He had to lead the church in a complex and dark time. The first global pandemic put the human species in a dystopian and plagued dimension of uncertainties. The acceleration of climate change came along with the finding that the current international order does not serve to face its apocalyptic risks. And in that bleak postcard there is also the shadow of the third world war, accentuating the unpredictable character of this section of history.
Francisco I lived these existential crossroads on Pedro’s throne. The disturbing instances that lurk to humanity framed a pontificate also harassed by a cluster of contradictions and rot in the Church itself. The first sign of those internal stalks with which Francisco had to deal with was to be the successor of a renouncing pontiff.
Joseph Ratzinger joined the meager handful of potatoes who, in the millenary history of the Church, resigned from the Headquarters. The last resignations that occurred before that of the German theologian that preceded Francisco, were that of Celestino V, who lasted a few months in the pontifical chair for not supporting intrigues and power disputes in the ecclesiastical dome, and that of Gregorio XII, who was chosen with the condition of renouncing shortly after.
The Pope of the thirteenth century, whose secular name was Pietro Murrone, appears in the divine comedy wandering in the most superficial circle of hell, because Dante Alighieri considered him a faint -hearted without courage to face the dark forces.
Two centuries later there was the case of Gregorio XII, whose resignation was agreed in the conclave that raised him and then redeem his resignation for that of the then Pope of Avignon, within the framework of the so -called Schism of the West.
The last of the cases was the one that made Jorge Bergoglio into the great pontiff. The resignation of Benedict XVI had been his last act of resistance against the darkest corners of the Roman curia, where they usually paid for political convenience, religious obscurantism and corruption.
The disloyalty of his butler (the ecclesiastical official closest to the pontiffs) crudely exposed the loss of the political power of Ratzinger. Paolo Gabrielle betrayed Benedict XVI filtering the press arising from the moral basements of the Church. And when a butler betrays his direct boss, it is an inexorable message: the Pope lacks support and gravitation in the Vatican structure.
The Ratzinger War had as its main battle the appointment of the rigorous German lawyer Gotti Tedeschi, who had as a priority mission reform the IOR (Vatican Bank) to bring clarity to the murky church finances.
The German pontiff threw them with the only thing he had left to expose that nest of corruption: his resignation. But that did not prevent the battle from being won the sordid greed of that power that nests in darkness.
Francisco maintained those pressed until the end and, throughout his pontificate, he was appointed cardinals to ensure the continuity of the fight that began his predecessor. The conclave to succeed it will also be a battlefield of this war, in addition to the bid between traditionalist theological aspects that reject in depth the evangelical message and are erected in the fierce guardians of the dogma, and avant -garde aspects that drive an ecclesiastical intellectual life more dynamic and less fearful of opening and changes.
The novelty will be that this board in which the Italian politics always played his chips, having in the twentie closed on the position of the Church in the face of human issues.
Burke, who since his youth in Wisconsin is a supporter of conservatism and now adheres to Trump’s leadership, has challenged Francisco’s opening attempts in the family’s synod carried out in 2014, also questioned the tolerance of the Argentine Pope to the divorced and his openness towards the homosexuals, among other sectors traditionally marinated in the Church.
The trip of Vice President JD Vance and the photo he achieved with the Pope the day before his death, in addition to the presence of Trump in Francisco’s funerals, whom he was wrongly considered a leftist close to the theology of liberation, seem clear signs that the New York tycoon wants to gravitate on the conclave.
The clustered in that scenario is very revealing Francisco’s greatest legacy, which was not in his political positions in different international issues, where he was often wrong, but what his charism radiated.
The common people does not follow the political, liturgical and theological positions of the pontiffs, but what transmits the image of those world visibility leaders. The bulk of humanity embraces or rejects what radiates the personality, ways and charism of the pontiffs, in addition to the recipient of their preaching. And what radiated Francisco’s image from his face and the tone and cadence of his voice, is a warm mixture of goodness, humility and closeness with the people who include understanding, compassion and accompaniment.
Radiating those values that made it appreciated in the world is a substantial legacy in this time of brutal leadership. Trump is a kind of paradigm of arrogant supremacism, which is expressed with vulgarity and places its excessive ego in the function that corresponds to intelligence and responsibility.
This intolerant leadership model, which despises weakness in all its forms and closes the dissent with gestures and words loaded with violence, is the one that is booming, mounted to the wave of ultra-conservatism that runs through the world.
In the antipodes is what radiated the warm and humanist charism of the Argentine Pope. That made it essential in a time plagued by leaders and rulers who hold insensitivity and try to impose their absolute convictions with contempt for criticism and dissent.
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