Throughout the Francis papacy to date, observers, almost on a weekly basis, have been surprised by the Pope’s actions: paying his accommodation bill, travelling on a bus, making phone calls to people who are not well known, eschewing the papal apartments, discarding the popemobile, casting aside attire like red shoes… the list goes on and on.
In the past week he took that one step further. Not only did he grant an interview – rare for Popes, especially in the format he chose to have it printed – but one which was 12,000 words long. That would take up eight pages of this newspaper and must have involved a conversation lasting at least three hours.
As has been the case on numerous occasions already with this Pope, it is not just the form that made headlines, but the substance too.
He said the Church must shake off its obsession with teachings on abortion, contraception and homosexuality or – and this is as stark as warnings get – risk the collapse of its entire moral edifice “like a house of cards”.
On abortion in particular, he is not suggesting a change in policy. The Church remains steadfastly opposed. But he is advocating a change in style. Rather than the clergy sitting in high judgment over their parishioners – he equated confessionals with torture chambers – he is saying that they should create an atmosphere where “the Lord’s mercy motivates us to do better”.
There is an overriding irony to this, however: it is that we are surprised, when all Pope Francis is doing is espousing the words and approach of Jesus Christ 2,000 years earlier. He is not just preaching the message, he is living it. And as the new leader of the Catholic Church, he is telling his fellow clergy to start living it too.
In transmitting this message, Pope Francis is, there is no getting round it, putting most of his predecessors to shame. However intrinsically good as human beings they may have been, none of them managed to shed the splendour and formality of the Roman Curia. Some have even revelled in it and turned the Vatican into a political institution rather than a religious one.
There is another irony: the above paragraph would have been considered sacrilegious by a number of Churchmen before March 13, but it is okay to say it now – of course there will be dissenters – because words to this effect have emerged from their leader’s own lips. What he is uttering is an unpalatable truth that hitherto could not be spoken between the walls of any curia.
The problems for the present and future are two: one, will he succeed in reforming the Holy See or will the bureaucrats eventually get the better of him? Secondly, given he is 76 years old, how long will his energy last and will there be anyone to take up the baton once he has departed from the stage?
Closer to home, what will his words mean for the Church in Malta? There are some priests, particularly those who have served in the missions because they have seen human life – warts and all – up close, who do not need the Pope to tell them these things.
But there are others who are still a million miles away from getting the message that doctrine – recent controversies on divorce and IVF readily spring to mind – is not the be-all-and-end-all of a religious existence. Nor is it about ceremony, status or pontificating.
It is about the basics: simplicity, education and, above all, compassion. Those are the keys to the Church’s future. If it insists on keeping the doors firmly bolted, fewer and fewer people will make the effort to get in.