Greetings in the Name of the Lord, 

I wanted to take a short break from our ongoing exploration of Christian Mysticism to touch a little on the life of Pope Francis. I remember when Francis became Pope, he was something of a surprise. Before Francis, I would regularly get asked about what I thought of the Pope, and although I had no ill will towards Benedict, he could be challenging to talk about. My typical response was something along the lines of: "well, I am not Roman Catholic, so I don't really have a whole lot to say about him".  This was more of an effort to shift the topic of conversation than anything else. Benedict, like so many of his predecessors, placed his emphasis on doctrine and dogma, living kind of above the work of the church on the ground, trusting good doctrine would trickle down, through clergy, to the parish. Academically speaking, I found his work interesting, but it rarely translated into good conversation with folks who were not seminary graduates, most folks just saw him as distant, coming across as cold and stodgy,  almost as a sort of a museum exhibit, a testament to the past. I think many brought him up to me almost as a kind of proof for why the church was becoming increasingly irrelevant to the world, even if what he was actually doing was kind of interesting theologically speaking.

Francis was different. Almost immediately I felt a shift in the way people talked about religion. After Francis became Pope, I would get excited about being asked what I thought of the Pope, and would instead respond: "I think the Pope is great".  There was a period there where it really felt like there was going to be a resurgence of sorts for the way religion interacted with society. 

But what I found out in my discussions about Pope Francis was that most people saw him as an agent of change, as someone who would rewrite the rules, many believe he must have rewritten them to be able to act the way he did.. What is interesting is that in reality he changed very little about the doctrinal standards of the Roman Catholic church.  There are some things, like allowing the blessing of same-sex unions, and making it easier for divorced folks to get communion, but the big things are all pretty much still the same. Priests still must be male and celibate, same sex marriage is still not allowed, and divorce is still a quagmire to try and avoid at all costs, protestants are not invited to share in the sacraments offered during worship.

This is where I think Pope Francis's greatest strength is often lost. It was not that he changed much about the church, he just shifted the emphasis. He shifted the emphasis from doctrine and dogma to something much more pastoral, something that, in my opinion, was more inline with Christ. .  

In a Church that roots itself in Jesus--who spent a good chunk of his life as essentially homeless in a quest to heal and teach--there was very little that Francis did that would be out of line with the vast majority of Christian doctrine and dogma. But instead of emphasizing the written word, he chose to emphasize a lived word, with action and by example, to show what compassion, humility, patience, justice, temperance, conscience, and above all else Love looked like. In many ways he was trying to re-root the role of Pope in the example set by Christ. He worked to meet people where they were, instead of creating structures that may trickle down to the parish if everything functioned properly. 

This is not to say he got everything right, for one he could have handled clerical abuse much better, but his shift in emphasis, in priority, it helped show what the Church can and probably should be. Maybe more than anything was Francis's commitment to the poor and disenfranchised that will be most lasting and most transformative for the Church. I heard a story the other day that he would regularly sneak out of the Vatican and into a nearby homeless shelter and be with those gathered there. He reminds the Church that the power it does have can be used to help give voice to those whose voices are most often lost in the midst of so much worldly power. Francis reminds us that starting with Love is always the most important thing.

In many obituaries and commentaries on his work, he is often being described as "progressive" sometimes even "liberal", but describing him in this way misses much of his central message. First off, I would not describe him as progressive, because to be progressive implies there is human-led work to be done to make the world a better place with a focus on making that work happen. Francis was far more focused on reconnecting the Church to its centrality of Christ, the very embodiment of divine Love. He was looking to make space for God to work, which in many cases is the exact opposite of being "progressive".  Maybe more importantly, the church did not really need to be changed that much to live into this call, so again not particularly progressive. In terms of being liberal, the word connotes a particular political bias, and although Francis was willing to speak up for migrants and immigrants, moved the church towards being more embracing of LGBTQ individuals, and encouraging forgiveness around divorce, he also spoke out against abortion and regularly lifted up the sanctity of family. He was not liberal, but he was also not conservative, instead he was compassionate, letting love lead where he believed it was important to take a stand. He reminds us that the Church should not be liberal or conservative, it should not be something to be won in the midst of culture wars, it should be an institution that returns over and over to our unity in all being created by God, in the Love that God has for the world, for the centrality of forgiveness, of a call to deep compassion and service. 

The Church has a role in our world today, and it is not a progressive one, or a conservative one or a liberal one or a reactionary one. The Church has a role as our community conscience, to think about what will foster Justice (and Justice, according to the Hebrew concept, really means healthy relationships all the way up and down and throughout society), to encourage humility and patience, to help us live into the kind of self-less, community focused agape Love Christ lived out everyday. Pope Francis, like Christ, showed us that all of that is possible, it is now up to us to live into it and make it real.    

In Peace, 
Mike