Catholic Church – Pope Francis died: Punk is Dead

Already in the 1990s, this Jorge Maria Bergoglio was known for his lived closeness to the poor. Instead of a chauffeur and limousine, the bishop knew how to use public transport. His home address in Buenos Aires was also not a residence, but a two-room apartment. In his lifestyle and the emphasis on the poor, this church man was like the Salvadorian archbishop Óscar Romero, who was murdered in 1980 on behalf of right -wing extremist military.

A few years ago, Romero’s former secretary, Jesus Delgado Acevedo, told the Italian daily “La Repubblica” that in 2007 he asked the Archbishop of Buenos Aires at the time, whether Romero was ever being canonized. The Peruvian Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo had previously assured him that this would never happen. For a long time, the murdered was said to be close to liberation theology. But his excellence Bergoglio apparently had no problem with it: “When I become a Pope, I send Lopez Trujillo to San Salvador to halize Romero.” It has not come that far. Cardinal Trujillo soon succumbed to a diabetes. So that he was not allowed to witness, as in March 2013 in the Sistine Chapel of Rome, the meeting of cardinals chose a man from Latin America for the very first time.

Bergoglio is said to have played an important role after John the death of John Paul II. The then 68-year-old united around 40 votes. But then he pulled his candidacy back and cleared the way for Joseph Ratzinger, who, as a cardinal dean, was already number one in the Vatican at that time and should remain as a Pope until his resignation.

Franziskus biographer Andreas English writes about Cardinal Bergoglio that he went to the slums personally, even where the police did not even trust.

Franziskus biographer Andreas English writes about Cardinal Bergoglio that he personally went into the slums with the priests, for decades, even where the police didn’t even go down. »Bergoglio always rejected all escorts, he took his priests with him and introduced them to the poor people. Bergoglio had never been curved. ”With the poorest, he would have drunk Mate over many years, the typical infusion from the leaves of the mate shrub. And the people knew that Bergoglio was their bishop, so they would have protected his priests and recorded with themselves. “Even where drug gangs fought fire battles, where it was about a lot of money, Bergoglio and his priests were able to come and go at will. They were men of God, and even the worst criminals accepted that. “

But the curia saw it differently. Because Bergoglio took care of his arms, he was considered a failure, as a man who had no idea how to run a diocese. Vatican expert Andreas English writes that Cardinal Bergoglio was “the living indictment against the curia and against almost all cardinals and bishops in the world”. At the time, everyone in the Vatican knew what Bergoglio thought that the cardinals and bishops could be operated by religious, from an army of housekeepers more than 10,000 women. Bergoglio has not a single nun as a housekeeper. “That alone would not be that bad if he at least stopped the flap, but he doesn’t. At meetings in the Vatican, he says very openly that the religious that cooks, wash the cardinals in the kitchens of the cardinals, take beds, wash up, wash off and brew coffee for the bishop’s driver, which should do what they have actually become nuns: protect the gospel, protect the old people, show God’s love. «This criticism, as simple as it may appear, has been dismay in the state of the state. Pope.

The resignation of Benedict XVI. And the election of Bergoglios to his successor was a sensation of almost revolutionary extent in 2013. Jorge Mario Bergoglio was also the first Jesuit in this office; Therefore, his choice of names may have been a little irritated: The begging monk Franz von Assisi is considered the founder of the Franciscan order, in which the poor way of life of Jesus is also given great weight, whereas the Jesuits traditionally orientate themselves more on its spirituality. Translated into the left language, Jesuits are more of the book scholars among the Catholic priests, while the Franciscans appear as activists. So if a Jesuit calls itself Francis, this name is a program.

His first pastoral trip in July 2013, which led him to the Italian refugee island of Lampedusa. The new Pope also let himself be driven to the sea, where he threw a flower wreath on the water surface in memory of the drowned people and remained in prayer for minutes. When the visit to Lampedusa was the tenth time, Francis wrote an open letter to Bishop Alessandro Damiano and complained about the booting gap. “We are shaken in view of these silent massacres, of which we stand helpless and frightened.” Death of innocent people, especially the children who were looking for a life far from war and violence, is a painful and deafening scream that cannot leave anyone indifferent.

And even if his pontificate disappointed in some points, for example, the sexual abuse of children and adolescents is still inadequate by officials of the church, which in this country has more and more people out of the church, this Pope, like no other, has shaped the Church before him, the theological point of view, the theological point of view, has spread to acute social challenges such as social justice, peace and preservation of creation.

The certificate of this gives his encyclical “Laudato Si ‘” of May 24, 2015. In this writing, Catholic social teaching is considered, social coexistence also related to the environment and the ecological question. And that is also a sensation: in the two thousand years of church history, there have not been so often that the Vatican listens to science. Climate change, according to the encyclical, is a global problem with serious environmental aspects and serious social, economic, distributive and political dimensions. He represents one of the most important current challenges for humanity. If even the Pope speaks of the impending catastrophe, how ridiculous all the Klimaeugner then seem.

According to Pope Francis, the worst effects would probably have to affect developing countries. And also that many of those who have more resources and economic or political power seem to concentrate above all to disguise the problems or to hide their symptoms, and they only tried to reduce some negative effects of climate change. “However, many symptoms indicate that these effects can be worse every time we continue with the current production models and consumption habits.” In left -wing skatholical circles, the encyclical “Laudato Si ‘” is considered a sociopolitical milestone that is still of Benedikt XVI. would not have been expected. Francis was not a dogmatist who would have thought of the limits of his actions from the outset.

Unfortunately, his desired reforms remained behind the hopes of many, even if in the Catholic Church, at least the blessing of “couples in irregular situations and same -sex couples” is allowed. At the time, a single sentence already brought conservative church people against the Pope. Francis had said: “If someone is gay and looking for the Lord, who am I to condemn him?”

Even if many processes were initiated by him, this Pope did not make any big mistakes in retrospect. A appointment like that of the Protzbishop Tebartz-van Elst did not happen to him. Instead of any theology professors, Franziskus Bischöfe called who had taken responsibility in the social work of the church, such as Josef Marketz, the director of the Carinthian Caritas Association in Austria 2020. He was forgiven that Francis could not set new accents on the question of equal rights.

At this one point, however, Francis held word: In 2015, óscar Romero in San Salvador was blessed. And just three years later, on October 14, 2018, the canonization followed in Rome. On the theology of the liberation, which the church demands to be voice of the poor and not accepting injustices as god, was finally approached by the Vatican. Pope Francis has lifted all sanctions against the Nicaraguan liberation theologian Ernesto Cardal, a political sign that could not be clearer.

Right now, in a world that is more and more dominated by despots and autocrats, a moral author as it embodied this Pope is needed. Francis died in Rome on Easter Monday. His voice will be missing.