WHEN THE ELECTION OF GOOD POPE FRANCIS was announced, still in shock at his appearance in the plain white robe instead of the gaudy, gold embroidered scarlet papal drag so beloved of his two immediate predecessors ("One thing's clear, he's a different kind of Pope.") I was still participating in a lot of online lefty comment threads. Almost immediately the anti-Catholic invective of the atheist-lefties was fully active. Everything from accusing him to being part of the fascists' dirty war to denying that he chose the name of one of the most beloved of all saints, beloved because he so literally tried to follow the teachings of Jesus. That even those anti-Catholic atheists had an emotional attachment to him because of that has a lesson in it.
I remember having to inform some of them that in all of my decades of being from a Catholic family, knowing and reading and hearing many thousands of Catholics I'd never, once, heard any of them say "St. Francis" to mean Francis Xavier or Frances de Sales or any other Francis, so, no, when he chose the name Francis, he meant dear, beloved Francis of Assisi.
In the other anti-Francis strife caused by such crypto-fascists as Raymond Burke, Salvatore Cordillione and their ilk as financed by trad-Catholic billionaires, sitting on North America and in Rome in safety and comfort, one of the things that a lot of people overlook is that when Francis was a priest and Bishop in Argentina, he saw violent military fascism overthrow a highly imperfect democracy (with the approval of more than a couple of prominent secular intellectuals) and what a moral and humanitarian catastrophe that was. As a Latin American bishop he certainly was aware of the widespread and continuing martyrdom of Catholic social activists, nuns, priests, bishops and archbishops who were regularly murdered by fascists - something that the European Popes before him didn't seem that troubled by, to tell you the truth. That makes what he said in Athens yesterday far more potent than it would be coming from a white American who has yet to see that happen. Though a lot of People of Color and others here could certainly speak from experience on the issue, too.
Yet we cannot avoid noting with concern how today, and not only in Europe, we are witnessing a retreat from democracy. Democracy requires participation and involvement on the part of all; consequently, it demands hard work and patience. It is complex, whereas authoritarianism is peremptory and populism’s easy answers appear attractive. In some societies, concerned for security and dulled by consumerism, weariness and malcontent can lead to a sort of skepticism about democracy. Yet universal participation is something essential; not simply to attain shared goals, but also because it corresponds to what we are: social beings, at once unique and interdependent.
At the same time, we are also witnessing a skepticism about democracy provoked by the distance of institutions, by fear of a loss of identity, by bureaucracy. The remedy is not to be found in an obsessive quest for popularity, in a thirst for visibility, in a flurry of unrealistic promises or in adherence to forms of ideological colonization, but in good politics. For politics is, and ought to be in practice, a good thing, as the supreme responsibility of citizens and as the art of the common good. So that the good can be truly shared, particular attention, I would even say priority, should be given to the weaker strata of society. This is the direction to take. One of Europe’s founding fathers indicated it as an antidote to the polarizations that enliven democracy, but also risk debilitating it. As he said: “There is much talk of who is moving left or right, but the decisive thing is to move forward, and to move forward means to move towards social justice” (A. DE GASPERI, Address in Milan, 23 April 1949). Here, a change of direction is needed, even as fears and theories, amplified by virtual communication, are daily spread to create division. Let us help one another, instead, to pass from partisanship to participation; from committing ourselves to supporting our party alone to engaging ourselves actively for the promotion of all.
From partisanship to participation. This what should motivate our actions on a variety of fronts. I think of the climate, the pandemic, the common market and, above all, the widespread forms of poverty. These are challenges that call for concrete and active cooperation. The international community needs this, in order to open up paths of peace through a multilateralism that will not end up being stifled by excessive nationalistic demands. Politics needs this, in order to put common needs ahead of private interests. It might seem a utopia, a hopeless journey over a turbulent sea, a long and unachievable odyssey. Yet, as the great Homeric epic tells us, travelling over stormy seas is often our only choice. And it will achieve its goal if it is driven by the desire to come to home port, by the effort to move forward together, by nóstos álgos, homesickness. Here I would like to renew my appreciation for the perseverance that led to the Prespa Agreement signed between this Republic and that of North Macedonia.
Like most of the statements given by Pope Francis, this one is a masterpiece of careful reasoning, using local issues as illustration, I'll bet that few outside of Greece and North Macedonia ever knew or remember that issue that almost caused another war in the region.
The whole speech is worth reading and worth more comment than I've got time for or wit for right now.
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