A Big Heart Open to God
The
exclusive interview with Pope Francis
Pope Francis
Editor’s Note: This interview with Pope Francis took place over the
course of three meetings during August 2013 in Rome. The interview was
conducted in person by Antonio Spadaro, S.J., editor in chief of La Civiltà
Cattolica, the Italian Jesuit journal. Father Spadaro conducted the interview
on behalf of La Civiltà Cattolica,America and several other major Jesuit
journals around the world. The editorial teams at each of the journals prepared
questions and sent them to Father Spadaro, who then consolidated and organized
them. The interview was conducted in Italian. After the Italian text was officially
approved, America commissioned a team of five independent experts to translate it
into English. America is solely responsible for the accuracy of this translation. This
interview is copyrighted by America Press and cannot be used, except for brief
quotations, without written permission.
Father Spadaro met the pope at
the Vatican in the pope’s apartments in the Casa Santa Marta, where he has
chosen to live since his election. Father Spadaro begins his account of the
interview with a description of the pope’s living quarters.
The setting is simple, austere. The workspace occupied by the desk
is small. I am impressed not only by the simplicity of the furniture, but also
by the objects in the room. There are only a few. These include an icon of St.
Francis, a statue of Our Lady of Luján, patron saint of Argentina, a crucifix
and a statue of St. Joseph sleeping. The spirituality of Jorge Mario Bergoglio
is not made of “harmonized energies,” as he would call them, but of human
faces: Christ, St. Francis, St. Joseph and Mary.
The pope speaks of his trip to Brazil. He considers it a true
grace, that World Youth Day was for him a “mystery.” He says that he is not
used to talking to so many people: “I can look at individual persons, one at a
time, to come into contact in a personal way with the person I have before me.
I am not used to the masses,” the pope remarks. He also speaks about the moment
during the conclave when he began to realize that he might be elected pope. At
lunch on Wednesday, March 13, he felt a deep and inexplicable inner peace and
comfort come over him, he said, along with a great darkness. And those feelings
accompanied him until his election later that day.
The pope had spoken earlier about his great difficulty in giving
interviews. He said that he prefers to think rather than provide answers on the
spot in interviews. In this interview the pope interrupted what he was saying
in response to a question several times, in order to add something to an
earlier response. Talking with Pope Francis is a kind of volcanic flow of ideas
that are bound up with each other. Even taking notes gives me an uncomfortable
feeling, as if I were trying to suppress a surging spring of dialogue.
Who Is Jorge Mario Bergoglio?
I
ask Pope Francis point-blank: “Who is Jorge Mario Bergoglio?” He stares at me
in silence. I ask him if I may ask him this question. He nods and replies: “I do not know what might be the most fitting description.... I am a sinner. This is the most
accurate definition. It is not a figure of speech, a literary genre. I am a
sinner.”
The pope continues to reflect and
concentrate, as if he did not expect this question, as if he were forced to
reflect further. “Yes, perhaps I can say that I am a bit astute, that I can
adapt to circumstances, but it is also true that I am a bit naïve. Yes, but the
best summary, the one that comes more from the inside and I feel most true is
this: I am a sinner whom the Lord has looked upon.” And he repeats: “I am one who is looked upon by the Lord. I always felt my motto, Miserando atque Eligendo [By Having
Mercy and by Choosing Him], was very true for me.”
The motto is taken from the Homilies of Bede the Venerable, who writes in his comments on the
Gospel story of the calling of Matthew: “Jesus saw a publican, and since he
looked at him with feelings of love and chose him, he said to him, ‘Follow
me.’” The pope adds: “I think the Latin gerund miserando is impossible to translate in both
Italian and Spanish. I like to translate it with another gerund that does not
exist: misericordiando[“mercy-ing”].
Pope Francis continues his reflection and says, jumping to another
topic: “I do not know Rome well. I know a few things. These include the
Basilica of St. Mary Major; I always used to go there. I know St. Mary Major,
St. Peter’s...but when I had to come to Rome, I always stayed in [the
neighborhood of] Via della Scrofa. From there I often visited the Church of St.
Louis of France, and I went there to contemplate the painting of ‘The Calling
of St. Matthew,’ by Caravaggio.
“That finger of Jesus, pointing at Matthew. That’s me. I feel like
him. Like Matthew.” Here the pope becomes determined, as if he had finally
found the image he was looking for: “It is the gesture of Matthew that strikes
me: he holds on to his money as if to say, ‘No, not me! No, this money is
mine.’ Here, this is me, a sinner on whom the Lord has turned his gaze. And
this is what I said when they asked me if I would accept my election as
pontiff.” Then the pope whispers in Latin: “I am a sinner, but I trust in the
infinite mercy and patience of our Lord Jesus Christ, and I accept in a spirit
of penance.”
Why Did You Become a Jesuit?
I continue: “Holy Father, what made you
choose to enter the Society of Jesus? What struck you about the Jesuit order?”
“I wanted something more. But I did not know what. I entered the
diocesan seminary. I liked the Dominicans and I had Dominican friends. But then
I chose the Society of Jesus, which I knew well because the seminary was
entrusted to the Jesuits. Three things in particular struck me about the
Society: the missionary spirit, community and discipline. And this is strange,
because I am a really, really undisciplined person. But their discipline, the
way they manage their time—these things struck me so much.
“And then a thing that is really important for me: community. I
was always looking for a community. I did not see myself as a priest on my own.
I need a community. And you can tell this by the fact that I am here in Santa
Marta. At the time of the conclave I lived in Room 207. (The rooms were
assigned by drawing lots.) This room where we are now was a guest room. I chose
to live here, in Room 201, because when I took possession of the papal
apartment, inside myself I distinctly heard a ‘no.’ The papal apartment in the
Apostolic Palace is not luxurious. It is old, tastefully decorated and large,
but not luxurious. But in the end it is like an inverted funnel. It is big and
spacious, but the entrance is really tight. People can come only in dribs and
drabs, and I cannot live without people. I need to live my life with others.”
What Does It Mean for a Jesuit to Be Bishop of Rome?
