With World Youth Day celebrations underway today in Lisbon, the curtain is up on what many pope-watchers already believe to be the last act of the Francis pontificate.
There is a certain poetic arc to the story framed this way, and there is good reason to believe that a pope’s ability to participate in World Youth Day must constitute a determining factor in his ability to reign.
Pope Francis’s first major appearance on the international stage was at WYD in Rio de Janeiro in 2013, when he called young people to “make a mess” and proceeded to give shining example in this regard by his leadership of the Church over the following decade.
Pope Francis’s immediate predecessor, Benedict XVI, made the pope’s ability to be at WYD a necessary condition of remaining in office. “With the program set out by John Paul II for these World Youth Days,” Benedict told Italy’s La Repubblica in August of 2016, “the physical presence of the Pope was indispensable.” To hear Benedict tell it, he had a very hard time in Mexico in March of 2012, and realized he “would never be able to take part in the World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro,” as he explained in that same interview.
“From that day,” of realization, Benedict said, “I had to decide in a relatively short time the date I would step down.” I’ve wondered, out loud and in print, why that must be so. Pope Francis, in any case, has shown himself quite willing to part ways with his predecessors.
“I’m a free man, aren’t I—” Robert Graves’ Claudius was fond of saying, “In fact, one of the freest in Rome?” One can almost hear Pope Francis gleefully riffing on the early 20th-century classicist’s riff on the takes of Suetonius, Tacitus, and Plutarch on the unlikely first-century emperor.
Graves’ Claudius, by the way, is a fascinating character in his own right.
Graves’ Claudius was not personally debauched, and he loved good old-fashioned republican morals but found few in the city capable of the virtues necessary to the restoration of the republic he loved and many—among them his closest confidantes and advisors—personally corrupt and given to every manner of license. He desired to rule as a reformer, but most of his works were cosmetic and few of his attempts at real reform were wholehearted.
Graves’ Claudius liked to insult and browbeat and occasionally cajole the senate and other Roman institutional pillars, and he enjoyed presiding over law courts even though he had no real legal training or expertise.
Graves’ Claudius was ruthless when exercising his privy or autocratic powers and prerogatives. Claudius the emperor succeeded Caligula and preceded Nero.
Pope Francis has given several indications of his agreement with Benedict’s broad understanding of the event’s importance. He told young people gathered in the papal basilica of St. Mary Major before Rome’s diocesan WYD celebration in 2017, a full two years ahead of the global youth gathering in Panama: “I don’t know whether I will be there, but the Pope will be there!”
On the other hand, Pope Francis likes nothing better than a good feint, and has said lots of things and the opposite of those things during his ten years at the helm of Peter’s barque, and then gone on to do quite another thing besides.
When it comes to the question of what’s there is left in the Francis pontificate, all bets are off.
It isn’t so much a question of how long he’ll remain in office either—he could reign for ten years or ten days—but one of how much story there is to write. If his pontificate has taught us anything, it is that Francis has a will more adamantine than ferrous, and a willingness to play the earthly vicar of the “God of surprises” to the hilt. If this is the last act, expect it to feel long and to be twisty.
Way back in 2018—early in the year, just as the global crisis of clerical abuse and hierarchical coverup was exploding in Pope Francis’s lap, along with crises in China and at several points along the broad doctrinal front—I wondered whether Francis would bring his immense charisma and strength of personality to bear on the back-breaking work of real reform, or channel his efforts into a project that appeared then to have as its only overarching vision the remaking of Rome into a sort of Buenos Aires-on-Tiber.
By now, it is evident that the next guy will have plenty to do, but that was always going to be the way of it.
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The “opera ain’t over ’til the fat lady sings.”
The expression was first used by the sports writer, Dan Cook of the San Antonio News-Express, Texas, in 1976. That would be two years before the historic Pope St. John Paul II arrived on the world stage–the first non-Italian pope in 455 years. Historic in many ways and, therefore, still very much part of the future…
His Holiness Pope Francis is doing fine. He has a long way to go. Wishing the Holy Father strength and stamina at WYD Lisboa festivities and beyond.
I am sure you are not prognosticating as an MD, but only as a PhD.
And I do hope you’re not meaning to suggest that the author wishes ill to the Pontiff.
One need only look at the line up including infamous “Fr.” James Martin to know that if Rome hasn’t “lost the faith” as our Blessed Mother of Lasalette indicated it would; it is proverbially “playing with matches” and I would argue has been doing so for about 60 years now.
So?
Insightful! This thesis that the Pope’s presence in the World Youth Day determines his ability to exercise the Petrine ministry is one for ecclesiology books. In a different angle, it can be suggested that a people’s reception of this particular act of the Pope in some way be considered a measurement of its Catholicity. In this case, the 1995 WYD in Manila, Philippines in which St. Pope John Paul II had the biggest single gathering in his papacy (estimates vary from 5 million to 7 million) is a kind of thermostat of the Filipino’s (and those of the young people from around the world) Catholic faith.
I would rank Altieri’s composition in the category Failure to Launch. I actually read it three times trying to give it a push start but it sputters and dies each time. At least it wasn’t lengthy. Your comment was worth it like Fr. Morello’s and a couple of the others.
Anything less than the FULL proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is simply Satan busy at work.
“Obama has frequently paraphrased Martin Luther King’s statement that ‘the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.’ King, in turn, was paraphrasing the 19th-century abolitionist Theodore Parker” (The Arc of History Doesn’t Always Bend Toward Justice Michael Barone Nov 23 2016 Washington Examiner).
Where Altieri’s pontifical Arc bends is summed up in his bottom line, “It is evident that the next guy will have plenty to do, but that was always going to be the way of it”. Whether Pope Francis has created Buenos Aires on the Tiber Altieri admits Francis has done little to address the clerical sex scandal. Should the take be left there, or is there ample indication that it may well be a matter of design rather than administrative incompetence? Perhaps Byzantium on the Tiber is also suitable, where intrigue underlies every word and act.
Not understanding the distinction between a will of ferrous and a will of adamantine, without a periodic table in my kitchen, I reserved a seat at Bing Chat. I ordered Chemistry 101 and was served:
“Ferrous materials are those that contain iron, while adamantine is a fictional metal alloy that is indestructible and most famously appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics1. According to Dungeons & Dragons Lore Wiki, adamant is hard but brittle, and is alloyed with silver and electrum to make adamantine2.”
“Electrum is one of the most popular Bitcoin wallets. Electrum is fast, secure and easy to use. It suits the needs of a wide spectrum of users.”
A totally different source informed that Judas knows where to get silver.
Thank you Christopher. You are definitely onto something with the Claudius comparison. According to Seneca, Claudius ended by soiling himself and moaning: “O dear, I’ve made a mess of it.” Too bad the poor man wasn’t in diapers like our morality.
You are onto something with the Claudius comparison. According to Seneca, Claudius ended his reign by soiling himself and moaning: “O dear, I’ve made a mess!” Too bad the poor man wasn’t wearing a diaper like our morality.
This made me laugh out loud a couple of times. Who knows what’s going on with this pope? All bets are off, and have been for a while now. “…when he called young people to “make a mess” and proceeded to give shining example in this regard by his leadership of the Church over the following decade” — indeed!