Pope Francis Was A Prophet — Between Love, Subversion And A “Devouring Fire” In His Soul

-Analysis-

ROME — The term “theology” is applicable for neither the doctrine nor the life of Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the Argentine-born prelate who became Pope Francis. 

For this singular Pontiff, who died Monday at the age of 88, it would be necessary instead to coin another term to adequately illustrate his articulation and representation of God, his being — to take up the famous definition of the Pope given by Saint Catherine of Siena — “the sweet Christ on earth.” 

This neologism, not particularly elegant but I believe quite effective, is the following: theopathy. Not theo-logy, but theo-pathy. Just as we talk about sympathy and empathy to mark the resonance of emotion in the face of another human being or a life situation; so it is for the idea of God expressed by Pope Francis in his writings and above all in life we ​​need to talk about theopathy.

He didn’t think about God, he suffered God. It was not an act of logic, but rather of passion that constituted the signature of his encounter with the Mystery of the world capable of producing Love, which is traditionally referred to by saying God. 

This passionate encounter between the Mystery on the one hand and his conscience and his gut on the other has produced in Pope Francis both his sweetness, enthusiasm and accessibility, as well as the indignation, protest and even anger he has exhibited. In fact, there is even a dark side, like that “Dark Side of the Moon” Pink Floyd sang about, of the passion for God.

I am arguing that Francis was not a theologian (like Benedict XVI), nor a wise pastor (like John Paul II), nor a penetrating and sometimes hesitant intellectual (like Paul VI), nor a legislator and a diplomat (like Pius XII): no, Francis was a prophet.

I believe we have just witnessed the passing of the first prophet to lead the Church in 2,000 years of history. It is no coincidence that he was the first to take the name of the most prophetic and irregular saint of the ecclesiastical calendar, Francis of Assisi, the madman who spoke to wolves and birds and who disdained power and the powerful. 

Hard to reconcile

Despite the supreme importance of Saint Francis for Christian piety, no Pope had ever been called like him, precisely because the spirituality represented by the person of Saint Francis is difficult to reconcile with the role of the Catholic Supreme Pontiff, necessarily political and necessarily powerful.

The authentic prophet is inhabited by a devouring fire that burns in his soul.

Bergoglio instead decided to call himself just that, Francis, and the result was a pontificate characterized by prophecy and destabilization, both external to the Church and above all internally. 

In fact, prophecy necessarily destabilizes, disturbs, disrupts, subverts, otherwise it is not prophecy. And precisely for this reason, precisely because he is a prophet, Pope Francis at times appeared to clearly be unsuitable for the role of Supreme Pontiff, a role which, much more than prophecy, requires prudence, diplomacy, patience, foresight, ability to listen and dialogue, team spirit, moderation.

The authentic prophet knows none of these qualities: he is inhabited by a devouring fire that burns in his soul and puts him in a kind of spasmodic hurry, makes him restless, a loner, often introverted, sometimes misunderstood, and inevitably assigns him as a man with a bad character, as Francis himself recognized about himself when talking about his relationship with doctors, and which I think can be extended to the relationship with all his collaborators. The pontiff is called to be an orchestra conductor, while the prophet is a sublime soloist.

For this reason, Pope Francis, when he spoke or wrote about God, did not address the reason of his audience, but rather their feelings, their passion, their pathos. He was not made for theological treatises, not even for the encyclicals which also appeared under his signature. These papal writings were evidently were not the place in which he manifested his peculiar essence, unlike for example Benedict XVI who was a theologian before being pope and who used to reveal his best self in his writing.

Friendly glances, harsh reproaches

For Bergoglio, it was passion. It was ideal for his off-the-cuff speeches, for unexpected phone calls, for friendly glances, for harsh reproaches, for family memories of everyday life. His refusal to reside in the papal apartment was the symbol of breaking with the more generally expected behavior of a pope. For this reason, some have loved him and will always love him, while others could not stand him — and now certainly feel relieved by the fact that the irrationality that necessarily derives from passion is no longer at the helm of the Church.

Pope Francis wrote four encyclicals, or rather three, because the first, entitled “Lumen fidei” and published at the beginning of his pontificate on June 29, 2013, was actually written first by Benedict XVI and then published only with some adjustments by Francis (who had been elected on March 13 of that year and would not have had the time to draft the text). Then came his two social encyclicals, “Laudato Sì” of 2015 and “Fratelli tutti” of 2020, in which the truest stamp of Pope Francis emerges, helping to define him as a prophet driven by social causes.

Prophecy, in fact, has two fundamental tendencies: the vertical that directs men to to God (as happens in Elijah, Hosea, Jeremiah), and the horizontal that directs men to each other, to be brotherly among themselves (like Isaiah, Micah and Amos, the latter definable as the first communist in history: if communism had not been atheistic and had not opposed religion, how different the history of the world would have been!). 

He loved us

Naturally these are not two opposing tendencies because one favors the other and vice versa, but it is still a question of two different underlying intentions: the one that looks at the world because it first looked at God, and the one that looks at God because it first looked at the world. This second tendency is the one that distinguishes Pope Francis’ prophecy: he spoke of God for the love of the world.

Francis invited us to imagine how to evaluate our existence when the end comes.

His last encyclical is from 2024 and is entitled “Dilexit nos”, “He loved us.” Here is a passage: “The best thing is to let questions that matter emerge: who I really am, what I am looking for, what meaning I want my life, my choices or my actions to have, why and for what purpose I am in this world, how I will evaluate my existence when it comes to the end.”

Francis invited us to imagine how to evaluate our existence when the end comes; and now that the end has come for him, I believe that his entire existence can be evaluated as that of a prophet: of a man who, as the Greek etymology attests, “spoke before” and at the same time spoke “in favor of.”

He spoke before God on behalf of the world, and he did so with an approach all his own, unmistakable and unrepeatable, sometimes sweet, sometimes bitter, conciliatory and biting, but always authentically human, Italian-Argentine, and always authentically Christian, coming from the Jesuit order where he was ordained as a young priest. 

His theology was theopathy, and his testimony will always renew within the conscience of every thinking human being that pathos we hold for the Mystery of the world.