I ask Pope Francis about the fact that he is the first Jesuit to
be elected bishop of Rome: “How do you understand the role of service to the
universal church that you have been called to play in the light of Ignatian
spirituality? What does it mean for a Jesuit to be elected pope? What element
of Ignatian spirituality helps you live your ministry?”
“Discernment,” he replies. “Discernment is one
of the things that worked inside St. Ignatius. For him it is an instrument of
struggle in order to know the Lord and follow him more closely. I was always
struck by a saying that describes the vision of Ignatius: non coerceri a maximo, sed
contineri a minimo divinum est (“not to be limited by the greatest
and yet to be contained in the tiniest—this is the divine”). I thought a lot
about this phrase in connection with the issue of different roles in the
government of the church, about becoming the superior of somebody else: it is
important not to be restricted by a larger space, and it is important to be
able to stay in restricted spaces. This virtue of the large and small is
magnanimity. Thanks to magnanimity, we can always look at the horizon from the
position where we are. That means being able to do the little things of every
day with a big heart open to God and to others. That means being able to
appreciate the small things inside large horizons, those of the kingdom of God.
“This motto,” the pope continues, “offers parameters to assume a
correct position for discernment, in order to hear the things of God from God’s
‘point of view.’ According to St. Ignatius, great principles must be embodied
in the circumstances of place, time and people. In his own way, John XXIII
adopted this attitude with regard to the government of the church, when he
repeated the motto, ‘See everything; turn a blind eye to much; correct a little.’
John XXIII saw all things, the maximum dimension, but he chose to correct a
few, the minimum dimension. You can have large projects and implement them by
means of a few of the smallest things. Or you can use weak means that are more
effective than strong ones, as Paul also said in his First Letter to the
Corinthians.
“This discernment takes time. For example,
many think that changes and reforms can take place in a short time. I believe that we always need
time to lay the foundations for real, effective change. And this is the time of discernment.
Sometimes discernment instead urges us to do precisely what you had at first
thought you would do later. And that is what has happened to me in recent
months. Discernment is always done in the presence of the Lord, looking at the
signs, listening to the things that happen, the feeling of the people,
especially the poor. My choices, including those related to the day-to-day
aspects of life, like the use of a modest car, are related to a spiritual
discernment that responds to a need that arises from looking at things, at
people and from reading the signs of the times. Discernment in the Lord guides
me in my way of governing.
“But I am always wary of decisions made hastily. I am always wary
of the first decision, that is, the first thing that comes to my mind if I have
to make a decision. This is usually the wrong thing. I have to wait and assess,
looking deep into myself, taking the necessary time. The wisdom of discernment
redeems the necessary ambiguity of life and helps us find the most appropriate
means, which do not always coincide with what looks great and strong.”
The Society of Jesus
Discernment is therefore a pillar of the spirituality of Pope
Francis. It expresses in a particular manner his Jesuit identity. I ask him
then how the Society of Jesus can be of service to the church today, what are
its characteristics, but also the possible challenges facing the Society of
Jesus.
“The Society of Jesus is an
institution in tension,” the pope replied, “always fundamentally in tension. A
Jesuit is a person who is not centered in himself. The Society itself also
looks to a center outside itself; its center is Christ and his church. So
if the Society centers itself in Christ and the church, it has two fundamental
points of reference for its balance and for being able to live on the margins,
on the frontier. If it looks too much in upon itself, it puts itself at the
center as a very solid, very well ‘armed’ structure, but then it runs the risk
of feeling safe and self-sufficient. The Society must always have before itself
the Deus semper maior,
the always-greater God, and the pursuit of the ever greater glory of God, the
church as true bride of Christ our Lord, Christ the king who conquers us and to
whom we offer our whole person and all our hard work, even if we are clay pots,
inadequate. This tension takes us out of ourselves continuously. The tool that
makes the Society of Jesus not centered in itself, really strong, is, then, the
account of conscience, which is at the same time paternal and fraternal,
because it helps the Society to fulfill its mission better.”
The pope is referring to the requirement in the Constitutions of
the Society of Jesus that the Jesuit must “manifest his conscience,” that is,
his inner spiritual situation, so that the superior can be more conscious and
knowledgeable about sending a person on mission.
“But it is difficult to speak of the
Society,” continues Pope Francis. “When you express too much, you run the risk
of being misunderstood. The Society of Jesus can be described only in narrative
form. Only in narrative form do you discern, not in a philosophical or
theological explanation, which allows you rather to discuss. The style of the
Society is not shaped by discussion, but by discernment, which of course
presupposes discussion as part of the process. The mystical dimension of
discernment never defines its edges and does not complete the thought. The
Jesuit must be a person whose thought is incomplete, in the sense of open-ended
thinking. There have been periods in the Society in which Jesuits have lived in
an environment of closed and rigid thought, more instructive-ascetic than
mystical: this distortion of Jesuit life gave birth to the Epitome Instituti.”
The pope is referring to a compendium, made for practical
purposes, that came to be seen as a replacement for the Constitutions. The
formation of Jesuits for some time was shaped by this text, to the extent that
some never read the Constitutions, the foundational text. During this period, in
the pope’s view, the rules threatened to overwhelm the spirit, and the Society
yielded to the temptation to explicate and define its charism too narrowly.
Pope Francis continues: “No, the Jesuit always thinks, again and
again, looking at the horizon toward which he must go, with Christ at the
center. This is his real strength. And that pushes the Society to be searching,
creative and generous. So now, more than ever, the Society of Jesus must be
contemplative in action, must live a profound closeness to the whole church as
both the ‘people of God’ and ‘holy mother the hierarchical church.’ This
requires much humility, sacrifice and courage, especially when you are
misunderstood or you are the subject of misunderstandings and slanders, but
that is the most fruitful attitude. Let us think of the tensions of the past
history, in the previous centuries, about the Chinese rites controversy, the
Malabar rites and the Reductions in Paraguay.
“I am a witness myself to the misunderstandings and problems that
the Society has recently experienced. Among those there were tough times,
especially when it came to the issue of extending to all Jesuits the fourth vow
of obedience to the pope. What gave me confidence at the time of Father Arrupe
[superior general of the Jesuits from 1965 to 1983] was the fact that he was a
man of prayer, a man who spent much time in prayer. I remember him when he
prayed sitting on the ground in the Japanese style. For this he had the right
attitude and made the right decisions.”
