Pope Francis is reaching out to people more than any of his predecessors and in doing so radically changing how people see the Catholic church
Emerging from his modest Vatican apartment Pope Francis said a cheery “Good morning” to the young soldier posted outside his door.
As the Swiss Guard in his multi-coloured Renaissance uniform and feathered helmet stood to attention, the 77-year-old Pontiff stopped in his tracks, spun round and peered at his pale face in alarm.
He realised it was the same guard who had saluted him when he went to bed the evening before and that he had been standing outside his door all night.
“Sit down at once!” said the Pope, ushering him towards a chair.
“I can’t, it’s against orders,” replied the guardsman.
“I give the orders around here,” replied Pope Francis, before fetching a cappuccino to revive the exhausted guardsman.
It’s another of the touching human gestures the world has come to expect from Jorge Mario Bergoglio from Argentina, the People’s Pope. But it was also a sign that he is prepared to shake up every aspect of life in the Vatican.
When the Archbishop of Buenos Aires was elected Supreme Pontiff in March 2013 he shunned the red ermine-trimmed papal cape and bejewelled crucifix for a plain white cassock and wooden cross.
The football-loving ex-janitor and nightclub bouncer swapped the white papal Mercedes for a blue Ford Focus. He auctioned off his Harley Davidson motorbike and gave the money to a soup kitchen.
The Jesuit priest’s humility, humour and human touch have won him admirers around the world.
But his reforming zeal has made enemies among the Catholic church’s ultra-conservative governing body the Curia, who are conspiring to block his changes.
And that, insiders say, is why the gentle, jovial Pontiff is now showing exactly who gives the orders. He was so appalled by the treatment of his all-night sentry that on Wednesday he sacked his boss.
Colonel Daniel Anrig, 42, got his marching orders after eight years as head of the 110-strong Swiss Guard, the Pope’s private army. The Pope is said to have found him overly strict and “unbrotherly”.
After shunning the Vatican’s grand papal apartment to live in two rooms in a guest house in the grounds, he was also said to be angry that Colonel Anrig had refurbished a luxurious penthouse above the barracks for his own family.
Vatican watchers say the Pope is determined to defeat the conservative cardinals and bishops working against him to create “a poor church for the poor”.
Last year he sacked Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst, the Bishop of Limburg in Germany, who spent more than £2.5million of church funds on new private quarters and took a first-class flight to India on holiday.
And in June he fired the entire board of the Holy City’s financial watchdog as part of his drive to clean up the Vatican bank.
The Australian Cardinal he appointed to probe the Holy See’s coffers this week revealed he has found hundreds of millions stashed in secret accounts not on the official balance sheet. The new Pope also announced a zero-tolerance policy towards predatory paedophile priests. In September he sacked a South American bishop who protected a priest accused of sexual misconduct and ordered the trial of a Polish archbishop accused of assaulting boys.
He also wants to forge ahead with reforms to church teaching on divorce and homosexuality. He is still firmly opposed to gay marriage and defends the Church’s position that homosexual acts are sinful but homosexual orientation is not.
But when asked about gay priests within the Vatican he said: “Who am I to judge a gay person of goodwill who seeks the Lord? You can’t marginalise these people.”
It was the first time a Pope had even used the word gay in public.
John Sullivan, Professor of Christian education at Liverpool Hope University, said recently: “Pope Francis has made many gestures and said many wonderful things that indicate his desire for a different style of church. Not changing its substance but changing its voice and quality of listening.”
He has changed its look too, ditching the hand-made red calf-skin shoes and Cartier watches favoured by his predecessor Benedict XVI. After his election he called his cobbler in Argentina to ask about a shoe repair, saying he’d be sticking with his old black footwear.
It was the first of many papal “cold calls” that left the recipients stunned, like his old newsagent in Buenos Aires who got an apologetic call asking him to cancel the papers. The Pope also called an Italian engineer (who’d written to him worrying about finding work), an Argentinian rape victim and a murder victim’s brother.
He telephoned a pregnant divorcee who felt under pressure to have an abortion.
“Hello Anna, this is Pope Francis,” he said, before comforting her and offering to baptise her baby.
Last New Year’s Eve he phoned an order of Carmelite sisters in Spain, but got their answerphone. “What can the nuns be doing that stops them answering the phone?” he said with a chuckle.
“This is Pope Francis, I wanted to give you New Year’s greetings. I’ll see if I can reach you later. God bless you.”
He wrote to friend in Argentina: “I’m visible to people and I lead a normal life. All this is good for me and prevents me from being isolated. I’m trying to stay the same and to act as I did in Buenos Aires because if you change at my age you just look ridiculous.”
But the things he can’t change, he embraces, like the public masses when he drives around St Peter’s Square in his Popemobile, the bulletproof glass removed so he can reach out to the faithful. He gave a teenage boy with Downs Syndrome the ride of his life by inviting him up into the vehicle and spinning him round on the seat. He wept with joy when Brazilian schoolboy Nathan de Brito, broke through barriers and jumped up to tell him he wanted to be a priest.
And a year ago the Pope was pictured hugging Vinicio Riva, a 52-year-old Italian horribly disfigured by huge tumours.
Afterwards Vinicio said: “He did not even think about whether or not to hug me. I’m not contagious but he did not know that. He just did it – he caressed me all over my face. And as he did I felt only love.”
The Pope never ceases to surprise the world, whether larking about in a fireman’s helmet so the fire crew can take photos, visiting homeless hostels for breakfast or telling mums waiting for baptisms that’s it’s fine to breastfeed in the Sistine Chapel.
Former Catholic Herald editor Peter Stanford said: “In Francis the Catholic church has finally found someone who can communicate directly in word and deed with people, be they religious or not.”
Source: Mirror
