Duluth, Minnesota (OpEdNews) October 22, 2023: When the cardinal-electors elected Argentine Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio (born in 1936) to be the new pope in March 2013, he took the name Pope Francis. At that time, 26-year-old Tracey Horan "was certainly touched by Pope Francis' simplicity and humility, which showed from his very first papal rituals, including his choices of what to wear and his request that the people of God bless him and not the other way around" - she recounts in her recent article "Can the church change? It's all about the collective" at the National Catholic Reporter (dated October 20, 2023):
Subsequently, young Tracey Horan became Sister Tracey Horan, a member of the sisters of Providence of St. Mary-of-the-Woods, Indiana. She now lives in Nogales, Sonora, Mexico, working as associate director of education and advocacy for the Kino Border Initiative. Sister Tracey Horan's article was prompted by her hope for the synod on synodality that is currently underway at the Vatican. The Greek etymological meaning of synod means walking together. Now, like 26-year-old Tracey Horan, I was also impressed by the new Pope Francis in March 2013. Over the years since then, I have read three biographies of Pope Francis:
(1) the lay English journalist Dr. Austen Ivereigh's 2014 rosy biography The Great Reformer: Francis and the Making of a Radical Pope (Henry Holt);
(2) the lay Italian philosopher Prof. Dr. Massimo Borghesi's 2018 intellectual biography The Mind of Pope Francis: Jorge Mario Bergoglio's Intellectual Journey, translated by Barry Hudock (Liturgical Press Academic; orig. Italian ed., 2017);
(3) Dr. Austen Ivereigh's more sober 2019 biography Wounded Shepherd: Pope Francis and His Struggle to Convert the Catholic Church (Henry Holt).
In addition, among other books, I read Rafael Luciani's 2017 book Pope Francis and the Theology of the People, translated by Phillip Berryman (Orbis Books; orig. Spanish ed., 2016). The Theology of the People is the Argentinian variant of liberation theology that Cardinal Bergoglio favored. Unlike certain other forms of liberation theology, it did not use Marxist terminology. Pope John-Paul II, the Polish pope who created Bergoglio a cardinal in 2001, objected strenuously to the use of Marxist terminology in certain forms of liberation theology. Whatever else may be said of Pope Francis, he is not a Marxist - not a communist. But he is a relentless critic of unfettered capitalism.
In any event, as a result of my extensive reading about Pope Francis, I profiled the doctrinally conservative pope in my OEN article "Pope Francis on Evil and Satan" (dated March 24, 2019):
More recently, I read Prof. Dr. Massimo Borghesi's 2021 book Catholic Discordance: Neoconservatism vs. the Field Hospital Church of Pope Francis, translated by Barry Hudock (Liturgical Press Academic; orig. Italian ed., 2021). When Dr. Ivereigh refers to Pope Francis' Struggle to Convert the Catholic Church, the pope's struggle includes his struggle against certain vociferous conservative American Catholics.
For further discussion of neoconservatism in the U.S., see Peter Steinfels' 1979 book The Neoconservatives: The Men Who Are Changing America's Politics (Simon and Schuster) and Gary Dorrien's 1993 book The Neoconservative Mind: Politics, Culture, and the War of Ideology (Temple University Press).
Now, Sister Tracey Horan's reference to the collective caught my attention. The expression the collective calls to mind collectivism and communism - and Catholic social teaching.
Pope Francis' contributions to Catholic social teaching include his 2013 apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium; his 2015 eco-encyclical Laudato Si'; his 2020 encyclical Fratelli Tutti; and his new 2023 apostolic exhortation Laudate Deum.
For further discussion of Pope Francis' 2020 encyclical Fratelli Tutti, see the book Siblings All, Sign of the Times: The Social Teaching of Pope Francis by the Canadian Jesuit Cardinal Michael Czerny and the Italian priest and theologian Christian Barone, translated by Julian Paparella (Orbis Books, 2022; orig. Italian, ed., 2021).
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