The Model: Peter Faber, ‘Reformed Priest’
I am wondering if there are figures among the Jesuits, from the
origins of the Society to the present date, that have affected him in a
particular way, so I ask the pope who they are and why. He begins by mentioning
Ignatius Loyola [founder of the Jesuits] and Francis Xavier, but then focuses
on a figure who is not as well known to the general public: Peter Faber
(1506-46), from Savoy. He was one of the first companions of St. Ignatius, in
fact the first, with whom he shared a room when the two were students at the
University of Paris. The third roommate was Francis Xavier. Pius IX declared
Faber blessed on Sept. 5, 1872, and the cause for his canonization is still
open.
The pope cites an edition of Faber’s works, which he asked two
Jesuit scholars, Miguel A. Fiorito and Jaime H. Amadeo, to edit and publish
when he was provincial superior of the Jesuits in Argentina. An edition that he
particularly likes is the one by Michel de Certeau. I ask the pope why he is so
impressed by Faber.
“[His] dialogue with all,” the pope says, “even the most remote
and even with his opponents; his simple piety, a certain naïveté perhaps, his
being available straightaway, his careful interior discernment, the fact that
he was a man capable of great and strong decisions but also capable of being so
gentle and loving.”
Michel de Certeau characterized Faber simply as “the reformed
priest,” for whom interior experience, dogmatic expression and structural
reform are inseparable. The pope then continues with a reflection on the true
face of the founder of the Society.
“Ignatius is a mystic, not an ascetic,” he says. “It irritates me
when I hear that the Spiritual Exercises are ‘Ignatian’ only because they are
done in silence. In fact, the Exercises can be perfectly Ignatian also in daily
life and without the silence. An interpretation of the Spiritual Exercises that
emphasizes asceticism, silence and penance is a distorted one that became
widespread even in the Society, especially in the Society of Jesus in Spain. I
am rather close to the mystical movement, that of Louis Lallement and
Jean-Joseph Surin. And Faber was a mystic.”
Experience in Church Government
What kind of experience in church government, as a Jesuit superior
and then as superior of a province of the Society of Jesus, helped to fully
form Father Bergoglio? The style of governance of the Society of Jesus involves
decisions made by the superior, but also extensive consultation with his
official advisors. So I ask: “Do you think that your past government experience
can serve you in governing the universal church?” After a brief pause for
reflection, he responds:
“In my experience as superior in the Society, to be honest, I have
not always behaved in that way—that is, I did not always do the necessary consultation.
And this was not a good thing. My style of government as a Jesuit at the
beginning had many faults. That was a difficult time for the Society: an entire
generation of Jesuits had disappeared. Because of this I found myself
provincial when I was still very young. I was only 36 years old. That was
crazy. I had to deal with difficult situations, and I made my decisions
abruptly and by myself. Yes, but I must add one thing: when I entrust something
to someone, I totally trust that person. He or she must make a really big
mistake before I rebuke that person. But despite this, eventually people get
tired of authoritarianism.
“My authoritarian and quick manner of making
decisions led me to have serious problems and to be accused of being
ultraconservative. I lived a time of great interior crisis when I was in
Cordova. To be sure, I have never been
like Blessed Imelda [a goody-goody], but I have never been a right-winger. It
was my authoritarian way of making decisions that created problems.
“I say these things from life experience and because I want to
make clear what the dangers are. Over time I learned many things. The Lord has
allowed this growth in knowledge of government through my faults and my sins.
So as Archbishop of Buenos Aires, I had a meeting with the six auxiliary
bishops every two weeks, and several times a year with the council of priests.
They asked questions and we opened the floor for discussion. This greatly
helped me to make the best decisions. But now I hear some people tell me: ‘Do not
consult too much, and decide by yourself.’ Instead, I believe that consultation
is very important.
“The
consistories [of cardinals], the synods [of bishops] are, for example,
important places to make real and active this consultation. We must, however,
give them a less rigid form. I do not want token consultations, but real consultations. The
consultation group of eight cardinals, this ‘outsider’ advisory group, is not
only my decision, but it is the result of the will of the cardinals, as it was
expressed in the general congregations before the conclave. And I want to see
that this is a real, not ceremonial consultation.”
Thinking With the Church
I ask Pope Francis what it means exactly for him to “think with
the church,” a notion St. Ignatius writes about in the Spiritual Exercises. He
replies using an image.
“The image of the church I like is that of the holy, faithful
people of God. This is the definition I often use, and then there is that image
from the Second Vatican Council’s ‘Dogmatic Constitution on the Church’ (No.
12). Belonging to a people has a strong theological value. In the history of
salvation, God has saved a people. There is no full identity without belonging
to a people. No one is saved alone, as an isolated individual, but God attracts
us looking at the complex web of relationships that take place in the human
community. God enters into this dynamic, this participation in the web of human
relationships.
“The people itself constitutes a
subject. And the church is the people of God on the journey through history,
with joys and sorrows. Thinking with the church, therefore, is my way of being
a part of this people. And all the faithful, considered as a whole, are
infallible in matters of belief, and the people display this infallibilitas in credendo, this infallibility in believing,
through a supernatural sense of the faith of all the people walking together.
This is what I understand today as the ‘thinking with the church’ of which St.
Ignatius speaks. When the dialogue among the people and the bishops and the
pope goes down this road and is genuine, then it is assisted by the Holy
Spirit. So this thinking with the church does not concern theologians only.
“This is how
it is with Mary: If you want to know who she is, you ask theologians; if you
want to know how to love her, you have to ask the people. In turn, Mary loved
Jesus with the heart of the people, as we read in the Magnificat. We should not even think,
therefore, that ‘thinking with the church’ means only thinking with the
hierarchy of the church.”
After a brief pause, Pope Francis
emphasizes the following point, in order to avoid misunderstandings: “And, of
course, we must be very careful not to think that this infallibilitas of all the faithful I am talking about
in the light of Vatican II is a form of populism. No; it is the experience of
‘holy mother the hierarchical church,’ as St. Ignatius called it, the church as
the people of God, pastors and people together. The church is the totality of
God’s people.
