Ingeborg G. Gabriel is a professor emerita at the University of Vienna.
The title of this post refers to the first interview Pope Francis gave, in August 2013, in which he stated the basic intentions of his pontificate. I happened to be in Rome when he was elected and vividly remember the moment the new pope stepped on to the balcony, greeting everyone with a warm “buona sera.” This first self-presentation, as well his chosen name, signaled an agenda that has unfolded during his 12 years in office. The decision to reside in the Guesthouse Santa Marta—at the time much commented on—was another landmark choice signaling his approach. A Pope in the cafeteria carrying a tray with his dinner? This represented a fresh, liberating style to many and a scandal to others, who feared it may tarnish the image of the papacy. Despite such criticism, a bon mot began circulating: John Paul II listened, Benedict taught, and Francis touches the heart.
Three outstanding characteristics have marked this pontificate: the Pope’s deep spirituality, his fervent social and ecological engagement, and his dialogical style and efforts to further peace through interreligious dialogues.
The Ignatian spirituality of Pope Francis is anchored in the gospel. It may be described in the three terms he shared with his fellow Jesuits on the occasion of their 36th General Congregation: consolation, discernment, and compassion. The grace of God in prayer, the discernment exercised to do God’s will in particular circumstances, and the compassion for every human being created by God as a brother or sister in his/her concrete life situation. “I am sure to encounter God in every person” is a sentence Pope Francis has voiced on various occasions. This mystical dimension of love for God and for the other is the very source from which his activities and initiatives have sprung. That a man who was 76 years old when elected could effectively carry this out and promote his program worldwide remains remarkable in itself.
I wish to concentrate, however, on Pope Francis’s social and ecological legacy and his interreligious activities, particularly with the world of Islam. His first Apostolic Exhortation, Evangelii gaudium (EG), given at the feast of Christ the King (24 November 2013), centers on the proclamation of the gospel by the people of God and the clergy. However, it also contains long passages on the social and economic conditions in which the Christian mission takes place, thus revealing the Pope’s worldview and social concerns. The proclamation of the joy of the gospel as the raison d’etre of the Church is to be exercised under particular global and local circumstances.
It is typical for this pontificate that the social analysis, particularly the four prophetic No’s (EG para. 52–60), caused far more ado than other parts of the exhortation: “No to an economy of exclusion”; “No to the new idolatry of money”; “Noto a financial system which rules rather than serves”; “No to the inequality which spawns violence.” These clear words triggered major debates and, although leading economists today take similar positions, created the image of an anti-market pope with Marxist tendencies.
The front lines of this pontificate were thus established from the beginning. His criticism that “this economy kills” (EGpara. 52) was scandalous to many and made Francis the target of libertarians. Conservative groups criticized a lack of attention to what they considered to be the main message of the Church: its sexual and bio ethics. The opposition grew stronger with the publication of the eco-social encyclical Laudato si’ in 2015, as this pope’s most important legacy regarding the Church’s social doctrine. The worldwide attention it drew, including in non-Church circles, was due to the astute timing of its publication and presentation right before the UN General Assembly was to adopt the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in September 2015, an occasion at which the Pope also spoke in person. This was not a stand-alone event but was flanked by other high-level conferences on ecology. Similar conferences with the Pope’s participation have been held for other social concerns as well.
A head of the department against human trafficking at the United Nations in Vienna, an agnostic, told me how impressed she was by one of these gatherings that brought together people with different worldviews. This holds a lesson for the future for the world Church, as well as for regions and countries. The Church does not have, and need no longer have, the authority to decree its positions. It has the authority, however, to bring people from divergent groups together, offering guiding ideas and principles. A blueprint for such a dialogical approach can be found in Laudato si’ (para. 163–201). Dialogue and the proclamation of the gospel and its principles are thus not opposites, as critics have often assumed. Nothing could be further from the truth. By tuning in to the new paradigm of the SDGs, which combines ecological and social issues, Laudato si’ rather effectively enhances the Christian message and stresses the responsibility of 1.4 billion Catholics to contribute to ecological and social change, as shown by many initiatives worldwide that have sprung up in its wake.
Another pillar of Pope Francis’s public engagement is for world peace and unity. His ecumenical initiatives have often gone unnoticed because they have become so commonplace—be it Metropolitan Zizioulas participating in the presentation of Laudato si’; or the Pope sitting in a row with Protestant church leaders in Lund, Sweden, at the 500th anniversary of the Reformation; or the spectacular global public interreligious dialogue activities, to which he also dedicated his first of monthly YouTube messages.
The document On Human Fraternity issued on 4 February 2019 (now the UN International Day of Human Fraternity) in the United Arab Emirates, together with the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Ahmed Al-Tayeb, put dialogue between Muslims and Catholic Christians on a new footing. Other initiatives followed Pope Francis’s trips to the Muslim world, most notably his audacious trip to Iraq in March 2021. The social encyclical Fratelli tutti (2020) deepens this engagement, emphasizing that freedom and equality as modern core values need to be complemented by fraternity on all levels of social life.
The Pope’s starting point thus was not an “abstract universalism” but a bottom-up approach through which the Church was to enhance peace and unity of humans with God and amongst each other (Lumen gentium para. 1; Gaudium et spespara. 42). This reference to an important concept of Vatican II shows that Pope Francis has completed its realization in this way, as well as through his inclusion of social issues regarding the “preferential treatment of the poor” (Gaudium et spes para. 1). The hermeneutics of recognition of humans from other denominations and faith traditions as the backbone of Vatican II has thus been complemented by a hermeneutics of recognition of all children of God who are underprivileged and live in misery.
The final phase of this pontificate has been dominated by the Synod on Synodality (2021–24), taking up a Herculean work envisaged earlier at Vatican II: to overcome an ecclesial centralization process that began with the sixteenth-century Council of Trent. Pope Francis wanted to initiate a dialogical bottom-up learning process in the Catholic Church to lead the Church into the future.
The Synod also laid open the weaker points of this pontificate. The attempts to address the roles, contributions, and experiences of women, as a major social and ecclesial issue, have not been completely convincing. Here the traditional aporetic paradigm starting from (sexual) difference—rather than the common humanity of men and women—prevailed. The Synod also demonstrated an overall tendency to downplay the importance of structural and legal changes due to a widespread false dichotomy prevalent in the Church that perceives faith in God and change of heart as opposite to the reform of structures. A central question regarding the future of the Catholic Church is how to square the dignity of every baptized Catholic Christian with the need for a well-educated and competent Church leadership, both of whom must be inspired by the gospel of Christ.
What has touched our hearts during the papacy of Francis and thus will remain in our memories? For me, it is the images of peace initiatives and the metaphors used by this Pope: Francis in the Vatican gardens with Shimon Peres, Mahmoud Abbas, and Patriarch Bartholomew praying for peace in the Middle East; his prostration before Sudanese politicians to avoid the civil war and bloodshed; and the dove flying into the skies in Mosul. These images show that even the best efforts can fail. But they also demonstrate that Pope Francis has engaged and invested himself with his words, gestures, abilities, and his whole being to initiate processes for the good and further creative change worldwide audaciously, in the service of mankind—ad majorem Dei gloriam.