there comes a loss of the transcendent meaning of life and everything valuable
is what comes by easy and fast, ephemeral, disposable and in passing, all
without commitment and effortlessness.
The supreme “moral value” of light or postmodern man
is pleasure and, to achieve this, “the means do not matter. ...” In the midst
of the abundance of information and self-centered evaluation of the person, the
truth is diluted in a subjectivism and moral relativism in which nothing is
worth anything or everything is worth the same and each one manages “on-demand”
the truths with which he tries to achieve the pleasure of living in the middle
of this immense “cemetery of hopes.” For pleasure, you have to have and
consume, so that materialism, luxury, money, consumerism, and comfort are
imposed as a very important means in the pursuit of happiness. Here, aesthetics
replaces ethics, sentiments instead of reasoning and, in the large market for consumption that
is any society, religion is one more item—eclectic and on-demand—in the game of
supply and demand.
This
new axiology, this new “moral” criteria, this new way of being, thinking, and
acting for today’s human being challenges each of us and the very identity of
the life and work of the Church in the world because it defies the very essence
of the Gospel of Jesus of Nazareth. The “liquid” and gaseous values of
postmodernism challenge the solidity of the facts, words, criteria, and
attitudes lived and taught by Jesus to his disciples of all times, if that is true,
with them and only with them we can build our lives like those who build on
rock (Mt 7:21ss).
That
is to say, and with more concrete examples: What does Christian hope have to
say about postmodern despair? What place does the cross of the Gospel have
against today’s hedonism? What value does the search for love and evangelical
brotherhood have in an egocentric and selfish world? How do we
attain a transcendent vision for life in the midst of the materialist
and consumerist immanentism of “light” men? And so on.
Pope
Francis knows, feels, and suffers deeply every day these challenges
and emergencies in which we have to set ourselves to the evangelizing work of
the disciples of the Church if we want to be “the light and salt of
the earth” (Mt 5:13 ff). For this reason, Catholics are constantly invited
to build our Christian life as a “Church in exit:” A church
that “leaves the convents, the ecclesiastical bureaucracies, and clerical
structures to meet the people, especially those suffering, the poor, those
abandoned as scrap or waste in a society that gets used to discarding, to
technological obsolescence (Morandé Court, Pedro: Modernidad “líquida” y anuncio
de Cristo).
May
the years of the Pontificate of Francis be many more so that his evangelical
Petrine service continues to be a beacon that will guide us all—amid daily,
serious, threatening, and multiple current storms—to a safe harbor.
_____________
boldfacing is mine.)
NB:
The following page was also referenced in writing the original Spanish version
of this post: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anexo:Cronolog%C3%ADa_del_pontificado_de_Francisco