“I see the sanctity of God’s people,
this daily sanctity,” the pope continues. “There is a ‘holy middle class,’
which we can all be part of, the holiness Malègue wrote about.” The pope is
referring to Joseph Malègue, a French writer (1876–1940), particularly to the
unfinished trilogy Black Stones: The Middle Classes of Salvation.
“I see the holiness,” the pope
continues, “in the patience of the people of God: a woman who is raising
children, a man who works to bring home the bread, the sick, the elderly
priests who have so many wounds but have a smile on their faces because they
served the Lord, the sisters who work hard and live a hidden sanctity. This is
for me the common sanctity. I often associate sanctity with patience: not only
patience as hypomoné [the
New Testament Greek word], taking charge of the events and circumstances of
life, but also as a constancy in going forward, day by day. This is the
sanctity of the militant church also mentioned by St. Ignatius. This was the
sanctity of my parents: my dad, my mom, my grandmother Rosa who loved me so much. In my breviary I have the last will of my grandmother
Rosa, and I read it often. For me it is like a prayer. She is
a saint who has suffered so much, also spiritually, and yet always went forward
with courage.
“This church with which we should be thinking is the home of all,
not a small chapel that can hold only a small group of selected people. We must
not reduce the bosom of the universal church to a nest protecting our
mediocrity. And the church is Mother; the church is fruitful. It must be. You
see, when I perceive negative behavior in ministers of the church or in
consecrated men or women, the first thing that comes to mind is: ‘Here’s an
unfruitful bachelor’ or ‘Here’s a spinster.’ They are neither fathers nor
mothers, in the sense that they have not been able to give spiritual life.
Instead, for example, when I read the life of the Salesian missionaries who
went to Patagonia, I read a story of the fullness of life, of fruitfulness.
“Another example from recent days that I saw got the attention of
newspapers: the phone call I made to a young man who wrote me a letter. I
called him because that letter was so beautiful, so simple. For me this was an
act of generativity. I realized that he was a young man who is growing, that he
saw in me a father, and that the letter tells something of his life to that
father. The father cannot say, ‘I do not care.’ This type of fruitfulness is so
good for me.”
Young Churches and Ancient Churches
Remaining with the subject of the church, I ask the pope a question
in light of the recent World Youth Day. This great event has turned the
spotlight on young people, but also on those “spiritual lungs” that are the
Catholic churches founded in historically recent times. “What,” I ask, “are
your hopes for the universal church that come from these churches?”
The pope replies: “The young Catholic churches, as they grow,
develop a synthesis of faith, culture and life, and so it is a synthesis
different from the one developed by the ancient churches. For me, the
relationship between the ancient Catholic churches and the young ones is
similar to the relationship between young and elderly people in a society. They
build the future, the young ones with their strength and the others with their
wisdom. You always run some risks, of course. The younger churches are likely
to feel self-sufficient; the ancient ones are likely to want to impose on the
younger churches their cultural models. But we build the future together.”
The Church as Field Hospital
Pope Benedict XVI, in announcing his resignation, said that the
contemporary world is subject to rapid change and is grappling with issues of
great importance for the life of faith. Dealing with these issues requires
strength of body and soul, Pope Benedict said. I ask Pope Francis: “What does
the church need most at this historic moment? Do we need reforms? What are your
wishes for the church in the coming years? What kind of church do you dream
of?”
Pope Francis begins by showing great affection and immense respect
for his predecessor: “Pope Benedict has done an act of holiness, greatness,
humility. He is a man of God.
“I see
clearly,” the pope continues, “that the thing the church needs most
today is the ability to heal wounds and to warm the hearts of the faithful; it
needs nearness, proximity. I see the church as a field hospital after battle. It
is useless to ask a seriously injured person if he has high cholesterol and
about the level of his blood sugars! You have to heal his wounds. Then we can
talk about everything else. Heal the wounds, heal the wounds.... And you have
to start from the ground up.
“The church sometimes has locked itself up in small things, in
small-minded rules. The most important thing is the first proclamation: Jesus
Christ has saved you. And the ministers of the church must be ministers of
mercy above all. The confessor, for example, is always in danger of being
either too much of a rigorist or too lax. Neither is merciful, because neither
of them really takes responsibility for the person. The rigorist washes his
hands so that he leaves it to the commandment. The loose minister washes his
hands by simply saying, ‘This is not a sin’ or something like that. In pastoral
ministry we must accompany people, and we must heal their wounds.
“How are we treating the people of God? I dream of a church that
is a mother and shepherdess. The church’s ministers must be merciful, take
responsibility for the people and accompany them like the good Samaritan, who
washes, cleans and raises up his neighbor. This is pure Gospel. God is greater
than sin. The structural and organizational reforms are secondary—that is, they
come afterward. The first reform must be the attitude. The ministers of the
Gospel must be people who can warm the hearts of the people, who walk through
the dark night with them, who know how to dialogue and to descend themselves
into their people’s night, into the darkness, but without getting lost. The
people of God want pastors, not clergy acting like bureaucrats or government
officials. The bishops, particularly, must be able to support the movements of
God among their people with patience, so that no one is left behind. But they
must also be able to accompany the flock that has a flair for finding new
paths.
“Instead of being just a church that welcomes and receives by
keeping the doors open, let us try also to be a church that finds new roads,
that is able to step outside itself and go to those who do not attend Mass, to
those who have quit or are indifferent. The ones who quit sometimes do it for
reasons that, if properly understood and assessed, can lead to a return. But
that takes audacity and courage.”
I mention to Pope Francis that there are Christians who live in
situations that are irregular for the church or in complex situations that
represent open wounds. I mention the divorced and remarried, same-sex couples
and other difficult situations. What kind of pastoral work can we do in these
cases? What kinds of tools can we use?
“We need to proclaim the Gospel on every street corner,” the pope
says, “preaching the good news of the kingdom and healing, even with our
preaching, every kind of disease and wound. In Buenos Aires I used to receive
letters from homosexual persons who are ‘socially wounded’ because they tell me
that they feel like the church has always condemned them. But the church does
not want to do this. During the return flight from Rio de Janeiro I said that
if a homosexual person is of good will and is in search of God, I am no one to
judge. By saying this, I said what the catechism says. Religion has the right
to express its opinion in the service of the people, but God in creation has
set us free: it is not possible to interfere spiritually in the life of a
person.
