Father Georg, Pope Francis and that Vatican between dissing and soap opera

It was October 22, 1978 and since his first mass as pope in St. Peter's Square, John Paul II made the Catholic church a mass phenomenon. But as we know, the camera with its zoom can narrow an imaginary. Francis, however, elected pope on an afternoon illuminated by smartphones, expanded that story, making the Vatican the ideal backdrop for an on-demand series, to be looped or rewinded at will. Thus the story becomes a report where, once the curtain is raised backstage, the stage backdrop falls and the Vatican becomes the perfect set for a soap opera. It happened with Monsignor Georg Gänsweinthe Pope's former personal secretary Benedict XVIin the role of villain for having published a book critical of the Pope – «he tore me to pieces» confessed Francis, using a strong Spanish expression «It puts me on tour and average» -, who would have been pardoned by the pontiff himself with the role of apostolic nuncio, as Elisabetta Piqué recounts on The Nationan Argentine newspaper.

Vatican Netflix

It's just the latest twist in a serialized series that peaked a week ago with the release of two unconventional biographies of the pope, released within a few days of each other: LIFE edited by Fabio Marchese Ragona, published in Italy for HarperCollins and El Sucesor edited by Javier Martinez Brocal, published in Spain by Editorial Planeta. Two biographical accounts developed as an extensive interview with the pontiff: a genre, apparently, much loved by Francis and his interviewers since his first conversation given to the former director of La Civiltà Cattolica, the Jesuit Antonio Spadaro. These are almost always stories full of anecdotes. In the two books, for example, the pope gives extensive details of the Conclave that elected him. He can do it, as he explains it El Sucesor: «The cardinals swear not to reveal what happens in the conclave, but the popes have license to tell it». But recounting the mechanisms and revealing the background of that last frontier of the pontifical mystery which is the election of a Catholic pope, what weight does the «Fuori tutti» pronounced by the master of pontifical celebrations who locks up the Conclave have?

What happened to the Council?

In LIFE the story of Pope Francis unfolds and develops in the folds of larger historical events, from the moon landing to the attack on the Twin Towers, passing through the fall of the Berlin Wall. Bergoglio is keen to describe himself as a more or less attentive spectator of history. The moon landing seen on television fades before a divine macro-vision of events and in Bergoglio's eyes discoveries or attacks make sense if read with fatalism. There is no space, however, for the event in which the Catholic Church and history intertwined: the Second Vatican Council. The great ecumenical meeting of the church opened by John XXIII and closed by Paul VI in the wake of the sexual liberation movements of 1968, is not even considered as the watershed event that it was for the church. Pope Francis, who recognizes his predecessor Ratzinger's teachings in the magazine Communio, critical of the post-conciliar church's openness, does not appear to be the «progressive» that we know. On the other hand, his mentor, the archbishop of La Plata Antonio Quarracino – whom he mentions several times – in the 1980s had become one of the voices most reluctant to the change wanted by the Council: leading the campaign against the
divorce in Argentina, opposed sex education in schools.

Bergoglio's dark period

In the two books, Pope Francis says little about his dark period, which he himself defines «destierro», «exile». In 1990 the Jesuit provincials sent him 700 kilometers from Buenos Aires. In LIFE the pope confesses: «At that time I lived with a period of almost defeat in my heart, since I didn't quite understand why I had been sent there by my superiors, but accepting that decision with obedience». No mention, for example, of the friction with his superiors. The Argentine historian Marcelo Larraquy in Código Francisco (Southamerican, 2016) says that Bergoglio was kicked out of the Colegio Máximo on 16 July 1990, shortly before his 54th birthday. He remained in exile in Córdoba until May 1992, when John Paul II appointed him auxiliary bishop of Buenos Aires. According to Larraquy, in those years Bergoglio “in silence, with his head down and with a serious face, he passed everywhere as if he were afflicted by some illness or in a depressive state”. Yet, Francis does not hold back much longer, he simply brands as slander those spread by some of his brothers, just as he will do once elected pope when, returning from a delicate surgical operation at Gemelli, he declares himself bitter towards the cardinals who gave him for dead.

Latin Americans and the Curia

If in the description of those years Francesco does not give details, the opposite happens with the Conclave who elected him pope. In the two biographical stories, Bergoglio recounts those days as a path almost dictated by the branch of Latin American cardinals, towards whom the Curia of Rome had always remained sceptical. Going backwards, Francis explains that on 14 October 2005, together with the Chilean Cardinal Francisco Javier Errázuriz and the Brazilian Cardinal Cláudio Hummes, he asked for an audience with Pope Benedict XVI to convince him to participate in the Conference of Latin American Churches of Aparecida, after he had initially refused the proposal: «From the outside we had the impression that the Curia had closed the issue and there was nothing left to do […]. They had framed him here » he says El Sucesor. It is the Pope himself who describes Roman skepticism towards the Latin American church.

