Habemus Papem! Pope Francis is the first non-European Pope in over 1000 years to take office. Formerly known as Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio of Argentina, Francis is the first pope ever from the Americas. He is also the first ever Jesuit pope as well as the first pope (265 popes preceded him) to take the name Francis.
Thus, symbolically, he represents a break with the old world, with the old center of the Roman Catholic Church. He has the opportunity to continue this streak of “newness” and breathe new life into a religion that has gradually been losing influence in the western world. At the same time, just as Pope Francis, the son of Italian immigrants to Argentina, has connections with the old world, so too can he uphold traditional Catholic morality which has been passed down over 2000 years of church history.
For these reasons, Pope Francis has accurately been described as a bridge builder between the old and the new. To further understand this analogy, let us examine the state of Catholicism in the world today.
In North America, the amount of Catholics as a percentage of the total world Catholic population is 7.3 percent. In Europe, the percentage of total world Catholics has fallen from 38.5 percent to 23.7 percent in the last 40 years (BBC). For those who do practice Catholicism in the western world, church attendance has also been falling (Gallup).
On the other hand, Catholicism is growing in the developing world. Africa contains 15.2 percent of the world’s Roman Catholic population, and the number continues to grow, while South America contains 41.3 percent of the world’s Catholics, giving it a plurality (BBC).
To effectively meet the challenge of this demographic shift, the pope must be open to reorganizing the church to better meet the needs of the flock wherever that flock is located. If this means moving institutions and personnel around the globe, the pope must not be afraid to do so.
Who better to accomplish this then Pope Francis, a native son of the world’s most Catholic continent, who himself must relocate thousands of miles to Rome for his new job?
Another trait the pope needs in order to navigate this increasingly multicultural church
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is an understanding of and compassion for the many different peoples and ways of life across the globe. Not everyone in the world is as well off as those who live in traditional Catholic centers like Europe.
Contrariwise, most Catholics now live in the developing world, which is why Pope Francis’s dedication to the poor is so important. He has lived among them and worked with them, witnessing their suffering first hand. If there was any pope to understand the “least among us,” it would be Pope Francis, an extremely humble man, who even chose his name after Saint Francis of Assisi, a man who himself lived simply, embracing nature.
The pope must also practice integrity. With a global church comes global criticism, and the pope must not only ensure that he is trustworthy but that his entire church is. A religion cannot survive without credibility, and credibility is built on trust.
Indeed, a principal cause of Catholicism’s decline in the western world has been the horrible sex abuse scandals which have plagued the church for many years now. In order to repair its relations with the western world and forge a new opportunity for growth, the Catholic Church must take a hard line stance against sexual abuse.
The pope must be prepared to turn accused clergy members over to legal authorities instead of allowing bishops to shift them to other parishes. Pope Francis appears to be a shy man, but he cannot be timid on this matter. Indeed, timidity will not serve the pope well in any respect. He must be bold in order to breathe newness into the church.
At the same time, he must be bold in upholding traditional Catholic values and not bowing to popular pressure on various political issues. The Catholic Church has existed for 2000 years because it contains a backbone of values that have forged a solid foundation through the storms of the centuries. The breaking of this backbone would undermine the church to such an extent that it might not recover.
Thus, Pope Francis has a challenging papacy ahead of him. How he bridges the old and new in the Catholic Church will determine his effectiveness as pope. We wish him the best of luck in his new position.
The Xavierite Staff