A person once asked me, in a provocative
manner, if I approved of homosexuality. I replied with another question: ‘Tell
me: when God looks at a gay person, does he endorse the existence of this
person with love, or reject and condemn this person?’ We must always consider
the person. Here we enter into the mystery of
the human being. In life, God accompanies persons, and we must accompany them,
starting from their situation. It is necessary to accompany them with mercy.
When that happens, the Holy Spirit inspires the priest to say the right thing.
“This is also the great benefit of confession as a sacrament:
evaluating case by case and discerning what is the best thing to do for a
person who seeks God and grace. The confessional is not a torture chamber, but
the place in which the Lord’s mercy motivates us to do better. I also consider
the situation of a woman with a failed marriage in her past and who also had an
abortion. Then this woman remarries, and she is now happy and has five
children. That abortion in her past weighs heavily on her conscience and she
sincerely regrets it. She would like to move forward in her Christian life.
What is the confessor to do?
“We cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage
and the use of contraceptive methods. This is not possible. I have not spoken
much about these things, and I was reprimanded for that. But when we speak
about these issues, we have to talk about them in a context. The teaching of
the church, for that matter, is clear and I am a son of the church, but it is
not necessary to talk about these issues all the time.
“The dogmatic and moral
teachings of the church are not all equivalent. The church’s pastoral ministry
cannot be obsessed with the transmission of a disjointed multitude of doctrines
to be imposed insistently. Proclamation in a missionary
style focuses on the essentials, on the necessary things: this is also what
fascinates and attracts more, what makes the heart burn, as it did for the
disciples at Emmaus. We have to find a new balance; otherwise even the moral
edifice of the church is likely to fall like a house of cards, losing the
freshness and fragrance of the Gospel. The proposal of the Gospel must be more
simple, profound, radiant. It is from this proposition that the moral
consequences then flow.
“I say this also thinking about the preaching and content of our
preaching. A beautiful homily, a genuine sermon must begin with the first
proclamation, with the proclamation of salvation. There is nothing more solid,
deep and sure than this proclamation. Then you have to do catechesis. Then you
can draw even a moral consequence. But the proclamation of the saving love of
God comes before moral and religious imperatives. Today sometimes it seems that
the opposite order is prevailing. The homily is the touchstone to measure the
pastor’s proximity and ability to meet his people, because those who preach
must recognize the heart of their community and must be able to see where the
desire for God is lively and ardent. The message of the Gospel, therefore, is
not to be reduced to some aspects that, although relevant, on their own do not
show the heart of the message of Jesus Christ.”
A Religious Order Pope
Pope Francis is the first pontiff from a religious order since the
Camaldolese monk Gregory XVI, who was elected in 1831. I ask: “What is the
specific place of religious men and women in the church of today?”
“Religious men and women are prophets,” says the pope. “They are
those who have chosen a following of Jesus that imitates his life in obedience
to the Father, poverty, community life and chastity. In this sense, the vows
cannot end up being caricatures; otherwise, for example, community life becomes
hell, and chastity becomes a way of life for unfruitful bachelors. The vow of
chastity must be a vow of fruitfulness. In the church, the religious are called
to be prophets in particular by demonstrating how Jesus lived on this earth,
and to proclaim how the kingdom of God will be in its perfection. A religious
must never give up prophecy. This does not mean opposing the hierarchical part
of the church, although the prophetic function and the hierarchical structure
do not coincide. I am talking about a proposal that is always positive, but it
should not cause timidity. Let us think about what so many great saints, monks
and religious men and women have done, from St. Anthony the Abbot onward. Being
prophets may sometimes imply making waves. I do not know how to put it....
Prophecy makes noise, uproar, some say ‘a mess.’ But in reality, the charism of
religious people is like yeast: prophecy announces the spirit of the Gospel.”
The Roman Curia
I ask the pope what he thinks of the dicasteries of the Roman
Curia, the various departments that assist the pope in his mission.
“The
dicasteries of the Roman Curia are at the service of the pope and the bishops,”
he says. “They must help both the particular churches and the bishops’
conferences. They are instruments of help. In some cases, however, when they
are not functioning well, they run the risk of becoming institutions of
censorship. It is amazing to see the denunciations for lack of orthodoxy that
come to Rome. I think the cases should be investigated by the local bishops’
conferences, which can get valuable assistance from Rome. These cases, in fact,
are much better dealt with locally. The Roman congregations
are mediators; they are not middlemen or managers.”
On June 29, during the ceremony of the blessing and imposition of
the pallium on 34 metropolitan archbishops, Pope Francis spoke about “the path
of collegiality” as the road that can lead the church to “grow in harmony with the
service of primacy.” So I ask: “How can we reconcile in harmony Petrine primacy
and collegiality? Which roads are feasible also from an ecumenical
perspective?”
The pope responds, “We must walk together: the people, the bishops
and the pope. Synodality should be lived at various levels. Maybe it is time to
change the methods of the Synod of Bishops, because it seems to me that the
current method is not dynamic. This will also have ecumenical value, especially
with our Orthodox brethren. From them we can learn more about the meaning of
episcopal collegiality and the tradition of synodality. The joint effort of
reflection, looking at how the church was governed in the early centuries,
before the breakup between East and West, will bear fruit in due time. In
ecumenical relations it is important not only to know each other better, but
also to recognize what the Spirit has sown in the other as a gift for us. I
want to continue the discussion that was begun in 2007 by the joint
[Catholic–Orthodox] commission on how to exercise the Petrine primacy, which
led to the signing of the Ravenna Document. We must continue on this path.”
I ask how Pope Francis envisions the future unity of the church in
light of this response. He answers: “We must walk united with our differences:
there is no other way to become one. This is the way of Jesus.”
Women in the Life of the Church
And what about the role of women in the church? The pope has made reference to this issue on several occasions. He took up the
matter during the return trip from Rio de Janeiro, claiming that the church
still lacks a profound theology of women. I ask: “What should be the role of
women in the church? How do we make their role more visible today?”
