Bridgefolk perspectives on Pope Francis
On some issue or another, any pope who takes seriously his responsibility to guide the discernment and to name the consensus of the global Church will probably disappoint every Catholic, along with other Christians who care about the witness of Catholicism in the world. The Church is simply too big, with a calling to express the gospel in so many cultures, for the pastoral judgments of the bishop of Rome to line up with one’s views and priorities across the board.
To be sure, every pope has been called to take seriously this global pastoral responsibility. But now we have a pope from the global South, and hopes run high. He is an experienced bishop from the streets and barrios of Argentina. He has named himself after Francis of Assisi, who is not only Catholicism’s most beloved saint but an exemplar of cross-class simplicity and cross-cultural peacemaking. He has de-vested himself of the most ostentatious trappings of clerical privilege. Disappointing traditionalists immediately, he has washed the feet of Muslims and women.
But sooner or later, on some issue or another, Francis will disappoint the rest of us too. And that is okay. Christians from the global South do this (not just Catholics). They are delightfully frustrating for North Americans and Europeans in their tendency to reshuffle our categories of left, right, progressive, orthodox, liberal, conservative. We deceive ourselves if we claim to champion just relationships between North and South yet disparage their voices.
So in fact this will be the opportunity we need. The first pope from the global South — along with likely successors who will soon come from Africa and Asia – will teach us truly to learn practices of global Christian solidarity, and to become the world Church of which the Second Vatican Council has been foretaste and guide. We now have no excuse.
Gerald W. Schlabach is a co-founder of the Bridgefolk movement. As professor of theology at the University of St. Thomas (MN) he teaches a class on Global Christianity.