{"id":14696,"date":"2013-12-11T17:31:15","date_gmt":"2013-12-11T17:31:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aaeurop.com\/?p=14696"},"modified":"2013-12-11T17:31:15","modified_gmt":"2013-12-11T17:31:15","slug":"person-of-the-year-pope-francis-the-peoples-pope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aaeurop.com\/?p=14696","title":{"rendered":"Person of the Year, Pope Francis, The People\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s Pope"},"content":{"rendered":"
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On the edge of Buenos Aires is a nothing little street called\u0569\u0082\u0539\u00a0Pasaje C, a shot of dried mud leading into a slum from what passes for a main road, the garbage-strewn Mariano Acosta. There is a church, the Immaculate Virgin, toward the end of the \u0569\u0082\u0539\u055fpasaje<\/em>\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009dSpanish for passage\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009dwhere, on one occasion, the local priest and a number of frightened residents took refuge deep in the sanctuary when rival drug gangs opened fire. Beyond the church, Pasaje C branches into the rest of the parish: more rutted mud and cracked concrete form Pasajes\u0569\u0082\u0539\u00a0A to K. Brick chips from the hasty construction of squatter housing coagulate along what ought to be sidewalks. The word asesino<\/em>\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009d\u0569\u0082\u0539\u055fmurderer\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009dis scrawled in spray-paint on the sooty wall of a burned-out house, which was torched just days before in retaliation for yet another shooting. Packs of dogs sprawl beneath wrecked cars. Children wander heedless of traffic, because nothing can gather speed on these jagged roads. But even Pasaje C can lead to Rome.<\/p>\n

As Cardinal and Archbishop of Buenos Aires, a metropolis of some 13.5\u0569\u0082\u0539\u00a0million souls, Jorge Mario Bergoglio made room in his schedule every year for a pastoral visit to this place of squalor and sorrow.\u0569\u0082\u0539\u055f He would walk to the subway station nearest to the Metropolitan Cathedral, whose pillars and dome fit easily into the center of Argentine power. Traveling alone, he would transfer onto a graffiti-blasted tram to Mariano Acosta, reaching where the subways do not go. He finished the journey on foot, moving heavily in his bulky black orthopedic shoes along Pasaje C. On other days, there were other journeys to barrios throughout the city\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009dso many in need of so much, but none too poor or too filthy for a visit from this itinerant prince of the church. Reza por m\u0569\u0083\u0539\u055f, he asked almost everyone he met. Pray for me.<\/p>\n

\u0569\u0082\u0539\u00a0<\/div>\n

When, on March 13, Bergoglio inherited the throne of St.\u0569\u0082\u0539\u00a0Peter\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009dkeeper of the keys to the kingdom of heaven\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009dhe made the same request of the world. Pray for me. His letter of retirement, a requirement of all bishops 75 and older, was already on file in a Vatican office, awaiting approval. Friends in Argentina<\/a> had perceived him to be slowing down, like a spent force. In an instant, he was a new man, calling himself Francis after the humble saint from Assisi. As Pope, he was suddenly the sovereign of Vatican City and head of an institution so \u0569\u0082\u0539\u055fsprawling\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009dwith about enough followers to populate China\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009dso steeped in order, so snarled by bureaucracy, so vast in its charity, so weighted by its scandals, so polarizing to those who study its teachings, so mysterious to those who don\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7t, that the gap between him and the daily miseries of the world\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s poor might finally have seemed unbridgeable. Until the 266th Supreme Pontiff walked off in those clunky shoes to pay his hotel bill.<\/p>\n

The papacy is mysterious and magical: it turns a septuagenarian into a superstar while revealing almost nothing about the man himself. And it raises hopes in every corner of the world\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009dhopes that can never be fulfilled, for they are irreconcilable. The elderly traditionalist who pines for the old Latin Mass and the devout young woman who wishes she could be a priest both have hopes. The ambitious monsignor in the Vatican Curia and the evangelizing deacon in a remote Filipino village both have hopes. No Pope can make them all happy at once.<\/p>\n

