Pope Francis: a Humble Man Facing a Mighty Challenge
By Philip Sherwell
Beneath the frescoed ceilings of the Sistine Chapel, a startling vision dawned on Jorge Mario Bergoglio. He was going to be elected as the next pope. Support for the Argentine clergyman was, he realised, reaching “dangerous” levels. The man so convinced he would not be elected he booked a return, economy-class ticket was, in fact, not going back home to Buenos Aires. His future was in Rome. “I had next to me the archbishop emeritus of São Paulo, Cláudio Hummes, a great friend of mine,” he said yesterday in his first public reflections on the moment. “When things became a bit dangerous, he comforted me, and when the vote for me reached the two-thirds majority, a moment in which the cardinals started applauding because they had chosen a Pope, he hugged me, he kissed me and he said: 'Don’t forget the poor.’” It was advice that the man now known as Pope Francis evidently took to heart. “That word, the poor, lodged in me here,” Francis said, tapping his head. “It was then that I thought of St Francis. And then I thought of wars and about peace and that’s how the name came to me – a man of peace, a poor man… and how I would like a church of the poor, for the poor.” That the 76-year-old should immediately declare himself a champion of the poor comes as no surprise to those who know him. But shunning lavish papal trappings in favour of a humble and pious rule is effortless in comparison with tackling the other challenges that face him. The Catholic church is still reeling from sexual abuse scandals, and struggling to cleanse itself from a stream of damaging allegations and confessions. Cardinal Keith O’Brien, Scotland’s highest Catholic, stunned the faithful by admitting that his “sexual conduct” towards four men had “fallen below the standards expected of me”, and resigned days before the start of the conclave. Last week, the archdiocese of Los Angeles reached a $10 million (£6.6m) settlement with four victims of sexual abuse by a former priest. It is undoubtedly a testing time to be promoted to head the troubled organisation. But Francis, whose shoes were so worn out his friends bought him a new pair for the conclave, seems determined to do things his own way. He has stunned Vatican officials in his first few days as Pope, declining the papal limousine in favour of minibuses, addressing cardinals as his “brothers” rather than “my lord cardinals” and paying his own bill at the clerical residence he stayed in before the conclave. Back in the run-down, industrial Buenos Aires commuter town of Ituzaingó, where Francis’s younger sister lives, she told The Sunday Telegraph how the man leading the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics was, to her, a mischievous older brother with a passion for tango and football – two beloved national pastimes. “He used to spoil my boys, his nephews, all the time. He once gave my oldest a pork chop to gnaw on when was just six months old. Everyone knows you don’t do that to a child of that age. “And he taught them both to drive before their feet could reach the pedals,” she said. Marie Elena, 65, the divorced mother of two adult sons, is the Pope’s only living sibling – two brothers and a sister have already died. They were the children of an Italian-born father and a mother of Italian stock, making the first “Latin American” Pope classically European, in a New World way. According to Miss Bergoglio, the idea that he would become Pope was a joke, at best. “The last time we spoke, before he went to Rome for the conclave, he was very clear that he was going to return as a cardinal,” she said. And she laughed when asked by this newspaper about the dogma of papal infallibility that was now imbued in her brother. “He’s infallible in matters of the Church and things that have to do with faith, but beyond that, he can easily be wrong,” she said. “He’s flesh and blood like the rest of us.” And as with many Argentines of his generation, his conduct during the “Dirty War” of 1976-83 has become a key indicator of his character. Pope Francis is accused by critics of allowing – or even helping – the junta to kidnap and torture two Leftist priests in his Jesuit order, and of doing nothing to stop the systematic theft of babies from political prisoners. His defendants counter that historic rage has blinded many to the fact that he committed no wrong more grievous than acting prudently during a time when those who spoke too loudly against the regime were “disappeared”. “This is a very sad history that taints the entire hierarchy of the Argentine Catholic Church, which has not made one mea culpa and has not taken even one step to help bring about truth, memory and justice,” said Estela de Carlotto, who heads the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, a civil-rights group that searches for babies stolen during the dictatorship. “Bergoglio belongs to the church – and now represents the church – that darkened the history of our country.” Another bone of contention is that his views on the Falklands do not chime with those of Britain. In services marking the 30th anniversary of the Falklands conflict last year, the then-cardinal said Britain had “usurped” the islands from Argentina. He previously called the archipelago “ours”. David Cameron criticised the Pope’s comments on the islands. Referring to the overwhelming vote in last weekend’s referendum to remain British, he noted: “The white smoke over the Falklands was pretty clear.” While his views on other issues run contrary to President Cristina Kirchner – he described same-sex marriage as a “manoeuvre by the Devil” and criticised her support for contraception – the Argentine president is keen to make amends and capitalise on his new position when she meets him tomorrow – becoming the first world leader to do so. His meeting with Mrs Kirchner may be thorny. But tougher challenges lie ahead. A classic compromise candidate, the former Archbishop of Buenos Aires was chosen by his fellow cardinals because he was an outsider who could, at least in theory, tackle the Church’s failure to deal with child sex abuse and Vatican reform – and do so while delivering spiritual and pastoral guidance to his flock. That would be quite the challenge for any mortal – never mind a 76-year-old with just one fully functioning lung since early adulthood, chosen to succeed a pontiff who stood down because of age and fragility. Indeed, as Francis spoke yesterday about how he had been elected, the Vatican found itself in the midst of a fresh public relations disaster, after Cardinal Wilfrid Fox Napier, the Archbishop of Durban, argued that paedophilia is a psychological illness but not “a criminal condition”. He told BBC radio that people who become paedophiles after being abused themselves as children should be treated by doctors, but not punished. The new Pope was also criticised by sex abuse victims for meeting, during one of his first public appointments, Cardinal Bernard Law, the former archbishop of Boston, who resigned in disgrace amid allegations of covering up child abuse. Law resigned as Archbishop of Boston 10 years ago and left America after being named in scores of lawsuits accusing him of failing to protect children. It was unclear whether Francis was taken by surprise by the Cardinal’s presence in his unscheduled visit to a Rome church. An Italian newspaper claimed that in the wake of the visit, Francis decided to ban Cardinal Law from attending the basilica. “I don’t want him to continue to attend this church,” the Pope was reported as saying to aides by Il Fatto Quotidiano, a Left-wing, investigative newspaper. Yesterday in his first meeting with his “dear friends”, as he referred to the assembled thousand journalists, he charmed the media by referring to the grinding slog of covering a papal resignation followed by a papal conclave. “You worked hard, eh?” with a charming laugh. “You worked hard!” For him, the work is just beginning.
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