In his ‘Essay on the development of Christian doctrine’, John Henry Newman stated that “here below, to live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often”.
This idea of change has its roots in the gospel, the metanoia, which is frequently translated as repentance. However, repentance is not simply a feeling of sorrow. A true metanoia is “a transformative change of heart”.
Generation Z, also known as iGeneration, is the generational cohort with the birth years ranging from the late 2000s to mid-2020s. And this cohort is one wing of contemporary conservatism in politics (apart from sex-related issues), economics and even religion.
The other wing of conservatism consists of nostalgics without a cause who have lost all sense of a realistic better world and are longing for familiar people and for lifestyles with which they have never been familiar.
However, the malaise is deeper than that. As the former master general of the Dominicans once told me, it is not a question of conservation but a question of “difference”. These people hold different ecclesiology from that of Vatican II.
This is a problem faced by most local churches and by Pope Francis himself. Whatever Pope Francis wants to change, the reality is that he is surrounded by a deeply conservative lobby run largely by bureaucratic men.
There was something deeply human about Jorge Bergoglio’s spirituality, personality and style. What is extremely distressing is that several people in the Church are simply referring to his words and writings without really being convinced that this is the path Jesus is showing to his Church in this millennium.
Pope Francis is neither conservative nor progressive: he is radically evangelical! And many of us, like the Jews in the Lord’s life, are finding his words “too hard” and are “leaving him alone”.
Imitation is the sincerest form of acceptance. Lip service to Matthew’s Chapter 5 did not bring about any conversion; much less will lip service to Pope Francis’ message or lifestyle. That is why, very wisely Pope Francis is changing both personnel and structures.
The papal attire was familiar and simple enough, but Francis’ attitude is very different. Pope Francis is not an actor, neither does he behave the way he does to impress the media, as some foul mouths accuse him of doing.
What he is doing by emotionally hugging and kissing, ruffling children’s hair, laughing and joking, is giving us a definition of his papacy: he is making very effective connection with real people. This realism forces us to ignore ritual and, even more, ritualism.
For Pope Francis, much more far-reaching and important than his style is his substance – “because when his pontificate is over, and he is dead and gone, it’s the way he’s changed the fabric of the Church, and not just the way it looks, that will live on”.
The Pope’s essential message is that he walks the talk! He speaks the language ordinary people speak, and lives in a similar way. When he personally paid his hotel bill after his election as Bishop of Rome it was not a gesture but an act of conviction.
Although Pope Francis is fully aware that the Church cannot answer all the needs of humanity, he acknowledges the reality of life: that most of us do not live in a bubble, that our lives have not reached evangelical perfection. Yet, he is telling us that we can make it; one step at a time, according to our strengths and weaknesses, we are all called to perfection, as Vatican II teaches us.
The thing we all ought to know is that no one, absolutely no one is outside the remit of God’s love: this is the simple truth that Pope Francis believes.
joe.inguanez@gmail.com
Fr Joe Inguanez is executive director of Discern.