(MORE<\/strong>: Behind the Pope Francis Cover<\/a>)<\/p>\n

But what makes this Pope so important is the speed with which he has captured the imaginations of millions who had given up on hoping for the church at all. People weary of the endless parsing of sexual ethics, the buck-passing infighting over lines of authority when all the while (to borrow from Milton), \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093the hungry Sheep look up, and are not fed.\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d In a matter of months, Francis has elevated the healing mission of the church\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009dthe church as servant and comforter of hurting people in an often harsh world\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009dabove the doctrinal police work so important to his recent predecessors. John Paul II and Benedict XVI were professors of theology. Francis is a former janitor, nightclub bouncer, chemical technician and literature teacher.<\/p>\n

And behind his self-effacing facade, he is a very canny operator. He makes masterly use of 21st\u0569\u0082\u0539\u00a0century tools to perform his 1st century office. He is photographed washing the feet of female convicts, posing for selfies with young visitors to the Vatican, embracing a man with a deformed face. He is quoted saying of women who consider abortion because of poverty or rape, \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093Who can remain unmoved before such painful situations?\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d Of gay people: \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093If a homosexual person is of good will and is in search of God, I am no one to judge.\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d To divorced and remarried Catholics who are, by rule, forbidden from taking Communion, he says that this crucial rite \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093is not a prize for the perfect but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak.\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d<\/p>\n

Through these conscious and skillful evocations of moments in the ministry of Jesus, as recounted in the Gospels, this new Pope may have found a way out of the 20th century culture wars, which have left the church moribund in much of Western Europe and on the defensive from Dublin to Los Angeles. But the paradox of the papacy is that each new man\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s success is burdened by the astonishing successes of Popes past. The weight of history, of doctrines and dogmas woven intricately century by century, genius by genius, is both the source and the limitation of papal power. It radiates from every statue, crypt and hand-painted vellum text in Rome\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009dand in churches, libraries, hospitals, universities and museums around the globe. A Pope sets his own course only if he can conform it to paths already chosen.<\/p>\n

And so Francis signals great change while giving the same answers to the uncomfortable questions. On the question of female priests: \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093We need to work harder to develop a profound theology of the woman.\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d Which means: no. No to abortion, because an individual life begins at conception. No to gay marriage, because the male-female bond is established by God. \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093The teaching of the church \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u00bb is clear,\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d he has said, \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093and I am a son of the church, but\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009dand here he adds his prayer for himself\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009d\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093it is not necessary to talk about those issues all the time.\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d<\/p>\n

If that prayer should be answered, if somehow by his own vivid example Francis could bring the church into a new relationship with its critics and dissidents\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009dagreeing to disagree about issues that divide them while cooperating in the urgent mission of spreading mercy\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009dhe might unleash untold good. \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093Argue less, accomplish more\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d could be a healing motto for our times. We have a glut of problems to tackle. Francis says by example, Stop bickering and roll up your sleeves. Don\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7t let the perfect be the enemy of the good\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009dan important thing for the world to hear, especially from a man who holds an office deemed infallible.<\/p>\n

\"Thousands <\/p>\n
Francesco Zizola \/ NOOR for TIME<\/small> <\/p>\n

Thousands turn out in Rome to greet Francis during his biweekly audiences.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

A Changing Papacy<\/strong><\/p>\n

This papacy begins with a name. Jorge Bergoglio is the first Pope to choose as his namesake Francis of Assisi, the 13th century patron saint of the poor. The choice, coming after 14 Clements, 16 Benedicts and 21 Johns, is clearly and pointedly personal. The 13th century Francis turned to the ministry when, as legend has it, he heard a voice calling to him from a crucifix to repair God\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s house. He left his prosperous silk-merchant family to live with the poor. He was a peacemaker, the first Catholic leader to travel to Egypt to try to end the Crusades. He placed mercy at the core of his life.<\/p>\n