We must therefore investigate further the role of women in
the church.He answers: “I am wary of a solution
that can be reduced to a kind of ‘female machismo,’ because a woman has a different make-up than
a man. But what I hear about the role of women is often inspired by an ideology
of machismo. Women are
asking deep questions that must be addressed. The church cannot be herself
without the woman and her role. The woman is essential for the church. Mary, a
woman, is more important than the bishops. I say this because we must not
confuse the function with the dignity. We must therefore investigate
further the role of women in the church. We have to work
harder to develop a profound theology of the woman. Only by making this step will
it be possible to better reflect on their function within the church. The
feminine genius is needed wherever we make important decisions. The challenge
today is this: to think about the specific place of women also in those places
where the authority of the church is exercised for various areas of the
church.”
The Second Vatican Council
“What did the Second Vatican Council
accomplish?” I ask.
“Vatican II was a re-reading of the
Gospel in light of contemporary culture,” says the pope. “Vatican II produced a
renewal movement that simply comes from the same Gospel. Its fruits are
enormous. Just recall the liturgy. The work of liturgical reform has been a
service to the people as a re-reading of the Gospel from a concrete historical
situation. Yes, there are hermeneutics of continuity and discontinuity, but one
thing is clear: the dynamic of reading the Gospel, actualizing its message for
today—which was typical of Vatican II—is absolutely irreversible. Then there
are particular issues, like the liturgy according to the Vetus Ordo. I think the decision of Pope Benedict [his
decision of July 7, 2007, to allow a wider use of the Tridentine Mass] was
prudent and motivated by the desire to help people who have this sensitivity.
What is worrying, though, is the risk of the ideologization of the Vetus Ordo, its
exploitation.”
To Seek and Find God in All Things
At the World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro, Pope Francis repeatedly
declared: “God is real. He manifests himself today. God is everywhere.” These
are phrases that echo the Ignatian expression “to seek and find God in all
things.” So I ask the pope: “How do you seek and find God in all things?”
“What I said in Rio referred to the time in which we seek God,” he
answers. “In fact, there is a temptation to seek God in the past or in a
possible future. God is certainly in the past because we can see the
footprints. And God is also in the future as a promise. But the ‘concrete’ God,
so to speak, is today. For this reason, complaining never helps us find God.
The complaints of today about how ‘barbaric’ the world is—these complaints
sometimes end up giving birth within the church to desires to establish order
in the sense of pure conservation, as a defense. No: God is to be encountered
in the world of today.
“God manifests himself in historical revelation, in history. Time
initiates processes, and space crystallizes them. God is in history, in the
processes.
“We must not focus on occupying the spaces where power is
exercised, but rather on starting long-run historical processes. We must
initiate processes rather than occupy spaces. God manifests himself in time and
is present in the processes of history. This gives priority to actions that
give birth to new historical dynamics. And it requires patience, waiting.
“Finding God in all things is not an
‘empirical eureka.’ When we desire to encounter God, we would like
to verify him immediately by an empirical method. But you cannot meet God this
way. God is found in the gentle breeze perceived by Elijah. The senses that
find God are the ones St. Ignatius called spiritual senses. Ignatius asks us to
open our spiritual sensitivity to encounter God beyond a purely empirical
approach. A contemplative attitude is necessary: it is the feeling that you are
moving along the good path of understanding and affection toward things and
situations. Profound peace, spiritual consolation, love of God and love of all
things in God—this is the sign that you are on this right path.”
Certitude and Mistakes
I ask, “So if
the encounter with God is not an ‘empirical eureka,’ and if it is a journey that sees with the eyes
of history, then we can also make mistakes?”
The pope replies: “Yes, in this quest to seek and find God in all
things there is still an area of uncertainty. There must be. If a person says
that he met God with total certainty and is not touched by a margin of
uncertainty, then this is not good. For me, this is an important key. If one
has the answers to all the questions—that is the proof that God is not with
him. It means that he is a false prophet using religion for himself. The great
leaders of the people of God, like Moses, have always left room for doubt. You
must leave room for the Lord, not for our certainties; we must be humble.
Uncertainty is in every true discernment that is open to finding confirmation
in spiritual consolation.
“The risk in seeking and finding God in all things, then, is the
willingness to explain too much, to say with human certainty and arrogance:
‘God is here.’ We will find only a god that fits our measure. The correct
attitude is that of St. Augustine: seek God to find him, and find God to keep
searching for God forever. Often we seek as if we were blind, as one often
reads in the Bible. And this is the experience of the great fathers of the
faith, who are our models. We have to re-read the Letter to the Hebrews,
Chapter 11. Abraham leaves his home without knowing where he was going, by
faith. All of our ancestors in the faith died seeing the good that was
promised, but from a distance.... Our life is not given to us like an opera
libretto, in which all is written down; but it means going, walking, doing,
searching, seeing.... We must enter into the adventure of the quest for meeting
God; we must let God search and encounter us.
“Because God is first; God is always first and makes the first
move. God is a bit like the almond flower of your Sicily, Antonio, which always
blooms first. We read it in the Prophets. God is encountered walking, along the
path. At this juncture, someone might say that this is relativism. Is it
relativism? Yes, if it is misunderstood as a kind of indistinct pantheism. It
is not relativism if it is understood in the biblical sense, that God is always
a surprise, so you never know where and how you will find him. You are not
setting the time and place of the encounter with him. You must, therefore,
discern the encounter. Discernment is essential.
If the Christian is a restorationist, a legalist, if he wants
everything clear and safe, then he will find nothing.“If the Christian is a restorationist,
a legalist, if he wants everything clear and safe, then he will find nothing. Tradition and memory of the past must
help us to have the courage to open up new areas to God. Those who today always
look for disciplinarian solutions, those who long for an exaggerated doctrinal
‘security,’ those who stubbornly try to recover a past that no longer exists—they
have a static and inward-directed view of things. In this way, faith becomes an
ideology among other ideologies. I have a dogmatic certainty: God is in every
person’s life. God is in everyone’s life. Even if the life of a person has been
a disaster, even if it is destroyed by vices, drugs or anything else—God is in
this person’s life. You can, you must try to seek God in every human life.
