A decade of the Bergoglio papacy
The celebrations for the 10 years of Pope Francis (or ‘Pope Bergoglio,’ as the Italian call him) will begin with masses in Luján Basilica celebrated by Father José María “Padre Pepe” di Paola today and Argentine Synod head Monsignor Oscar Ojea tomorrow. The celebrations will continue all week through to the following Sunday when the parishes, cathedrals and sanctuaries of the Virgin Mary nationwide will celebrate thanksgiving masses “to summon the people to renew their joy over the ministry of Francis, praying for his pastoral services.”
Monsignor Ojea is the person closest to the former Cardinal Bergoglio. He was his suffragan bishop and granted Perfil an extensive and unusual interview (the first in his life to be filmed) offering a portrait of the personality and work of Pope Francis today.
A brief summary would say that Jorge Bergoglio is the first Jesuit pope, the first from the Southern Hemisphere, the first from the Americas and the first non-european since the Syrian Gregory III, who died in the year 741.
He is known for his humility, his preference for the poor and his commitment to dialogue with people of different origins and creeds. Bergoglio has shown simplicity by opting to live in Domus Sanctae Marthae (Saint Martha’s House) instead of the Papal Residence in the Vatican Apostolic Residence used by his predecessors since 1903.
As pontiff, Francis has pushed reform through the Roman Curia in such diverse fields as finances, administration, the ecclesiastical courts, canon law, social communications, health, the lay flock and family life, proposing solutions in complex issues including the transparency of Vatican finances, achieving consistency between the mission of evangelisation and economic activity, the simplification of the bureaucracy, efficiency in communication, the annulment of marriages, the battle against paedophilia and abuses and the protection of children and immigrants.
Born in the City neighbourhood of Flores (Commune 7) in 1936, he is the oldest of the five children of the marriage between Mario José Bergoglio, an accountant and railway employee born in Portacomaro (Piedmont) who had to emigrate from Italy due to the advance of fascism, and Regina María Sívori, a housewife born in this city and the daughter of also Italian immigrants coming from Piedmont and Genoa.
In 1957 he decided to become a priest, entering the seminary in the Villa Devoto as a novice of the Society of Jesus. He was ordained a priest on December 13, 1969, just shy of turning 33. It was also on the 13th day of a month, March of 2013, that he was elected pontiff by the conclave following the resignation of Benedict XVI.
Just as Jorge Bergoglio’s parents saved their lives by not being able to take a ship from Italy bound for South America which sank in the ocean, so he himself suffered a life-threatening illness and was elected Pope just when he had sent his letter to request retirement. Shortly after becoming Pope, he allocated a Vatican palace to sheltering the nearby homeless.
But Monsignor Ojea paints a picture of Pope Francis which transcends the formal biography, an intimate and worldly Bergoglio who tells the bishops after having been elected Pope: “Pray for me so this does not go to my head.”
The best example of the grieta chasm of our sick society is that it even includes the Pope with the symptomatic presence of his absence since he has not travelled to his native land throughout the decade in which he has been Bishop of Rome, an analogical message with several different meanings which demands reflection and subsequent unity.
The photo illustrating this column is the invocation of Statio Orbis, when on March 27, 2020, in the worst moment of the pandemic from the desolate atrium of the Vatican Basilica, the Pope urged the cure of the world: “With the tempest, the mask has fallen off the stereotypes with which we disguise our egos, always pretending to be as we want to be and exposing once again that blessed sense of belonging to something in common that we cannot nor wish to avoid: that of belonging to a brotherhood.”
That the Pope is adored in Italy while a part of society in his own country eyes him with mistrust, dubbing him the “Peronist Pope,” transcends the saying: “Nobody is a prophet in his own country,” speaking of just how toxic our polarisation has become.
The celebration of the 10 years of Pope Francis could be a new opportunity to start on the road towards overcoming hatred as the preponderant feeling of our political emotions.
The Pope has not travelled to his native land throughout the decade in which he has been Bishop of Rome, an analogical message with several different meanings which demands reflection and subsequent unity.