From that name follows much of Francis\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7 agenda. While the Catholic Church envisioned by Benedict XVI was one of tightly calibrated spiritual prescriptions, Francis told Father Antonio Spadaro, editor of the Jesuit magazine Civilt\u0569\u0083\u0539\u00a0 Cattolica, in an interview published at the end of September, that he sees \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093the church as a field hospital after battle.\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d His vision is of a pastoral\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009dnot a doctrinaire\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009dchurch, and that will shift the Holy See\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s energies away from demanding long-distance homage and toward ministry to and embrace of the poor, the spiritually broken and the lonely. He expanded on this idea in a 288-section apostolic exhortation called \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093Evangelii Gaudium,\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d or \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093The Joy of the Gospel.\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093I prefer a Church which is bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a Church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security,\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d he wrote. He made it clear that he does not just want talk\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009dhe wants actual transformation.<\/p>\n

He has halted the habit of granting priests the honorific title of monsignor as a way to stem careerism in the ranks and put the focus instead on pastoring. He told a gathering of his diplomats that he wanted them to identify candidates for bishop in their home countries who are, he said, \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093gentle, patient and merciful, animated by inner poverty, the freedom of the Lord and also by outward simplicity and austerity of life.\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d To Francis, poverty isn\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7t simply about charity; it\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s also about justice. The church, by extension, should not reflect Rome; it should mirror the poor.<\/p>\n

Which helps explain why he has turned the once obscure Vatican Almoner, an agency that has been around for about 800 years and is often reserved for an aging Catholic diplomat, over to the dynamic 50-year-old Polish Archbishop Konrad Krajewski and told him to make it the Holy See\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s new front porch. \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093You can sell your desk,\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d Francis told Krajewski. \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093You don\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7t need it. You need to get out of the Vatican. Don\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7t wait for people to come ringing. You need to go out and look for the poor.\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d The Archbishop hands out small amounts to the needy, including a recent gift of 1,600 phone cards to immigrant survivors of a capsized boat so they could call family back in Eritrea. Francis often gives Krajewski stacks of letters with his instructions to help the people who have written to him and asked for aid. In what sounds like a necessary precaution, the Vatican recently issued a denial after Krajewski hinted that Francis himself sometimes slips out of the Vatican dressed as an ordinary priest to hand out alms.<\/p>\n

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Francis also moved early to tame the mess that is the Vatican Bank, an institution even U.S. Treasury officials privately say is corrupted. Soon after he was elected, he named a special commission to investigate the bank, which in turn handed the matter off to an independent firm for an audit. Francis also issued initiatives to counter money laundering and increase the monitoring of the Vatican\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s finances. In October, the bank disclosed an annual report for the first time in its 125-year history.<\/p>\n

And if personnel is policy, Francis has been particularly busy, shaking up the Curia with his preference for new faces over old ones. In a move that signifies he means business, he tossed Benedict\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s Secretary of State, Tarcisio Bertone, and named ambassador to Venezuela Archbishop \u0569\u0082\u0539\u055fPietro Parolin, the youngest man to hold the post since Eugenio Pacelli, who went on to become Pope \u0569\u0082\u0539\u055fPius\u0569\u0082\u0539\u00a0XII in 1939.<\/p>\n

In April, Francis tapped a boarding party of eight like-minded bishops from around the world to meet with him several times a year to comb through difficult problems, a move that diffused some of the traditional power of the Synod of Bishops. \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093I don\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7t want token consultations,\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d he explained in an interview, \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093but real consultations.\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d That, at least so far, appears to be what he is getting. The membership is telling: Cardinals from Chile, Congo and Honduras as well as Munich, Australia and Boston are on the panel. In August, another member, Cardinal Oswald Gracias of India, issued one of the most expansive comments about gays that the church has ever made, stating that while the church does not allow gay marriage, homosexuality is not a sin. \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093To say that those with other sexual orientations are sinners is wrong,\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d he wrote to an LGBT group in Mumbai. \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093We must be sensitive in our homilies and how we speak in public and I will so advise our priests.\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d<\/p>\n

\"graphic_1_1\" <\/p>\n
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\u0569\u0082\u0539\u00a0| TIME Graphic by Cleo Brock-Abraham and Lon Tweeten<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

