ROOT & BRANCH
COMMUNITY​​​​
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Pope Francis RIP
(17/12/1936 - 21/04/2025)​​​​
As Jorge Mario Bergoglio stepped onto the balcony in simple white to greet the thousands in the square below, and the millions watching worldwide, it was clear that we had a new style of pope. One that eschewed the rich garments and red shoes; one that lived alongside but never in, the huge Vatican apartments. One that kept hold of his own mobile phone and old car, signalling his critical independence from the traditional legion of Pope-minders.
He lived up to this simplicity. He washed the feet of prisoners, women and men. “Who am I to judge?” he asked, about our LGBT Catholics. He cared passionately and deeply for the beauty of creation and creatures, and poured out his despair at their danger in Laudato Si’, his encyclical hymn to a wounded world. He kept up a punishing schedule of visiting places that needed him, including those that found him and his outspokenness a more uncomfortable guest. He was adamant that the death penalty was always “inadmissible.”
He was passionate and uncompromising about injustice, suffering, wars, poverty, and the marginalised. He brought the concept of synodality to life within the Church, urging us to listen, and to walk together as we did so. He brought women to the table for the first time, to join the pioneering few that he appointed to Vatican Dicasteries. Many saw this as revolutionary; other hierarchs felt that he went too far.
He was not perfect. He spoke openly about the criminality of clerical child sexual abuse, yet at times failed to recognise or act upon it when close to home. He encouraged individual LGBTQ+ campaigners with personal support, yet did not seem to address the sufferings of gay priests. He further failed, for all his warm words about the unique virtues of women, to understand that women are equal children of God.
This deep inability to transcend structurally ingrained misogyny poses a very great danger to the Church in its suppression of women’s inherent gifts and abilities. Professor Mary McAleese likens this loss of half the church to a bird with one broken wing, fluttering helplessly in circles, grounded. We pray fervently for his successor to understand and bring healing and honesty, expiating this crippling injustice, and allowing the Spirit to soar as Jesus intended.
Root & Branch pray that this successor is someone with courage, determination and compassion to take forward opening up the church to all. One who sincerely believes that change can be rapid and has the courage to give women equality and drive the structural and cultural reforms needed to tackle the scourge of church-related power-abuse of both laity and religious people. Who has courage to change church law to offer full communion to LGBTQ+ and divorced and remarried people. Who will continue Francis’s great work with other faiths and denominations, to acknowledge that God is greater than any human divisions. This also means courage to challenge and bring into line those bishops who ignore or refuse to implement synodality.
Pope Francis transcended his Roman Catholic role to become a truly global figure, passionate for the dignity of every human being and respected universally for his integrity. The outpouring of grief and tributes to him show a leader truly loved by billions of people.
His determination to address the people in his last Urbi et Orbi speech on Sunday 20th April, despite his obvious frailty, commends his utter dedication to his duty. Truly, he fought the good fight, he kept the faith and he finished his race. May he now be blessed with rest and peace.
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Further comment:
Women’s Ordination Conference
Australian Catholic Coalition for Church Reform
https://mailchi.mp/d8cc2efd2b23/acccr-test-4407547?e=e80ff60401
“If I’m not mistaken, Sigmund Freud said that in every idealisation there’s an aggression. Depicting the Pope as a sort of Superman, a star, is offensive to me. The pope is a man who laughs, cries, sleeps calmly and has friends like everyone else. A normal person”.
Pope Francis https://www.azquotes.com/quote/685777
