Pope Francis: A Ruling Pope

A man at an outdoor restaurant in Mainz, Germany told me last month that the role of the Pope is to run the Church. (It was my last evening in Deutschland and I was having a beer in my cassock and brand new saturno hat [from the Italian word for Saturn being the same shape as the planet] and he sat down for an expresso with the priest). I answered that it is true that the specific difference of the "Bishop of Rome" is his governing role of universal shepherd and shepherd of the shepherds (who should rule the Church hierarchy too and not let himself be manipulated).  But that that is not his first obligation nor the most important.

Because the Pope is first a man, honesty and integrity and self-donation are the highest priorities.  Because he is a Christian, knowing, loving and following Christ are his chief aim.  Because he is a priest and a high priest (bishop), prayer, preaching the Gospel and the sacramental sanctification of the flock entrusted to him, are his first obligation.  In a word: holiness is the goal. God has willed to grant us holy priests as popes for the past two centuries; i.e. men who have had their priorities straight (as in the first Christian centuries): "Seek first the kingdom of God and His justice, and all these things shall be given you besides". Matthew 6:33  The world needs saints before good managers! even in the Papacy.  That being said, the case can be made for a holy manager pope today.

Good management, doing the papacy well (in it's specific difference of materially ruling the Church) is a great and desired virtue (very necessary in the present Church crises).  It seems that Pope Francis has what it takes.  He acts and rules like an Absolute Monarch more akin in his ruling style to the Venerable Pope Pius XII than to any of his immediate predecessors.  Here, finally, is a man who will not be controlled by his secretaries (as he himself attests).  Under this rubric his rejection of the trappings ("prison") of the papal office can be best understood.  This last insight comes from Sandro Magister via our German friends at Katholisches.info.

Mr. Magister gives the examples of Pope Francis' rejection of titles and honors, and his now proceeding with canonizations on his own authority, skipping the normal procedures.  This Pope knows that he is the norm! Honors can constrain. A man, especially a ruler, can often act much more freely without them. Consider the young shepherd boy David rejecting the encumbering armor to meet and defeat Goliath! 1 Kings 17:39  Better, consider our Most Blessed Lord Himself, the simple son of a laborer.  "Though He was by nature God, did not consider being equal to God a thing to be clung to, but emptied Himself, taking the nature of a slave and being made like unto men" (Phil. 2:6-7) to rule us and the world from the inside.  Some select great and holy Christian rulers of past ages rejected titles and worldly honors and exercised supreme and absolute authority from their positions in the world!  Pope Francis seems to belong among them.