Scope of the Pope
A proudly political pontiff
Serving as an ambassador must be one of the most sought-after jobs. But with the world overrun by bullies and powerdrunk showmen, envoys have to carry their leaders’ baggage as they navigate the diplomatic minefield in other countries. Archbishop Peter Wells, the Vatican ambassador to South Africa, has quite the opposite dilemma. Pope Francis, the 266th head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City state, has become known as the “rock star pope” because of his popularity around the world.
Everyone, from Donald Trump to previous presidential hopeful Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, goes to Rome to meet him — a photo-op with Pope Francis is a life goal for pilgrims and presidents.
Nations across the globe, including South Africa, submit invitations for papal visits as everyone wants to share in the “Francis Effect”.
Since his election in 2013, Pope Francis has become one of the most recognisable and favoured world leaders, endearing himself through his common touch, amiable demeanour and break with conventions.
His foreign visits draw hundreds of thousands of people and take months of planning by the host nation and the Holy See.
Wells, the Apostolic Nuncio to South Africa, Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland and Namibia, revealed that an invitation was extended to Pope Francis by the South African government, during former president Jacob Zuma’s time in office, as well as the Southern African Catholic Bishops Conference.
But, says Wells, a lot of factors go into deciding where in the world the pope visits, including whether the host country has the resources to put on a logistically demanding visit.
Pope Francis has made a deliberate effort to visit war-torn regions, and places with great poverty and social challenges, says Wells.
The last papal visit to South Africa was in 1995, a year after the first democratic government was elected, when John Paul II made a whistle-stop tour.
Constantly on the road
Wells is no ordinary emissary. He is a Vatican insider, having worked in the Roman Curia for 14 years, serving under three pontiffs.
He hails from the American Midwest and was ordained a priest in 1991 in his home diocese of Tulsa, Oklahoma. Eight years later, he entered the diplomatic service of the Holy See and his first foreign posting was Nigeria.
Before being deployed to Pretoria, Wells worked as what he describes as a deputy chief of staff to Pope Francis with a dual ministerial function in the office of the secretary of state.
The Vatican embassy, or nunciature, in South Africa is a far cry from the ornate halls of the
Apostolic Palace in Rome that overlooks the magnificence of St Peter’s Square.
Wells and the chargé d’affaires, Monsignor Roman Walczak, have a small support staff and they all work at what is essentially a home office in Waterkloof Ridge, Pretoria.
Because Wells represents the Holy See in five countries in the region, he is constantly on the road, visiting parishes, monitoring the work of the Catholic Church and promoting the issues being championed by Pope Francis.
“You have to act as the pope’s interlocutor between the local church, the local bishop, local priests and lay people, not only to bring information from him to them but also to bring information from them back to him. So that takes an awful lot of time,” says Wells.
Focus on environment, human rights
Pope Francis is championing climate change and human rights as the cornerstones of his papacy.
Just this week, Nobel peace prize winner, environmental crusader and former US vicepresident Al Gore praised the pope’s leadership in tackling the climate crisis.
“I am grateful for and in awe of the clarity of the moral force he embodies. He also speaks in the most powerful way about the most vulnerable among us — the poor — and helps all who listen to understand how they are uniquely affected by the climate crisis,” Gore said.
Wells says part of his work is promoting the principles in Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato si’, that Catholics, and Christians generally, have a moral responsibility to do what they can to curb climate change and be more environmentally friendly.
“What happened in Cape Town was a wake-up call for everyone, not only here in Southern Africa but in the world at large, that a major thriving metropolis because of . . . climate change and demographic effects can reach a major crisis if things are not addressed properly,” Wells says about the drought.
“I think we could see a model here . . . to have kind of green conscious environments in urban areas. There is a lot of possibility here.”
Pope Francis has also been forthright about sex abuse, which has dogged the Catholic Church worldwide.
He spends much of his time meeting victims of abuse. He appointed the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors that developed clearer and more effective protocols to hold bishops and other church authorities accountable if they fail to report abuse or protect children from predator priests.
The recent mass resignations of bishops in Chile came as a result of the church accepting accountability for protecting perpetrators of abuse.
Wells says the church’s responsibility is to ensure safe environments for its followers.
