Aِ squall of fresh air with a distinct Latin American feel tore through the Vatican on the election of Pope Francis, a passionate Argentine whose defence of the downtrodden has stirred hearts across the world. On his return to the continent this week with a trip to Catholic majority Chile and Peru, Francis will not only speak his native Spanish but also a vibrant spiritual and cultural language common to all. “I feel free, nothing scares me,” the pontiff once said, despite shouldering the burden of leading the world’s 1.3 billion Catholics, nearly half of whom live in the Americas.
It was a typically American expression according to fellow Argentine, Bishop Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo, who has known Francis for decades. “North and South America are both societies with European origins that have realised they need independence. The idea of freedom is the cornerstone of the Americas,” the philosophy professor said. The first pope to address the United States congress has “a strong sense of human dignity and freedom”, he says. But while one of the Americas has prospered, the other has become increasingly impoverished.
“The pope is very sensitive to the issue of social justice — a more Latin than North American theme, hence the interest he has for the ‘peripheries’ in difficulty,” Sorondo said, referring to Francis’s support for those on the margins. The Archbishop of Buenos Aires was virtually an unknown when he was elected on March 13, 2013, becoming the first pope to choose the name Francis — a homage to St Francis of Assisi, who dedicated his life to the poor. The Argentine hails from a family of Italian immigrants and became “a sort of link between the Old World and the New World”, says Giovanni Maria Vian, editor of the Vatican’s L’Osservatore Romano newspaper.
While Polish pope John Paul II had denounced “wild capitalism”, Francis has taken more concrete steps, such as calling for “a poor church for the poor” and turning down a luxurious papal apartment for a humble hotel room, he said. His experience of the Argentine economic crisis has also shaped his idea of “the misery of big cities”, which fatally attract poor farmers from the countryside in search of a better life, stripping them of their culture. Since his arrival in Rome, the pope has created new Latin American cardinals, saying “they bring with them the air of new churches and of a history of faith and of blood”. — AFP
Catherine Marciano
Oman Observer is now on the WhatsApp channel. Click here
