I shudder to think what the reaction of the media would have been had Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI uttered the same words spoken by Pope Francis on the flight to the Philippines.
The Pope was speaking with journalists about the Charlie Hebdo massacre when he spoke about provocation and limits to freedom of speech.
Associated Press reported the exchange in this way:
“By way of example, he referred to Alberto Gasparri, who organises papal trips and was standing by his side aboard the papal plane.
“If my good friend Dr Gasparri says a curse word against my mother, he can expect a punch,” Francis said half-jokingly, throwing a mock punch his way.
“It’s normal. You cannot provoke. You cannot insult the faith of others. You cannot make fun of the faith of others.”
The reference to possible violent reaction to provocation, albeit of a particular kind, surprised me. This newspaper is living witness of the dire consequences that follow if we go down the slippery slope of ‘provocation’. This excuse is used to justify all sorts of violence, even against those whose only ‘provocation’ was the expression of their opinion.
The best one could say about the Pope’s statement to a planeload of journalists after such a massacre is that it was very unfortunate. The Vatican spokesman, Fr Federico Lombardi, and Robert Gahl, a moral theologian at Rome’s Pontifical Holy Cross University, had to do all sorts of mental gymnastics to explain it away.
Perhaps there was no need. The journalist of the Associated Press, for example, continued the report by putting the quote in a context, thus downplaying it.
Had the statement by Francis been said by Benedict XVI, the media would have taken it out of context and gone to town. Wasn’t Benedict crucified mercilessly for the statement about Muslims taken out of context from his Regensburg Address? Wasn’t Benedict vilified for the reference to condoms on his way to a pastoral journey in Africa?
I will not repeat here what I had written before, that is the different media framing of Pope Francis from that afforded to his predecessor. Had importance been given to the above quote, the media would have been reporting Francis out of their frame. They will not do that.
Similarly, his lauding of Blessed Pope Paul VI teaching against contraception and his references to the “ideological colonisation of the family” and the “growing efforts on the part of some to redefine the very institution of marriage” – two, in media jargon, clearly ‘conservative’ positions were noted without much ado. Pope Francis can burst the liberal agenda with impunity. Francis is still a sort of Teflon Pope for the media as, in compensation to the above out-of-frame instances, he still provides it with a lot of form and substance to feast on.
Pope Francis still provides the media with a spontaneous tsunami of images and sound bites. The picture of the Pope wearing a cheap plastic yellow raincoat over the pontifical vestments, similar to that worn by the rain-drenched millions who were there for him, is worth much more than a thousand words.
The photo of a clearly distraught Pope comforting a girl who burst into tears while recounting the tragedy of so many children and his off- the-cuff cri de coeur brighten reportages beyond compare. Besides, the media can hardly rubbish someone who attracts the largest crowd ever gathered by a pope. Six million people cannot get it wrong, can they?
If you don’t learn how to cry, you can’t be good Christians- Pope Francis
Quite naturally, unlike the media, a pope cannot base his moral authority on the numbers applauding him. But the numbers do indicate how many people feel that what he says and does resonates with them, their fears, anxieties, joys and aspirations.
Perhaps two of Pope Francis’s standpoints which resonate with so many people, and which the media heartily gulp down, are his repeated diatribes against a world economy that excludes millions and his strivings to strengthen Church structures which help it to be more inclusive.
Though Francis’s position on the economy is in line with that taken by his immediate predecessors, it is he who is now, in season and out of season, decrying the contemporary throwaway culture which spawns an economy of exclusion. He describes it as an economy which kills and immediately helps us to visualise it with the imagery he provides.
“Can we continue to stand by when food is thrown away while people are starving? This is a case of inequality. Today everything comes under the laws of competition and the survival of the fittest, where the powerful feed upon the powerless. As a consequence, masses of people find themselves excluded and marginalised: without work, without possibilities, without any means of escape.” (The Joy of the Gospel).
Francis is no darling of the neo-liberal lobby when he condemns the “trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world”.
His criticism, however, finds comfort in the conclusion of a report released by Oxfam in preparation for the Davos meeting. Oxfam says it expects the wealthiest one per cent to own more than 50 per cent of the world’s wealth by 2016.
The economy of exclusion is counterbalanced by his attempts to have a more inclusive Church. The Pope wants a Church open to all people but not one open to all teachings. He made this very clear. His metaphor of the Church as a field hospital, his emphasis on the pastoral needs of vulnerable families and the holding of the family Synod are just three indications of a drive towards inclusivity.
Even this Pope’s recent additions to the College of Cardinals can be seen from this perspective. Francis purposely passed over the occupiers of important and wealthy dioceses traditionally automatic choices for the cardinalate and opted for archbishops on the fringes, particularly fringes in dire situations. The red hat went to those who suffer under brutal dictatorships, violence by drug traffickers and political oppression, as well as to a diocese struggling to cope with a flood of impoverished immigrants. These cardinals consoled the tears of others while shedding their own.
After all, this is the Pope who said in the Philippines that: “If you don’t learn how to cry, you can’t be good Christians.”
joseph.borg@um.edu.mt