Looking back to Pope Francis

Rome – He was a populist leader, often known as the “Pope of the People.” As a pontiff, Francis, who He died on Monday At 88, he sought to bring people closer to church, declaring early in Your papacy that I wanted to have a poorer church “for the poor.” He was known for being driven in unwavering cars and making popular gestures, such as making trips to Rome to buy an article in the store.

He was brilliant playing the press, creating the types of photos that would attract attention to their areas of interest. He often spoke extemporaneously while he was on papal trips, particularly towards the beginning of his papacy, presenting questions about the flight.

That made his papal trips an essential event for the press that covered him. For those of us who travel with Pope Francis, we could see how he would interact in the course of the days with several dignitaries and his broader flock of the faithful. It would appear particularly energized and committed, illuminating when with children or at an audience with which they were neglected, living on the margins of society.

He died only one day after surprising many with a Brief appearance in the Plaza de San Pedro On Easter Sunday, blessing thousands of people and sounded stronger as he did since he had done so since his release from a hospital in Rome at the end of March.

We wanted look back In his papacy, his legacy, and we also wait for the next Pope, so we ask the veteran correspondent of Vatican Francis X. Rocca who recently met on the terrace of a convent in Rome, with a spectacular view about the Basilica of San Pedro, for a conversation about Pope Francis.

We look back and forth. Below is a partial transcription of our conversation, which has been edited for clarity.

Seth Doane: What is Pope Francis’s legacy?

Francis X. Rocca: Well, I suppose it depends on who you ask. I mean, for women, for example, he was certainly someone who brought women in the Vatican and gave them higher positions than the case had never been. It is still a relatively small number, but that was certainly a very dramatic change. For conservatives, he began giving them heartburn and ended up giving practically a heart attack. It was a fairly dramatic confrontation. Somehow, he was a polarizing pope. At the same time, the envelope really pushed and allowed things that had been considered closed, either by sexual ethics, by medical ethics. … In a way, due to his very informal speech style, talking with journalists, giving interviews, press conferences, seemed to give permission to people to criticize him too, even if that was not their intention. Then the debate became much more heated during his pontificate.

Seth Doane: Why was Pope Francis seen as such a divisive figure? Why didn’t conservatives like it?

Francis X. Rocca: Well, I think there were several reasons. One is that he had a very loose attitude towards tradition, let’s say so. From the beginning, when he went to the lodge in the front of the Basilica of San Pedro, and did not use the red end that was usual on that occasion, before saying a word, people began to get nervous, the conservatives began to get nervous because he simply did not respect the tradition.

And he broke it small, but he also tested it in a bigger way. And, for example, relatively late in his pontificate, He gave permission For him Blessings of same -sex couples. They tried to present that as something that was consistent with tradition, but certainly conservatives did not see it that way. And especially in Africa, where basically all the bishops of Sub -Saharan Africa protested and wanted a kind of exemption from this new permission, which is extraordinary. And that is a very clear illustration of how divisive things became, when you have an entire continent, a continent where the church is growing very fast, taking a completely different position from other parts of the Church. That happened with Pope Francis, and it happened because he made a bold movement.

Seth Doane: Conservative Catholics in the United States were some of their strongest critics.

Francis X. Rocca: Yes, that’s correct. He had most of the American bishops did not agree with their priorities, I think it is quite clear. The Pope and his allies among the American bishops, who are a minority, wanted to tear down abortion. He Pope hated abortionbut he wanted to play [it] Below, with respect to social and environmental and economic problems, or at least put them in an equal plane. That is perhaps the best way to say it. American bishops have said for years that opposition to abortion is their “preeminent priority.” And the Pope and his allies did not want that, and they could not persuade most of us bishops on that, and that became a very, very large point of tension.

Seth Doane: We traveled with the Pope together. One of the things that surprised me was how I was with the children, somehow it would come to life.

Francis X. Rocca: It was very accessible. It was very informal. That was the: one of the seductive, lovely, charismatic things about him. His predecessors are: John Paul was a very charismatic, very telegenic figure, but was not so relaxed. And Pope Francis had an ordinary style that attracted people.

Seth Doane: Pope Francis was known as the “Pope of the People.” It was known that he approached to try to attract the masses.

Francis X. Rocca: Yes. He was also a populist Pope, with a kind of political resonance. His style was a lot to try to have a link with people, with, implicitly or, sometimes, not so implicitly, against the elites, in this case, the hierarchy: bishops and cardinals. He played them. And he was always suggesting that the elites, even the priests of the diocesan clergy and the parishmen, could be away from their people, could be too rigid, be too attached to luxury or privilege. And so I was always hitting that drum and said: “I am with the people.”

Seth Doane: This Pope tried to address the problems of sexual abuse inside the clergy, within the Church. He tried to address the vast bureaucracy and economic problems in the Church. How did he?

