The Church of Pope Francis, after more than a decade of pontificate, will leave its mark. The era of Jorge Mario Bergoglio, already crystallized, will one day give way to a successor who will have to continue his legacy. Having in their hands, nothing more and nothing less, than the path of Catholics around the world; after a historical era marked by the first Latin American heir of Pedro, Argentine, Jesuit and with the name of Francisco.
There are many developments, in recent days, that are starring in life within the Vatican. Just this week: the new encyclical Dilexit Usthe renewal of bilateral agreement with China in relation to the appointment of bishops in the Asian country and the closing of the Synod of Synodality. In the medium term, in less than two months, the renewal of the future College of Cardinals will take place, which will elect Francis’ successor. All this, furthermore, at the gates of the beginning of the next Jubilee of 2025.
What direction will it take? the Church of the future? From a geographical point of view, the essence will follow border and peripheral promoted by Francis from the beginning of his pontificate: thus, a Church less European and more universal. As proof of this, there will be the photograph of the next College of Cardinals, that is, of the group of cardinals who will elect the next pontiff. For next December 8, the Holy Father has convened a new consistory in which he will name twenty cardinals who will join those who already have the right, in the future, to choose Francis’ successor from the Sistine Chapel in Rome. .
80% of the 141 cardinal electors of the Church will have been directly appointed by Pope Francis: 57 Europeans –among them, 18 Italians, 10 Spanish and 6 French–, 36 Americans –18 South Americans, 14 North Americans and 4 Central Americans–, 26 Asians, 18 Africans and 4 Oceanic. It will, therefore, be a much more international conclave, going from the almost 50 countries represented in the 2013 conclave, to more than 70 if a new successor to Peter’s throne were to be elected today.
“The Catholic Church is a global church with members on all continents. This diversity is its strength, but also a challenge,” he explains to Public Kristina Stoeckl Professor of Sociology of Religions from the Luiss University of Rome. Citing the importance of the Synod of Synodality that will conclude this weekend, the religion expert assures that “the objective of the synod” is to “bring the decisions” of the Church “closer to the people.” But, naturally, “it also implies a greater risk of division within such a diverse Church.”
The zenith of the frontier and peripheral vision of the Church of Francis, in fact, is summarized in the recent apostolic trip of the Holy Father to Asia and Oceania, where in almost two weeks he visited Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore; thus becoming the longest papal trip of his entire pontificate and at the same time its thematic compendium: climate change, interreligious dialogue, peripheries and migrations.
The great geographical challenge of the Catholic Church throughout this century – inspired, among other things, by the missionary work of the Jesuit Matteo Ricci in the 16th century – is and will be China. After the Communist Revolution and the seizure of power by Mao Tze Tung, China and the Holy See have not maintained diplomatic relations since 1951; but that does not mean that there are no points of dialogue.
The renewal of the bilateral agreement between both countries for the appointment of Catholic bishops in the Asian country, a few days ago, is an example of that – even if it is minimal – dialogue. After the first signing in September 2018, a second in 2020 and the third in 2022; The current renewal, for the first time, for another “four years” as confirmed by Rome and Beijing in recent days, evidences the gradual development of relations between both States. According to the Vatican, he remains “intentioned” to continue the “respectful and constructive dialogue” with the Asian countryfor the “good of the Catholic Church” and “all the Chinese people.”
Another piece of news coming from the Vatican this week is the publication of the new and fourth encyclical of Pope Francis, Dilexit Usa text in which Pope Francis focuses on the importance of the “heart” in a world marked by conflicts and technologies: “In this liquid world it is necessary to talk again about heartpoint to where each person, of all kinds and conditions, makes their synthesis; there where concrete beings have the source and root of all their other powers, convictions, passions, choices,” says Jorge Mario Bergoglio in the initial part of his recently released encyclical.
Thinking about the pontificate of Pope Francis implies, almost naturally, thinking about the concept of opening within the Church. Something that took place, for example, a few months after the beginning of his pontificate, at the end of July 2013. He was on the papal flight, returning from his apostolic trip to Brazil, on the way from Rio de Janeiro to Rome. Answering the journalists’ questions, the Argentine Holy Father uttered a phrase from newspaper archives: ““If a person is gay, seeks the Lord and is of good will, who am I to judge them?”. A decade later, in December 2023, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith would publish the well-known declaration of Fiducia Supplians that, even though we do not recognize homosexual marriage as such within the Church; It gave the green light for homosexual couples to be blessed.
