Pope Francis is Remaking Modern Catholicism - Insights on the Anniversary of the Pontificate by Theologian Fr. Stan Chu Ilo

Pope Francis is Remaking Modern Catholicism
Special to Catholic News World by Fr. Stan Chu Ilo

As we come to the tenth anniversary of the election of Pope Francis to the See of Peter, this essay gives a general assessment of what I consider his most important accomplishments. I approach this essay from my own perspective as an African theologian.

Less than one year after his election, many people began to talk of the Francis effect when referring to the changes that Pope Francis brought to the Vatican and his reform agenda presented in Evangelii Gaudium. The Francis effect was the way people began to describe the immediate impact that the new Pope made on people through his simple lifestyle. Pope Francis’s message of a poor and merciful church that is concerned about the brokenness and wounds in the lives of many and in the world, especially those who are forgotten, misunderstood, and rejected; as well as those who feel alienated from God and the Church spoke to the depths of many souls. Thus, even though he has not changed any of the teachings of the church on some of the contested moral and pastoral issues of the day, the tone of the teaching, and the simple style of leadership have captured the imagination of a world that was looking for church leaders who spoke to them in relatable language they could understand.

The Francis effect is now the new narrative of the Catholic Church with all the positive consequences of this for realizing the mission of Roman Catholicism in the world. 

Pope Francis has accomplished so much this last ten years that Elton John saw his papacy as a great miracle. In an interview with Vanity Fair, Elton John praised Pope Francis as ‘a miracle of humility in an era of vanity.’ Elton John calls Pope Francis his ‘hero’ because according to him Pope Francis is ‘a compassionate, loving man who wants everybody to be included in the love of God.’ The famed singer concluded in the special Italian edition of Vanity Fair which had nominated Francis like Time International as the Person of the Year (2013) that “His beacon of hope will bring more light than any advancement of science, because no drug has the power of love.”

What is this Francis effect that is remaking modern Catholicism? Why is this papacy appealing to so many on one hand, but also evoking a strong rejection in some quarters on the other hand?

According to Barry Posner and James Kouzes, there are five essential practices of an exemplary and transformative leader, namely: a leader must model the way, encourage the heart, enable others to act, embody a shared vision and a leader must challenge the process and the status quo. On all five scores, Pope Francis has been immensely revolutionary and transformative. But it is in challenging the process and modelling the way that the Francis effect stands out in a very powerful way. With regard to challenging the process. Pope Francis has quietly changed the old and tired ways of doing business at the Vatican through the current synodal process. He is inviting all Catholics to open their hearts to one another and listen to one another in the common search for what God is revealing to God’s people in our times.

For many who were schooled in the method of receiving top-down instructions and pre-packaged answers from Rome, this is a new way of being church that they are finding it hard to readjust. In addition, Pope Francis has transgressed traditional norms and criteria for appointment by choosing women to fill some important positions in the Curia and creating cardinals outside of the traditional sees from marginal dioceses and territories in the world. In addition, his reform of the curia, Vatican finances, and new protocols and procedure for dealing with clerical sexual abuse are some of the most far-reaching changes in the history of the Catholic Church. 

 When it comes to the leadership quality of modeling the way, his simple lifestyle of rejecting the pomp of the papal palace, his choice of a car or even the gesture of carrying his own bag on his trips reflect the way of life of the poor man of Galilee. Pope Francis is truly a prophet for our times, and a reformer who connects to people from across the spectrum of modern society. His appeal is beyond the confines of the Catholic Church, and it is interesting to note that he seems to be facing more opposition from within the Catholic Church than outside of it. 

 When I left my home country Nigeria 20 years ago to study in Rome, my father made one request of me: “please when you return for holidays from Rome, please bring me Holy Water from the fountain at St Peter’s square.” He, like many ordinary Catholics did not want to be bothered with the politics or battles in Rome, and the vestiges of ultramontanism that have sustained ideological and dogmatic Catholicism’s fortress mentality. Many committed African Catholics like my late father, who worked in missionary schools to raise a new crop of African disciples for the church, wish to have a deep spiritual connection with Rome and the communion with world Christianity through this ancient institution. 

For many Catholics today, there is still that idyllic image of Catholicism as a bastion of spiritual strength, a bridge that connects them to diverse cultural and spiritual experiences from all over the world. 

Many other Catholics experience Catholicism in a special way through their parish celebration of the sacraments and the social and spiritual bonds of solidarity and supportive networks built around their parish. The Catholic Church continues to be for many, despite its weaknesses, a reliable source for creedal certainty in a world ideologically awash with diverse theological, moral and spiritual standpoints. Most Catholics take pride in their church—for better or for worse— and some rather triumphantly as the gold standard of Christian orthodoxy.

