“Pope Bergoglio the Tenacious”

Pope Bergoglio the Tenacious

Some folks got a kick out of referring to Karol Wojtyla as “Pope John Paul the Great”, as if a few journalistic designations could help to fix a historical understanding. What we’re beginning to see now are the various shapes of the long term effects of “Pope Bergoglio the Tenacious”. He knows he’s making significant changes, effectively undoing things that Pope Wojtlya put into place, and he is consciously acting in such ways as to assure that his mark will be felt far into the future.

Aside from being the pope who has upset the traditional sacramental apple cart, diminishing the once-unique role of “the eucharist” in the Roman Catholic Church by enabling “communion for those who are divorced and remarried without benefit of annulment” in the footnotes of his document, “Amoris Laetitia”, it is becoming clearer that Pope Bergoglio wants to leave his mark in other tangible ways as well:

[“Pope Francis”] has no desire to go down in history as a “transitional” pope. That which he is doing, he wants it to survive his departure. And to make sure of this he is institutionalizing the things dearest to him, he is making them stable, with all the numbers to keep moving forward on their own.

To that end, he is not only stacking the deck of Cardinals who can vote for a like-minded “successor”, but he is also coming up with new “traditions” that future popes will find difficult to stop.

According to the Roman Catholic journalist Sandro Magister, these include:

A World Day for the Poor, “canonized a few weeks ago”, this pope “who in Rome will eat together with hundreds of the poor” has made it “difficult for one of his successors not to do the same.”

A network of secular schools that “has a completely secularized educational paradigm. Instead of saints, the stars of sports and entertainment” are the heroes. Recently Bergoglio “inaugurated an office for them within the pontifical palace, which will make it more complicated to dislodge them in the future.” This is exceptionally noteworthy, as Magister points out insofar as “For centuries, the schools of the Society of Jesus [Jesuits] have been the beacon of Catholic education. While these “Scholas” so dear to the Jesuit pope make more news for the frequent soccer games “for peace” that he sponsors with Maradona, Messi, or Ronaldinho at his side, as also for the bizarre encounter one year ago in the ring in Las Vegas - this too convened by the pope under the banner of dialogue - between a Catholic and a Muslim boxer, both of whom were received at Santa Marta after the Muslim, who lost by knockout in the sixth round, had been released from the hospital.”

A collection of anti-capitalist and anti-globalization “popular movements.”, which “is another of his inventions. He has entrusted its selection to an Argentine trade unionist friend of his, Juan Grabois, who fishes each time from among the diehards of the historic anti-capitalist and anti-globalist assemblies of Seattle and Porto Alegre, with a side order of indigenous and environmental groups and with prominent guests like Bolivian president Evo Morales, in his capacity as a coca grower, or former president of Uruguay José ‘Pepe’ Mujica, with a past as a guerrilla, who has now retired to live a frugal life on a farm. To this gathering, Bergoglio gives fiery speeches every time of thirty pages and more, which are the quintessence of his general political vision, harnessing the people as a ‘mystical category’ called to redeem the world. There have been four convocations so far”.

He has totally morphed the Pontifical Academy for Life, from a bastion of pro-life thought to one of “discussion”, by dismissing all 132 members from that committee in December, and appointing 45 new members, many of whom have solid “pro-choice” credentials, and even one who “appears to be in harmony with the current openness to a new “discernment” on questions such as contraception, in vitro fertilization, sexual orientation, “gender,” passive euthanasia, assisted suicide.”

Thus, for Bergoglio, the Roman Catholic Church of the future will assume a profoundly secularist, even social-justice socialist flavor.

From the start of his gig as pope, it was clear that Bergoglio was on a mission to change things. He was elected March 13, 2013, and in an interview released October 1 of that year, he made it clear that saw his mission was “cleaning house”. Here is what he said at that point:

Vatican II, inspired by Pope Paul VI and John, decided to look to the future with a modern spirit and to be open to modern culture. The Council Fathers knew that being open to modern culture meant religious ecumenism and dialogue with non-believers. But afterwards very little was done in that direction. I have the humility and ambition to want to do something [emphasis added].

… providence has placed me at the head of the Church and the Diocese of Peter. I will do what I can to fulfill the mandate that has been entrusted to me.

I am the Bishop of Rome and Pope of the Catholic world. The first thing I decided was to appoint a group of eight cardinals to be my advisers. Not courtiers but wise people who share my own feelings. This is the beginning of a Church with an organization that is not just top-down but also horizontal. When Cardinal Martini talked about focusing on the councils and synods he knew how long and difficult it would be to go in that direction. Gently, but firmly and tenaciously.

I believe that Catholics involved in politics carry the values of their religion within them, but have the mature awareness and expertise to implement them. The Church will never go beyond its task of expressing and disseminating its values, at least as long as I'm here…

Many of us are familiar by now with the real reason why C.S. Lewis never became a Roman Catholic. He said:

“The real reason why I cannot be in communion with you [Catholics] is not my disagreement with this or that Roman doctrine, but that to accept your Church means, not to accept a given body of doctrine, but to accept in advance any doctrine your Church hereafter produces. It is like being asked to agree not only to what a man has said but also to what he is going to say.” From “Christian Reunion”, in Christian Reunion and Other Essays, edited by Walter Hooper, London: Collins, 1990, p. 17-18.

Pope Bergoglio the Tenacious is bringing that fear to life.