Although the life of a person is a land full of thorns and weeds, there is
always a space in which the good seed can grow. You have to trust God.”
Must We Be Optimistic?
The pope’s words remind me of some of his past reflections, in
which as a cardinal he wrote that God is already living in the city, in the
midst of all and united to each. It is another way, in my opinion, to say what
St. Ignatius wrote in the Spiritual Exercises, that God “labors and works” in
our world. So I ask: “Do we have to be optimistic? What are the signs of hope
in today’s world? How can I be optimistic in a world in crisis?”
“I do not like to use the word optimism because that is about a psychological
attitude,” the pope says. “I like to use the word hope instead, according to what we read in
the Letter to the Hebrews, Chapter 11, that I mentioned before. The fathers of
the faith kept walking, facing difficulties. And hope does not disappoint, as
we read in the Letter to the Romans. Think instead of the first riddle of
Puccini’s opera ‘Turandot,’” the pope suggests.
At that moment I recalled more or less by heart the verses of the
riddle of the princess in that opera, to which the solution is hope: “In the
gloomy night flies an iridescent ghost./ It rises and opens its wings/ on the
infinite black humanity./ The whole world invokes it/ and the whole world
implores it./ But the ghost disappears with the dawn/ to be reborn in the
heart./ And every night it is born/ and every day it dies!”
“See,” says Pope Francis, “Christian hope is not a ghost and it
does not deceive. It is a theological virtue and therefore, ultimately, a gift
from God that cannot be reduced to optimism, which is only human. God does not
mislead hope; God cannot deny himself. God is all promise.”
Art and Creativity
I am struck by the reference the pope just made to Puccini’s
“Turandot” while speaking of the mystery of hope. I would like to understand
better his artistic and literary references. I remind him that in 2006 he said
that great artists know how to present the tragic and painful realities of life
with beauty. So I ask who are the artists and writers he prefers, and if they
have something in common.
“I have really loved a diverse array of authors. I love very much
Dostoevsky and Hölderlin. I remember Hölderlin for that poem written for the
birthday of his grandmother that is very beautiful and was spiritually very
enriching for me. The poem ends with the verse, ‘May the man hold fast to what
the child has promised.’ I was also impressed because I loved my grandmother
Rosa, and in that poem Hölderlin compares his grandmother to the Virgin Mary,
who gave birth to Jesus, the friend of the earth who did not consider anybody a
foreigner.
“I have read The Betrothed, by Alessandro Manzoni, three times,
and I have it now on my table because I want to read it again. Manzoni gave me
so much. When I was a child, my grandmother taught me by heart the beginning of The Betrothed: ‘That
branch of Lake Como that turns off to the south between two unbroken chains of
mountains....’ I also liked Gerard Manley Hopkins very much.
“Among the great painters, I admire Caravaggio; his paintings
speak to me. But also Chagall, with his ‘White Crucifixion.’ Among musicians I
love Mozart, of course. The ‘Et incarnatus est’ from his Mass in C minor is
matchless; it lifts you to God! I love Mozart performed by Clara Haskil. Mozart
fulfills me. But I cannot think about his music; I have to listen to it. I like
listening to Beethoven, but in a Promethean way, and the most Promethean
interpreter for me is Furtwängler. And then Bach’s Passions. The piece by Bach
that I love so much is the ‘Erbarme Dich,’ the tears of Peter in the ‘St.
Matthew Passion.’ Sublime. Then, at a different level, not intimate in the same
way, I love Wagner. I like to listen to him, but not all the time. The
performance of Wagner’s ‘Ring’ by Furtwängler at La Scala in Milan in 1950 is
for me the best. But also the ‘Parsifal’ by Knappertsbusch in 1962.
“We should also talk about the cinema. ‘La Strada,’ by Fellini, is
the movie that perhaps I loved the most. I identify with this movie, in which
there is an implicit reference to St. Francis. I also believe that I watched
all of the Italian movies with Anna Magnani and Aldo Fabrizi when I was between
10 and 12 years old. Another film that I loved is ‘Rome, Open City.’ I owe my
film culture especially to my parents who used to take us to the movies quite
often.
“Anyway, in general I love tragic artists, especially classical
ones. There is a nice definition that Cervantes puts on the lips of the bachelor
Carrasco to praise the story of Don Quixote: ‘Children have it in their hands,
young people read it, adults understand it, the elderly praise it.’ For me this
can be a good definition of the classics.”
I ask the pope about teaching literature to his secondary school
students.
“It was a bit risky,” he answers. “I
had to make sure that my students read El Cid. But the boys did not like it. They wanted to
read Garcia Lorca. Then I decided that they would study El Cid at home and that in class I would teach
the authors the boys liked the most. Of course, young people wanted to read
more ‘racy’ literary works, like the contemporary La Casada Infiel or classics like La Celestina, by Fernando de Rojas. But by reading
these things they acquired a taste in literature, poetry, and we went on to
other authors. And that was for me a great experience. I completed the program,
but in an unstructured way—that is, not ordered according to what we expected
in the beginning, but in an order that came naturally by reading these authors.
And this mode befitted me: I did not like to have a rigid schedule, but rather
I liked to know where we had to go with the readings, with a rough sense of
where we were headed. Then I also started to get them to write. In the end I
decided to send Borges two stories written by my boys. I knew his secretary,
who had been my piano teacher. And Borges liked those stories very much. And
then he set out to write the introduction to a collection of these writings.”
“Then, Holy Father, creativity is important for the life of a
person?” I ask. He laughs and replies: “For a Jesuit it is extremely important!
A Jesuit must be creative.”
Frontiers and Laboratories
During a visit by the fathers and staff of La Civiltà Cattolica,
the pope had spoken about the importance of the triad “dialogue, discernment,
frontier.” And he insisted particularly on the last point, citing Paul VI and
what he had said in a famous speech about the Jesuits: “Wherever in the
church—even in the most difficult and extreme fields, in the crossroads of
ideologies, in the social trenches—there has been and is now conversation
between the deepest desires of human beings and the perennial message of the
Gospel, Jesuits have been and are there.” I ask Pope Francis what should be the
priorities of journals published by the Society of Jesus.