However, Catholicism for those outside of it, and more so for those inside of it, remains a cultural heritage which can never be contained in one vessel, historically, theologically, spiritually, and otherwise. Sadly, the antinomies of inclusion and exclusion which have often been legitimated by some versions of a presumed Catholic orthodoxy and fidelity rooted in Christendom ideas and projects continue to be a challenge to many Catholics in the West. It is still hard for many who are rooted in this worldview to accept the changing faces of Catholicism with this shift of the center of gravity from the West to Africa and the rest of the Global South. Thus, some of the issues that Pope Francis has championed on climate change, decolonization, exploitation of Africa and the poor, clericalism, immigration, and inclusion of women have been met with severe criticism from some quarters of the church including high raking church officials. However, must discerning Catholics know from its history that the Catholic Church is much more than a single narrative because it is like a deep ocean, with many tributaries, canalizing through different cultural, spiritual, and intellectual channels. There should be a place for everyone in this family.
Whatever perspectives one admits in the schismatic binaries in Catholicism today, it seems that the times seem appropriate for the emergence of new prophets who will lift our gaze beyond the imprisoning certainties about the things we do not know; or the pride of an ecclesial mindset which seeks to provide definitive answers to indefinite questions and mysteries which define what it means to be human in an infinitely boundless cosmos. 

The challenge facing Catholics today is the humble embrace of a new Catholic imagination and creative appropriation of the treasures of the Church to meet the challenges of the times. 

This is why I think that we are now in an era of the prophets who are like sentinels on the mountain top pointing the church and the world to new paths which may never have been followed before. Such prophets also help us to see beyond the certainties and imprisonment that often block religious groups from seeing the infinite horizon as they get locked up in repetitive communal practices, rituals and institutional culture that often no longer elicit the same meaning and response from present generation as they did in the past. I believe that Pope Francis is such a prophet needed for our times. As we celebrate ten years of his papacy with a renewed commitment in the Catholic Church today to the synodal process, we are witnessing the most consequential and disruptive papacy of the modern era like what the church experienced under Pope John XXIII. Through his words and deeds and his invitation to the church to embrace a culture of encounter and courageously set apace on this synodal pilgrimage, he is showing that it is possible for Catholicism to find within her bosom a new way of being church, and new paths for meeting the challenges of today in fidelity to the God of surprises and renewal.

Many discerning Catholics fear, however, that the forces of mono-cultural Catholicism and ultramontane revisionists may be too strong for new prophetic witnesses to help find new pathways for the Church. This fear is becoming reality because as Pope Francis consolidates on the reforms which he has started through this synodal process, there is a strong push back by the more conservative wing of the church’s leadership not only at the Vatican, but in dioceses, parishes, Catholic universities, and media outlets. Many others worry that some of the changes that Pope Francis have made are merely ornamental in terms of style and messaging without any substantial changes of the law. The next Pope, some fear, might reverse all these changes with a stroke of a pen. Thus, there is significant unease among both progressives and conservatives in the Catholic Church on how this Synod will unfold and what changes the Synod might bring about in the Church. Some Catholics genuinely worry that if Pope Francis is unable like Pope John XXIII to carry this synodal process to a successful end in 2025, it will create even more chaos in the church.
The questions remain can Francis radically and permanently remake Catholicism? Is he the man for this hour? What is the future of Catholicism beyond Francis? Is it not too much or even too precarious to expect the reform of a 1.3 billion strong church to rest on the weak shoulders of an aging 86year old pope? Is Catholicism going to be lost as many people know it because of the papacy of Francis?
My proposal is that as John Paul II taught us, we should not be afraid to face the future because it is God’s church and not the church of Pope Francis or any other Pope. Pope Francis understands this very well. He invites us all to dare to dream by focusing our gaze on the light that shines from the face of Christ on the Cross. I think that the cultural bereavement of many Catholics should not be the fear they nurse of a doctrinal and dogmatic fortress which may wither with the reforms being introduced by Pope Francis. Rather, what should be grieved is the loss of the renewing fire of the Spirit which will be smothered if the Church does not open herself to the gift of prophecy from the Spirit whose wind blows wherever and whenever she pleases. Faith entails among other things, stepping into uncharted territory in humble obedience to the God whose plans are better and bigger than our humanly constructed approximation of divine revelation in our claims, doctrines, and laws. In helping us all as Catholics to trust more in God than in our institutional solidity, claims, and certainties, Pope Francis is leading us to the One who is the way, truth, and life.
……………………………………………………………………………………………….
About the author: Fr. Stan Chu Ilo

(priest of Awgu diocese, Nigeria; Research professor of Catholic studies, ecclesiology and African studies at DePaul University, Chicago, U.S.A; and coordinating servant, Pan-African Catholic Theology and Pastoral Network, PACTPAN)
Research Professor of Catholic Studies, World Christianity, and African Studies
Center for World Catholicism and Intercultural Theology
DePaul University, Chicago
Coordinating Servant, Pan-African Catholic Theology and Pastoral Network (PACTPAN)
www.pactpan.org
Editor, African Christian Studies Series, Wipf and Stock Publishers
https://wipfandstock.com/catalog/series/view/id/1/
Latest books, African Ecological Ethics and Spirituality for Cosmic Flourishing
https://wipfandstock.com/9781666738711/african-ecological-ethics-and-spirituality-for-cosmic-flourishing/
Editor, Handbook of African Catholicism
https://www.amazon.com/Handbook-African-Catholicism-Stan-Chu/dp/1626984743