One of the most traditionalist aspects in relation to Francis’ Church, however, has to do with issues such as female diaconatehe abortion wave surrogate motherhood. And although it is true that Pope Francis regularly remembers the centrality of women in human life – and even within the Church by confirming that ““the Church is a woman”–; Pope Francis’ official vision regarding many of these controversial issues can be read in the statement Infinite Dignitas, the declaration of the Doctrine of the Faith published last April, where the Church explains its position on the matter; but also about many other issues of great social consensus, such as the fight against violence against women either against human trafficking.
Another of the issues addressed in the Dignitas Infinita document is precisely sexual abuseone of the most controversial issues in recent decades for the Church and where Francis has always been inflexible on the matter: ““Sexual abuse is a shame for the Church and we ask for forgiveness.”Pope Francis pronounced once again a few weeks ago from Belgium: “Do not cover up abuses, condemn the abusers,” said Bergoglio, addressing his appeal to the bishops. And he added: “Evil must be exposed, as some of the abused bravely do.”
“Pope Francis has faced, without half measures, the faults of the Church in relation to the abuse of minors,” says religion expert professor Kristina Stoeckl. All of this, in a social context in which one can no longer look the other way: “The Church has been brought into discussion after the abuses committed in inside and society no longer tolerates the path of silence regarding these crimes,” divulges the professor at the Luiss University of Rome.
He female diaconate It has been in the news precisely this week as it has been an issue debated around the last Synod of Synodality, an event where the Church reflects on itself together with the bishops and other members, also women. The prefect of the Dicastery of the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernándezhas assured in recent days that Pope Francis has expressed that “the question of the female diaconate” does not enjoy sufficient “maturity” to be addressed in the Synod. But, the cardinal added, “the Holy Father is very concerned about the role of women in the Church and has asked the Doctrine of the Faith to “explore the possibilities for its development” without directly influencing the issue of the female diaconate since, for Fernández, rushing to request the “ordination of deaconesses is not today the most important response to promote to women” within the Church. This is due, he explains, to the fact that “we have not yet taken some steps that, however, we could take.”
Always within the female issue, surrogacy and abortion are the matters in which the forcefulness of Pope Francis can be verified at a doctrinal level as head of the Catholic Church. A few months ago, Bergoglio described surrogacy as “deplorable”where Francis clearly positions himself “against” considering children as “objects” and where said practice, according to the Church, “is based on the exploitation of the mother’s situation of material need” and where “a child will never is the object of a contract.”
Upon returning from his recent trip to Luxembourg and Belgium, the pontiff defined the abortiononce again, as “a homicide” in all cases and where professionals doctors who perform itsome “hitmen”; in a context in which, for the bishop of Rome, there is no possible debate about abortion because, he assures, “it kills a human being” and “it kills human life.”
To defend her idea, on the papal flight back from Brussels to Rome she linked her refusal to abortion with motherhood where, according to Bergoglio, “women have the right to protect life,” both “their own” and “that of their children.” “. However, the Pope Francisco is flexible with contraceptiveswhich “should not be confused” with abortion.
The current moment of the Church is not simple from several points of view. The professor of Sociology of Religions at the Luiss University of Rome consulted by PublicKristina Stoeckl, offers a detailed x-ray of this, disclosing that in Western societies a “secularization processwhere today being religious is “an option, like many others” in a context where other religions also exist: “in matters of ethics and politics the Catholic Church”, furthermore, competes both with the “more progressive” Protestant churches and with the “orthodox and evangelical”, “more conservative”. Something that, explains Stoeckl, “is not appreciated in countries like Italy, but it is in the United States or Africa.” And he concludes: “At a time of great challenges for the Church, through the Synod of Synodality it looks within; where the hope is that through a internal renewal processthe Church can find the way to face the multiple challenges that lie ahead.
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