And on Dec. 5, in a long overdue move, the group of eight named a new commission on sex abuse, the problem of priests preying on children they had vowed to protect. It is the church\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s darkest existential problem in an era of existential problems; the commission aims to study better ways to protect children, screen programs that involve children and suggest new ways to create safe environments and choose the priests to lead them. At worst, the Cardinals are laying out a new set of best practices for far-flung dioceses to follow. At best, they are admitting that the Vatican had focused too much attention on the legal challenges of the sex-abuse crisis rather than on the behavioral problems at its core.<\/p>\n

Francis has backed up his deeds with homilies and his first apostolic exhortation. He can barely contain his outrage when he writes, \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points?\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d Elsewhere in his exhortation, he goes directly after capitalism and globalization: \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093Some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world. This \u0569\u0082\u0539\u055fopinion\u0569\u0082\u0539\u00a0\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u00bb has never been confirmed by the facts.\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d He says the church must work \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093to eliminate the structural causes of poverty\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d and adds that while \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093the Pope loves everyone, rich and poor alike \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u00bb he is obliged in the name of Christ to remind all that the rich must help, respect and promote the poor.\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d<\/p>\n

The church has always made the poor a \u0569\u0082\u0539\u055fpriority\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009d\u0569\u0082\u0539\u055fa mission that has been the biting paradox of the treasure-laden Vatican. But Francis has made it clear that they are a priest\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s first responsibility. \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093A lack of vigilance, as we know, makes the Pastor tepid; it makes him absentminded, forgetful and even impatient,\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d he preached in May. \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093It tantalizes him with the prospect of a career, the enticement of money and with compromises with a mundane spirit; it makes him lazy, turning him into an official, a state functionary, concerned with himself, with organization and structures, rather than with the true good of the People of God.\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d In case anyone missed the point, he suspended a bishop in Limburg, Germany, for overseeing a $42.5\u0569\u0082\u0539\u00a0million renovation of the church residence that included a $20,500 bathtub. Says Father Guillermo Marc\u0569\u0083\u0539\u0561, who was Bergoglio\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s spokesman from 1998 to 2006: \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093It is the first time we have had a priest as Pope.\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d<\/p>\n

An Argentine\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s Way<\/strong><\/p>\n

On weekends in Buenos Aires, you can take a 31\u0569\u00a7\u0539\u0081\u0549\u0080\u009e2-hour bus tour of the neighborhoods where Jorge Mario Bergoglio grew up. \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093What\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s coming up on this street?\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d the tour guide Daniel Vega asks as the bus pulls up on Calle Membrillar in the Flores district of Buenos Aires. \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093The house where he was born,\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d comes the answer. There\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s the chapel where his father Mario, a native of the Piedmont region of Italy, and Regina, an Argentine of Piedmontese descent, met in 1934. They married the next year and had their firstborn, Jorge Mario, on Dec. 17, 1936.<\/p>\n

The Bergoglios were very strict Catholics, the kind who worry about meeting people who were not married in the church or who were socialists or atheists. But the future Pope was never that doctrinaire: in the four years between realizing he was called to the priesthood and actually entering seminary, he said he had \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093political concerns, though I never went beyond simple intellectualizing.\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d He admits to reading and liking publications of the Communist Party but says he was never a member. Many Bergoglio watchers\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009da minor industry in Argentina\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009dbelieve that his concern for the destitute is partly rooted in Argentina\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s experience with Peronism, a strange socialist-capitalist amalgam that evolved in the country in the 1940s and was powered by a deep, working-class populism. That ideology suffused everything Argentine then\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009dand now.<\/p>\n

Bergoglio is quite mystical about his career choice, which hit him when he stopped off at church on his way to join friends to celebrate a holiday. \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093It surprised me, caught me with my guard down,\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d he told Francesca Ambrogetti and Sergio Rubin, who interviewed him for their 2010 book, published this year in the U.S. as Pope \u0569\u0082\u0539\u055fFrancis: \u0569\u0082\u0539\u055fConversations with Jorge Bergoglio<\/em>. \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093That is the religious experience: the astonishment of meeting someone who has been waiting for you all along.\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d He did not enter seminary until 1957, telling the authors, \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093Let\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s say God left the door open for me for a few years.\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d<\/p>\n

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