Francis X. Rocca: Well, I – His record on sexual abuse was mixed. And I think it really is not up to the level that people had expected from him. He had a kind of disgust for disciplining priests and bishops compared to his predecessor, Benedict Pope. Benedict Pope the High Water in terms of discipline of the abusive clergy. Pope Francis stroked a little of that. He got into trouble that is why in Chile, when he supported a bishop who had been accused of covering sexual abuse. Finally he went back, but it was a shame.

Seth Doane: What were some of the big problems under the papacy of Pope Francis?

Francis X. Rocca: Well, certainly a big problem was his relative clemency in matters of marriage, family and sexuality. The most famous statement of his pontificate was the one he made at his first press conference in 2013, which was: “Who am I to judge?” I was talking, in that case, about homosexual priests. But I could have been talking about divorced Catholics, who allowed communion to take, in many cases, which had not been the practice before. I could have been talking about Catholics who use contraception. Pope Francis did not change the teaching formally in any of these issues. But what he did was to indicate that he was fine to have different points of view on them, that it was not a priority, that he was not censoring anyone. And, in fact, some of his advisors explored, for example, the possibility of relaxing the prohibition of contraception that had been so controversial since Pope Paul VI had reaffirmed him in 1968. Therefore, those are some problems.

Another problem: he had an approach with China, which was controversial, even among Chinese Catholics, where … he agreed to share the responsibility of choosing Catholic bishops in China with the communist government there. And that was controversial. He felt that it was important to have a dialogue and keep the Church unified at some level, but many of the Catholics who resisted control of the government in China were upset and felt that I was selling them.

Seth Doane: One of the regular criticisms of this Pope was that he sowed confusion. Why was it heard so often?

Francis X. Rocca: Well, he played ambiguity. Much of their statement were made informally in press conferences and interviews, not in doctrinal documents that came out of the Vatican. And therefore, he, you know, when he says: “Who am I to judge?” – Well, what does that mean? The conservatives struggled a lot to read that very consistent with the strict tradition. And you could if you wanted it. But the Pope was very expert in media. He knew how his comments would play. He knew how his solids and headlines would play, so when he made a statement like that, he knew that most people would read that as a meaning that sexual morals, or at least in that case, was a matter of consciousness, that people could follow their own conscience. That is not explicitly what he said, but when he said: “Who am I to judge?” He seemed to be saying: “This is a private matter, this is someone with their own conscience.” And that is the number of people who read it, even if that did not explicitly say that.

Seth Doane: During his papacy, Pope Francis changed the sensation of the church. You saw it driving in simple cars, sometimes leaving Rome to buy something in a store. The feeling of whom a Pope is changed even where he decided to live, at the Santa Marta hotel, and not in the Apostolic Palace.

Francis X. Rocca: Yes, it is true, even use, you know, ordinary black shoes, or that its Argentine passport will be renewed, with the white skull cap in the photo. That is true: it was definitely very deliberate. I wanted to make the Pope seem more with people and knock down some of the barriers. And that’s why I had a very tactile and accessible style. It will be interesting to see if your successor feels the need to maintain that, or you will return to something more traditional and more formal.

Seth Doane: In the long arch of the history of the church, how much will Francis’s papacy really have?

Francis X. Rocca: Well, the long march of history P Apal is very long. One thing is that he was the first Pope of the Americas, and the first Pope of the Global South. So you will always have a place in history books for that reason. Beyond that, it depends on what happens next. I mean, if the next Pope will carry out his progressive approach, and if that will continue and change the Church, and the teaching of the Church is I will change in things like the ordination of women, you know, or homosexuality, if it is really going to change, then he will be a historical figure in that regard. If we return to something more traditional, then it will be a kind of anomaly. But he will remain in the history books for where he is.

Seth Doane: Looking towards the next Pope, Pope Francis, if you want, “stack the covers” enough for the Cardinals College to be likely to go with a more progressive and liberal pope? Or does the pendulum balance the other way?

Francis X. Rocca: Well, that’s always the big question. Certainly, Pope Francis was remarkable, and even some of his supporters recognize this, not choosing people who did not agree with him as cardinals. He tended to choose people like that. On the other hand, he chose many people from remote regions, from places who had never had a cardinal before, on whom we know very little, and probably Pope Francis didn’t know much either. So that is a wild card. There is also the problem that cardinals tend to be quite conservative people: “conservative” with a small “C”. They tend to want not to shake the boat too much, and Pope Francis shook the boat continuously.

Seth Doane: Could we see a more conservative Pope below?

Francis X. Rocca: It is certainly very possible that we see a Pope with a more conservative temperament, a more conservative government style, a more conservative communicative style. Perhaps it is not a hard right conservative, in terms of doctrine, we could not get that. But we could get someone who is going to do it: the Cardinals College wants to calm the waters. It has been a very turbulent period under Pope Francis, so they could love someone who simply will not speak so frequently to the press, do not shake things, not shake things for a while. We could be looking at that.

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