Ours is not a ‘lab faith,’ but a ‘journey faith,’ a
historical faith.“The three key words that I
commended to La Civiltà Cattolica can be extended to all the journals of the
Society, perhaps with different emphases according to their natures and their
objectives. When I insist on the frontier, I am referring in a particular way
to the need for those who work in the world of culture to be inserted into the
context in which they operate and on which they reflect. There is always the
lurking danger of living in a laboratory. Ours is not a ‘lab faith,’ but
a ‘journey faith,’ a historical faith. God has
revealed himself as history, not as a compendium of abstract truths. I am
afraid of laboratories because in the laboratory you take the problems and then
you bring them home to tame them, to paint them, out of their context. You
cannot bring home the frontier, but you have to live on the border and be
audacious.”
I ask for examples from his personal experience.
“When it comes to social issues, it
is one thing to have a meeting to study the problem of drugs in a slum
neighborhood and quite another thing to go there, live there and understand the
problem from the inside and study it. There is a brilliant letter by Father
Arrupe to the Centers for Social Research and Action on poverty, in which he
says clearly that one cannot speak of poverty if one does not experience
poverty, with a direct connection to the places in which there is poverty. The
word insertion is dangerous because some religious
have taken it as a fad, and disasters have occurred because of a lack of
discernment. But it is truly important.”
“The frontiers are many. Let us think of the religious sisters
living in hospitals. They live on the frontier. I am alive because of one of
them. When I went through my lung disease at the hospital, the doctor gave me
penicillin and streptomycin in certain doses. The sister who was on duty
tripled my doses because she was daringly astute; she knew what to do because
she was with ill people all day. The doctor, who really was a good one, lived
in his laboratory; the sister lived on the frontier and was in dialogue with it
every day. Domesticating the frontier means just talking from a remote
location, locking yourself up in a laboratory. Laboratories are useful, but
reflection for us must always start from experience.”
Human Self-Understanding
I ask Pope
Francis about the enormous changes occurring in society and the way human
beings are reinterpreting themselves. At this point he gets up and goes to get
the breviary from his desk. It is in Latin, now worn from use. He opens to the
Office of Readings for Friday of the 27th Week in Ordinary Time and reads me a
passage from the Commonitorium Primum of
St. Vincent of Lerins: “Even the dogma of the Christian religion must follow
these laws, consolidating over the years, developing over time, deepening with
age.”
The view of the church’s teaching as a monolith to defend
without nuance or different understandings is wrong.The
pope comments: “St. Vincent of Lerins makes a comparison between the biological
development of man and the transmission from one era to another of the deposit
of faith, which grows and is strengthened with time. Here, human
self-understanding changes with time and so also human consciousness deepens.
Let us think of when slavery was accepted or the death penalty was allowed
without any problem. So we grow in the understanding of the truth. Exegetes and
theologians help the church to mature in her own judgment. Even the other
sciences and their development help the church in its growth in
understanding. There are ecclesiastical rules and precepts that were once
effective, but now they have lost value or meaning. The view of the church’s
teaching as a monolith to defend without nuance or different understandings is
wrong.
“After all, in every age of history, humans try to understand and
express themselves better. So human beings in time change the way they perceive
themselves. It’s one thing for a man who expresses himself by carving the
‘Winged Victory of Samothrace,’ yet another for Caravaggio, Chagall and yet
another still for Dalí. Even the forms for expressing truth can be multiform,
and this is indeed necessary for the transmission of the Gospel in its timeless
meaning.
“Humans are in search of themselves, and, of course, in this
search they can also make mistakes. The church has experienced times of
brilliance, like that of Thomas Aquinas. But the church has lived also times of
decline in its ability to think. For example, we must not confuse the genius of
Thomas Aquinas with the age of decadent Thomist commentaries. Unfortunately, I
studied philosophy from textbooks that came from decadent or largely bankrupt
Thomism. In thinking of the human being, therefore, the church should strive
for genius and not for decadence.
“When does a formulation of thought cease to be valid? When it
loses sight of the human or even when it is afraid of the human or deluded
about itself. The deceived thought can be depicted as Ulysses encountering the
song of the Siren, or as Tannhäuser in an orgy surrounded by satyrs and
bacchantes, or as Parsifal, in the second act of Wagner’s opera, in the palace
of Klingsor. The thinking of the church must recover genius and better understand
how human beings understand themselves today, in order to develop and deepen
the church’s teaching.”
Prayer
I ask Pope Francis about his preferred way to pray.
“I pray the breviary every morning. I like to pray with the
psalms. Then, later, I celebrate Mass. I pray the Rosary. What I really prefer
is adoration in the evening, even when I get distracted and think of other
things, or even fall asleep praying. In the evening then, between seven and
eight o’clock, I stay in front of the Blessed Sacrament for an hour in
adoration. But I pray mentally even when I am waiting at the dentist or at
other times of the day.
“Prayer for me is always a prayer full of memory, of recollection,
even the memory of my own history or what the Lord has done in his church or in
a particular parish. For me it is the memory of which St. Ignatius speaks in
the First Week of the Exercises in the encounter with the merciful Christ
crucified. And I ask myself: ‘What have I done for Christ? What am I doing for
Christ? What should I do for Christ?’ It is the memory of which Ignatius speaks
in the ‘Contemplation for Experiencing Divine Love,’ when he asks us to recall
the gifts we have received. But above all, I also know that the Lord remembers
me. I can forget about him, but I know that he never, ever forgets me. Memory
has a fundamental role for the heart of a Jesuit: memory of grace, the memory
mentioned in Deuteronomy, the memory of God’s works that are the basis of the
covenant between God and the people. It is this memory that makes me his son
and that makes me a father, too.”
Editor in Chief Matt Malone,
S.J., talks about America's
interview with the pope.
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Antonio Spadaro, S.J., is the
editor in chief of La Civiltà Cattolica, a journal published in Rome by the
Society of Jesus since 1850. The translators were: Massimo Faggioli, Sarah
Christopher Faggioli, Dominic Robinson, S.J., Patrick J. Howell, S.J., and
Griffin Oleynick.
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