There appears, therefore, a law of retaliation which in the story of that 13 March 2013 which ended with his election, Francis remembers as protagonists not so much the European cardinals, but those of his continent: Cardinal Jaime Ortega y Alamino, archbishop of Havana, who asks him for a copy of the speech given during the general congregations, the aforementioned Chilean cardinal Francisco Errázuriz, archbishop emeritus of Santiago de Chile, who presses him on the preparation of a potential speech post-election, Cardinal Santos Abril y Castelló, former apostolic nuncio to Argentina, who requests more detailed information on his health. Finally, his friend and Brazilian cardinal Cláudio Hummes, who inspired his name as pope when, when the count was almost finished, he
he invited us to remember the poor.

Francesco and Georg: Vatican dissing

This difficult relationship between the Roman Curia and Latin America takes shape in the turbulent relationship between Pope Francis and the personal secretary of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, Msgr. Georg Gänswein. In the Bavarian bishop's book published last year** Nothing but the truth** (Piemme, 2023), some details emerge about a not exactly merciful temperament of Pope Francis, who for example he demoted him from the position of secretary for the case of Cardinal Sarah's book on priestly celibacy, of which Ratzinger was presented as co-author, and which was perceived as an attack on Francis' alleged overtures. To Father Georg's wealth of details, which could even have been spared if the premise of the book was not to arouse controversy, a year later the pontiff responded without mincing words. Even though he doesn't mention it directly in the book El Sucesor he is referring to him when he says: «The fact that on the day of the funeral a book was published that tore me to pieces, telling things that were not true, was very sad. Of course, it didn't affect me in the sense that it affected me. But I was saddened that Benedetto had been used […]. I experienced it as a lack of nobility and humanity.” But Francis does not limit himself to this. Remembering the mild character of Benedict XVI, he focuses on the “cordon of protection” that surrounded him and which, despite his good intentions, could cut off oxygen. The relationship between the Pope Emeritus and the reigning Pope is described by Francis as the search for a balance between spaces, not just physical ones.

The paternalism of the pope

According to the author of the book El Sucesor, this search for balance between the two popes – according to Bergoglio's vision – did not, however, interrupt a narrative of the Vatican as a “nest of snakes fighting for power” or the “caricature of two popes who lived in opposition”. Certainly, this book and that of Father Georg do not help to dispel doubts. But this time the author tries to draw attention to the approach of Francis, who trained in the school of Romano Guardini, the German-Italian theologian of the church as coincidentia oppositorumthat is, the place that holds tensions together and does not flatten them. A vision of the church that holds together everything, black and white: but which inevitably clashes with the contemporary world when the church led by Pope Francis tries to enter into dialogue with the aspirations of a secular society. The pontiff's positions on abortion are even more orthodox. In LIFE states: «I will never tire of saying that abortion is murder, a criminal act» defining those who practice it «hired killers, hitmen!», equating the companies that produce abortifacient drugs to those of weapons.

Pope Francis' ethical vision does not depart from a sometimes moralistic evaluation of society nor does it take into account the suffering often generated by some choices. When, for example, he talks about retirement homes, he does not criticize society's indifference towards elderly people, but the choices of children who, caught between work and family, simply need caregivers or assistance: «Grandparents and grandmothers are a very precious source that must be taken care of, which must be safeguarded and not deposited in a hospice” says the Pope, with accents of paternalism.

The Pope and the acronym

In both books it is interesting how the Pope addresses the theme of people LGBT+, not just believers. Francis' relationship with queer believers is a relationship that has never been completely resolved. The apostolic declaration on the blessing of irregular couples from last December Trust Supplicans and the subsequent clarification signed by Cardinal Víctor Fernandez in a note published only a few weeks later by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, shows Francis' ambiguity on the issue. The intransigence of Pope Benedict XVI, which resolved the confrontation of the Catholic institution with today's world in a clear closure, today has not been completely cleared by Francis.

The last statement Infinite Dignitas, for example, brands sex change and the alleged gender theory as serious threats to the dignity of human beings. But then why does the Pope, who approves such a text, then use the acronym LGBT in the interview published on LIFE? If “sex change, as a rule, risks threatening the unique dignity that the person has received from the moment of conception” as stated Infinite Dignitas, which leverages the transsexual condition as a sin, then what sense does it make for the Pope to use an acronym which, by its very use, underlines that the transgender identity is a condition with its own dignity that must be recognized? Furthermore, the text is in contradiction with what the same ministry had stated last November with the document on the participation of trans and homo-affective people in the sacraments of baptism and marriage.

Francesco's entire narrative moves on these basic ubiquities does not tolerate
chatter only to then fuel it. The last episode, that of the fall, is presumed
redemption of Father Georg, is part of this storytelling. And the narrator on duty, who
always figures as a friend of the pontiff, he is ready for a new declaration, surrounded
of details but far from the central core. That's the subject of the next plot, as one
any soap opera.