As he ended a question-and-answer session on Saturday, Pope Francis made a revealing remark. After asking for prayers, he said with a laugh: “This job is not easy.” Earlier that week the Pontiff had set off what journalists like to call a “social media firestorm”. In an improvised address, he had suggested that “a great majority” of Catholic weddings were, in fact, invalid. As uproar began to spread, he authorised a change in the official Italian transcript of his address, replacing “a great majority” with “a portion”.
The incident seemed like a microcosm of this still young pontificate: a seemingly revolutionary statement, followed by an internet backlash and a rapid reversal. If this pattern irks us, we should consider Francis’s point that being Pope is far from easy. Think of the characteristics that we take for granted in a Bishop of Rome today. He must be a guardian of faith, reformer, theologian, preacher, pastor, liturgist, spiritual father, global statesman, polyglot, motivator and hugger-in-chief. Those are just the basics: we demand much else besides.
It ought to go without saying that no pope can excel in all areas. But we’ve had such impressive popes in the past century that we’ve come to expect little short of perfection. Yet all popes have had weaknesses. It is said that Pius XII was aloof, John XXIII a gourmand,
Paul VI indecisive, John Paul I anxious, John Paul II short-tempered and Benedict XVI timid. These alleged faults are arguably nothing compared to those of St Peter, the first pope, who consistently misunderstood Jesus and then, at the crucial moment, denied him three times. “To depict the pope as a sort of superman, a sort of star, seems offensive to me,” Francis said in March 2014. “The pope is a man who laughs, cries, sleeps tranquilly and has friends like everyone else, a normal person.”
If the pope is not a kind of spiritual superman, what is he? As the Catechism explains, Peter’s successor “is the perpetual and visible source and foundation of the unity both of the bishops and of the whole company of the faithful”. As the Vicar of Christ and pastor of the entire Church, he has “full, supreme and universal power over the whole Church, a power which he can always exercise unhindered”.
A pope has these qualities regardless of personal strengths and weaknesses. Our subjective opinion of a particular pope is, therefore, essentially irrelevant: the objective nature of the office is what matters. For a contemporary illustration of this point, look at the Pan-Orthodox Council meeting in Crete this week. The gathering was supposed to bring together the world’s Orthodox leaders. But despite half a century of planning, a number refused to attend at the last minute, underlining the lack of a unifying figure within Orthodoxy.
It’s significant that, before he said that being pope was not easy last Saturday, Francis asked for prayers. “Reza por mi” – “pray for me” – has been his consistent refrain since his election. He asks almost everyone he encounters, from families in Rio’s favelas to Queen Elizabeth II, to pray for him. If we critique the Pope more than we pray for him, then it is we who need to change. To adapt the words of John F Kennedy, don’t ask what the Pope can do for you; ask what you can do for the Pope.
Why Armenia matters
Today the Pope will begin his visit to Armenia, in what may turn out to be one of his most fruitful trips abroad.
Far from being a faraway country of which we know nothing, Armenia has long been of interest to this magazine, being the oldest Christian nation in existence, converted by St Gregory the Illuminator in the early 4th century, as well as being, thanks to the genocide of 1915, the nation that has suffered more martyrdoms in odium of the faith than any other.
Pope Francis will be welcomed by the Armenian president, Serzh Sargsyan, and the head of the Armenian Apostolic Church, Karekin II, both of whom have visited the Vatican. It is notable that the Pope will be taking part in joint acts of worship with the Catholicos of All Armenians.
This warm welcome extended to the Holy Father is a sign of the good relations between the Catholic Church and the Armenian Apostolic Church. This is in sad contrast to the relations between the Catholic Church and many Orthodox Churches, as the recent council in Crete makes clear.
The Armenian Church, it should be noted, is not in communion with the Eastern Orthodox Churches, but is usually classed as an Oriental Orthodox Church, one of the Churches that does not accept the legitimacy of the Council of Chalcedon, though this doctrinal rift has been healed by more recent agreed theological statements.
One of the things that Pope Francis will undoubtedly make clear to the Armenians is that the Catholic Church longs for the restoration of unity, and that Catholics everywhere are deeply appreciative of the history, culture and heroism of the Armenian people.
Armenian Catholics, of whom there are not a few, both in the diaspora and at home, will be looking towards this visit with great interest and hope. And so should the rest of us as well.
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