Articles
Pope Francis is a Miracle
Opinion | Articles | M L Satyan | 04-Mar-2025
At the age of 88 pope Francis is battling with his life. The health complications he is facing are indeed of grave concern for the doctors. His critical condition has caused grief to not only the Catholics but also to all the people of this world.
Pope Francis is the first ever from the Americas, an austere Jesuit intellectual who modernized Argentina’s conservative Catholic church. His name was Jorge Bergoglio, a humble man who denied himself the luxuries that previous Buenos Aires cardinals enjoyed.
As a cardinal, he often travelled by bus to work, cooked his own meals, and regularly visited the slums that ring Argentina’s capital. He considered social outreach, rather than doctrinal battles, to be the essential business of the church.
Such a grassroots worker was elected as the pope on March 13, 2013. He took a new name, Francis, since the life of St. Francis of Assisi inspired him always. Let us look at the history of the church.
At one stage, Christianity witnessed the phenomenon of Francis of Assisi, whose initial steps to sainthood were the renouncing of even the very clothes he wore, which he returned to his own father; after which, having thus openly signified his total renunciation of worldly goods, he dedicated himself to a life of total poverty by asking the protection of the bishop, stark naked.
The episode was a rebuff to the church of his time, since Francis, following this symbolic gesture with practical concreteness, founded a new monastic order, that of the Franciscans, and saw to it that the most striking feature of such order was the total renunciation of the riches of this world.
Francis of Assisi, however, was not the only figure reacting against the papacy’s barefaced and brazen concern with wealth. Bernard of Clairvaux too had renounced all earthly riches as an individual. He enjoined such repudiation upon his new monastic order as well. He not only gave new life to a corrupt and rich western monasticism but also enforced his rule of total poverty outside the monasteries’ walls whenever he could.
From the early Christian community, the church has travelled a long way to reach the present stage. To a very great extent, the church has deviated from the teachings of Jesus in many ways. Roman Catholicism, which claims to be His church, is one of the wealthiest institutions on earth.
How come that such an institution, ruling in the name of this same itinerant preacher, whose want was such that he had not even a place to lay his head,
is now so top-heavy with riches that she can rival the combined might of the most redoubtable financial trusts, the most potent industrial super-giants, and of the most prosperous global corporations in the world? It is a question that has puzzled, bewildered, and angered in turn untold multitudes from the first centuries to our days.
After a very long period, God selected a modern, pro-poor Francis of Assisi in the form of a pope to reform the church that was rusting. Definitely, he too had been seriously reflecting on the contrast between the wealthy Vatican and the poverty outside. For this reason, he chose to live an exemplary, humble, and simple life as a cardinal in Argentina.
Since he has been a person of values, principles, and convictions, Francis was able to break the papal traditions in the Vatican without any difficulty. He does everything in a spontaneous manner and there is no artificiality whatsoever.
From the time of assuming the papacy, he has been setting good examples by selecting Francis as his name, seeking people’s blessings, and avoiding the Vatican
One car, choosing a simple attire, silver ring and chain, reaching out to the children and physically challenged persons in the crowd, preferring to stay in a two-room suite as his residence instead of the Apostolic Palace.
Pope Francis has understood very well what Jesus said: “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Mt.6:21). He took upon himself the responsibility of reforming the Church in his own style, of course as per God’s will. With his dynamism and humane and pro-poor approach, he has been trying to bring about radical changes within the Church.
Francis has not only preached about simplicity and solidarity with the poor but also practiced it in his personal life. On several occasions the Pope has demonstrated the values of simplicity, concern, compassion, transparency, and courage. He set up a new trend by visiting the hospitals and prisons and washing the feet of the prisoners. He has become a living demonstration of the proverb “Actions speak louder than words.”.
On one occasion when Pope Francis addressed a crowd of families, a small boy wandered on the stage and sat on pope’s chair. On another occasion a small child walked close to the pope and clung on to his robe. The pope always smiled at them and delivered his speech undisturbed.
I wondered what would have happened if such things occurred in India during a public address by a cardinal or bishop or priest. First of all, there will not be a scope for a child to go freely to the stage. Even if a child succeeds in doing so, the child will get the scolding or beating. There are umpteen examples of bishops and priests scolding small children during the Mass, if they play or cry.
Pope’s encyclicals Lumen Fidei (June, 2013) on Faith; Laudato Si (May, 2015) on care for our common home; Fratelli Tutti (October, 2020) on fraternity and social friendship; and Dilexit Nos (October 2024) on the human and divine love of the heart of Jesus Christ have become “guiding lights” for the church.
In addition, Pope Francis has sent out apostolic exhortations, apostolic letters, and catechetical cycles that have provided clear directions to all categories of people—cardinals, bishops, priests, deacons, consecrated persons, and lay faithful.
When the pope is undergoing medical treatment, let us send him our positive energy through our prayers. May the Lord grant him good health!
(The author is an NGO consultant, trainer, and freelance journalist. He can be contacted at: mlsatyan55@gmail.com)
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