“We must also ensure that those that have been abused are given the love and pastoral care that they need. We have always got to be at the forefront, especially where people are hurting or have been hurt. So I think we always have to be doing more.”
Despite the positive sentiment evoked during Francis’s papacy, Wells says the burden of abuse continues to loom over the church.
“I know how much positive has happened and I know that there is always going to be problems, there is always going to be challenges, there is always going to be sinfulness. It’s going to affect us.”
While the Francis Effect has prompted one of the oldest institutions in the world to modernise its outlook and broaden its thinking, including being more accepting of homosexuals and drawing more women into power structures of the church, secularism remains a big challenge.
The recent referendum in Ireland to end the ban on abortion was perceived in some quarters as the diminishing impact of the church on society.
The pope has created the expectation of change, but on some issues such as women’s ordination to the priesthood and its rules on celibacy, there is unlikely to be change.
Wells says a number of high-level positions in the Vatican are held by women. Locally, Sister Hermenegild Makoro was elected for a second term as secretary-general of the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference.
The church has also been trying to adapt to the breakdown of the traditional family unit and increasing numbers of divorces.
“We all recognise that there are different types of families today and that we as a church must be able to address these in some way and to engage them pastorally. One of the things that you see here is so many families have single parents and it’s usually the mother.
“I think the church here does a very good job in trying to address this and to accompany these families. When you go to churches here, they are filled with mothers and their children,” says Wells.
The Francis Effect seems to have had a greater effect on younger people, even in South Africa.
“Many places in the western world, when you go into churches you get the impression that it’s old and grey.
“You do not get that impression here, especially in the townships or out in the rural areas. The churches are packed with young people,” says Wells.
The Pope has an extensive social media presence, on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, in different languages, and this has had a phenomenal impact on the church’s engagement with its followers.
He has, however, been outspoken on the phenomenon of fake news, calling it “satanic”.
“Spreading fake news can serve to advance specific goals, influence political decisions, and serve economic interests,” the pontiff wrote last year.
Wells says he is concerned about the level of hyperbole on social media.
“What I find so disturbing right now is the lack of stability in the discourse. I am afraid that what we are seeing now, what’s happening on social media, is now bleeding into real life, that the violent nature of some of the exchanges on social media is starting to come into real life. I think it’s very disconcerting.”
Not confined by protocol
The nuncio has little to say on South African politics, although there has been much drama during his term. He was in the ambassadors’ box in parliament witnessing the violence during the state of the nation address last year and President Cyril Ramaphosa’s first address this year.
“I have been impressed by the health of the institutions here. Even when challenged, the institutions function very well. These are signs of an extremely healthy democracy,” says Wells.
He says issues such as racism and corruption are not unique to South Africa and he has been impressed with the way ordinary people openly discuss these matters.
Wells says wherever he goes, people want to know about Pope Francis.
For someone who has been in the inner sanctum of the Vatican and worked in close proximity to the pontiff, he does not say much about what goes on within the hallowed walls.
“Every leader has a different style of governance and I would say that certainly Pope Francis’s style of leadership is different to what we saw before. He is very much involved with day-to-day operations, and just as we know he has a very personal touch in everything he does, that is certainly the way that he governs as well.
“He has definitely put a new face on the pontificate in the sense that he is not as protocol driven as we have seen in the past. He is not a man that is confined by protocol. I think many people see that as very refreshing,” says Wells.
But it is well known that that faces some pushback from conservatives in the church. Wells says this is not anomalous.
“The church is 1.3 billion people. I have been a Catholic my whole life and I don’t ever remember a pope who didn’t have some people who loved him and some people who didn’t.”
Wells says South Africa “realised the importance to have a residential ambassador of the Holy See because of the number of issues that we are mutually concerned with not only on a bilateral level but on a multilateral level”.
But perhaps the best affirmation of the pope’s relations with South Africa will be a papal visit. Since the 2010 World Cup, the country has not had many feel-good moments.
“I think that if the Holy Father decided to come here, everybody would be very happy,” says Wells.
He is to hold consultations with the pope in Rome later this year. We can only hope that the message is transmitted that the New Dawn sorely needs the Francis Effect.
He is not a man that is confined by protocol. I think many people see that as very refreshing