Francis I washing women's feet on Holy Thursday by cuucshuehn.net
I'm still trying to figure out the new pope, Francis I. Initially, I was very skeptical and even negative about his election. After all he was carrying all that baggage from Argentina's "dirty war." And some incidents there made me see Francis as just another right-winger in the tradition of his immediate predecessors, Benedict XVI and John Paul II. I called for his resignation.
Gradually however, I've come to question
my rush to judgment. True, the new pope faltered with early missteps regarding
women. He seemed to reiterate Benedict XVI's admonition to U.S. women religious
to focus more on the issues of contraception, abortion, and same-sex marriage,
rather than on issues of social justice for the poor and electoral politics. He
even warned a group of sisters against becoming "spinsters" or "old maids"
(depending on the translation) rather than fruitful celibates.
But then he went to that women's prison on
Holy Thursday and drew fire from conservatives for including women among those
whose feet he washed that day. I concluded that the jury is still out
concerning Francis and women. Like most of us males, he clearly has room to
grow.
As I wait for the jury's verdict, two
recent incidents have led me towards a more positive evaluation in the court of
my own mind. To begin with, Leonardo Boff, a leading liberation theologian who
had been silenced by the Ratzinger-Wojtyla team, surprised me by his own
positive assessment. He even identified the new pope as a "field" liberation
theologian as opposed to a "desk" theologian. Despite his reservations in the
past about liberation theology, Bergoglio, Boff said, was truly committed to
the poor. Boff was hopeful that the
Argentinian might change the direction of the Vatican policy of suspicion and
rejection over the last 30 years towards the "preferential option for the poor"
so central in the thought of activists committed to the welfare of the world's
poor majority.
Then last week a second occurrence made me
think Boff might have a point. The pontiff made some surprisingly critical
remarks about capitalism and ethics to a group of new ambassadors to the
Vatican.
Here are some excerpts. They are worth
quoting at length (emphases are added):
" .
. . We must also acknowledge that the majority of the men and women of our time
continue to live daily in situations of insecurity, with dire consequences. . .
The financial crisis which we are experiencing makes us forget that its
ultimate origin is to be found in . . . the denial of the primacy of human
beings! We have created new idols. The worship of the golden calf of old (cf. Ex 32:15-34) has found a new and
heartless image in the cult of money and the dictatorship of an economy
which is faceless and lacking any truly humane goal.
The worldwide financial and economic
crisis seems to highlight . . the gravely deficient human perspective, which
reduces man to one of his needs alone, namely, consumption. Worse yet, human
beings themselves are nowadays considered as consumer goods which can be used
and thrown away. We have started a throw-away culture. This tendency is . . . being
promoted! In circumstances like these, solidarity, which is the treasure of the
poor, is often considered counterproductive, opposed to the logic of finance
and the economy. While the income of a minority is increasing exponentially,
that of the majority is crumbling. This imbalance results from ideologies
which uphold the absolute autonomy of markets and financial speculation, and
thus deny the right of control to States, which are themselves charged with
providing for the common good. A new, invisible and at times virtual, tyranny
is established, one which unilaterally and irremediably imposes its own laws
and rules . . . The will to power and of possession has become limitless.
Concealed behind this attitude is a
rejection of ethics, a rejection of God. Ethics, like solidarity, is a
nuisance! It is regarded as counterproductive: as something too human, because
it relativizes money and power; as a threat, because it rejects manipulation
and subjection of people: because ethics leads to God, who is situated outside
the categories of the market. God is thought to be unmanageable by these
financiers, economists and politicians, God is unmanageable, even dangerous,
because he calls man to his full realization and to independence from any kind
of slavery. . . I encourage the financial experts and the political leaders of
your countries to consider the words of Saint John Chrysostom: "Not to
share one's goods with the poor is to rob them and to deprive them of life. It
is not our goods that we possess, but theirs" ( Homily on Lazarus , 1:6 -- PG
48, 992D).
. . . There is a need for financial
reform along ethical lines that would produce in its turn an economic reform to
benefit everyone. . . Money has to
serve, not to rule! The Pope . . . has the duty, in Christ's name, to remind
the rich to help the poor, to respect them, to promote them. . . .
The common good should not be simply
an extra, simply a conceptual scheme of inferior quality tacked onto political
programs. . . . In this way, a new political and economic mindset would arise
that would help to transform the absolute dichotomy between the economic and
social spheres into a healthy symbiosis. . . .
Are you
surprised by those words? Here the pope is saying that:
1.
The wealth gap between the rich and
poor is completely unacceptable.
2.
It is caused by unfettered markets
which reduce people to consumers subordinate to material production.
3.
Free markets are heartless, inhumane
and idolatrous.
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