The death of Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who ascended to the throne of Peter
with the name of Francis, has aroused emotion and shared grief on thepart of many for his human qualities and the interest of the various
political parties that have placed the emphasis on those aspects of his
pontificate related to the issues most congenial to them, carrying out a
disgusting work of scavenging to attribute to themselves the consensus
that surrounded him. The fact is that Jorge Mario Bergoglio, in addition
to being a Pope, was a fine politician: therefore his positions and
actions, to be understood and comprehended, deserve a reasoned analysis.
The Pope is an absolute sovereign who governs a complex organism - the
Catholic Church - of a multinational nature spread across all
continents, which considers itself the custodian of the task of caring
not only for the health of the souls of the faithful, but also of
indicating to them the best life choices, through the careful management
of a catalog of values of which he considers himself the custodian and
custodian. For this reason, Catholicism has taken it upon itself to
develop, starting from the second half of the nineteenth century, the
social doctrine of the Church, which contains the principles that should
guide the just government of States for a better management of society
and in order to prevent social conflict. Bergoglio was one of those
Popes who played an important role, we dare say fundamental, in
reviewing and updating the social doctrine of the Church and its vision
of the world and giving the political action of the sovereign who
manages the universal Catholic Church a propulsive role in promoting the
needs, the requirements, the necessities, of the South of the world, of
the poorest and most deprived part of the planet, of the last, aware
that the lack of balance in the distribution of wealth not only within
States but between States is the primary cause of disorder in the
management of societies and at the same time can produce the collapse of
every institution of government, war, violating the social order, the
maintenance of which, which is one of the objectives of the Church, a
task that in other times we would have very clearly defined as the
containment of class struggle and the subversion of the institutions of
domination. The social doctrine of the Church supports the collaboration
between capital and labor, preaching a prudent use of wealth, the right
to a "low but fair" salary, the overcoming of inequalities, opposing the
policy of exploitation that the late pontiff defined as "of waste."
Hence the solidarity towards migrants, the poor, the disinherited, and
the policies of plunder of a capitalism and a market without rules that
do not accept limits to private property that instead, according to the
social doctrine of the Church, must maintain its social purpose. His
Peronist political education led him to adopt a strategy and make
international political choices consistent with the vision of this
movement, continually reviewing and updating it and at the same time
bending it to the social doctrine of the Church, implementing a graft of
analysis of the new political and social scenarios that characterize the
globalized world. Bergoglio noted the end of globalization and the rise
of multipolarism by approaching the attempts to rebirth empires,
considering them all on the same level, without preferring any. Only in
this way was Bergoglio able to consistently oppose liberation theology,
arguing in Latin America that there was another way to the emancipation
of the dispossessed classes of the populations and the liberation from
American imperialism, a way that has walked in parallel with many
left-wing movements in the Latin American continent. This strategic
choice has allowed the Jesuit Bergoglio to lead and win the
confrontation with those who had been conquered by liberation theology
and by the hybridization with Marxist hypotheses and strategies,
fighting at the same time a coherent battle against the penetrations and
crimes of US imperialism in Latin America, the spread of evangelical
Protestant sects both in Latin America and in Africa, built and
developed by the CIA and the US secret services through multifaceted
instruments of financing and economic and cultural penetration. To lead
this battle, Bergoglio acquired that knowledge of analysis on the
problems of creation that allowed his thought to enrich the social
doctrine of the Church with a vision that took into account problems
such as the climate crisis, the demographic crisis, the growing hardship
of the populations of the South of the world, placing attention and
valorizing the cultures of indigenous peoples, once he assumed the
office of pontiff, dedicating extreme attention to the problems of
peace, which emerged as the true and profound reason for the crisis of
this historical phase. This background allowed him to develop the
"Laudato sii", condensing the updating of the doctrine of the Church in
a document that constitutes an undoubted testimony to the depth and
modernity of Catholic social thought.
Bergoglio is the custodian of a complex political thought especially on
the doctrinal and theoretical level that deserves careful analysis and
for which a greater space is certainly needed than that available here.
The Pope King
But Bergoglio was also the absolute sovereign of the Vatican City State,
as well as the Supreme Pontiff, and as such he had to govern the Church
in a very difficult moment in its history after a criminal, as well as
sanctified, Pope had plotted the most shady economic relationships in
order to finance Polish unions opposed to the regime, and a former young
Wehrmacht soldier had preached the cultural war on Islam. Historians,
re-examining the documents, will probably tell us that in this task he
did an excellent job, putting an end to the speculations of the IOR,
whose direction was restructured and entrusted to a Jesuit he trusted,
limiting the financial speculations of the Holy See, freeing the Church
of Rome from dependence on the financial support of the German clergy,
fighting the lobby supporting a comprehensive policy towards paedophilia
among a large part of the clergy.
His Third Worldism led him to take a resolute stance against much of the
North American clergy, contaminated by influences from the "theology of
prosperity," advocated by North American Protestantism.
This choice materialized in a profound restructuring of the College of
Cardinals with the appointment of cardinals from the most remote
dioceses in the world, so much so that today this is the majority
component that characterizes the Conclave that will have to elect his
successor. Rather than valorizing the role of the big cities, of the
large and rich dioceses, custodians of the cardinal power, Bergoglio has
favored the peripheries, strengthened the roles and functions of the
Episcopal Conferences that have absorbed more and more functions and
powers so much so that today the Catholic Church is a complex and
decentralized organism on the territories especially in the South of the
world, which constitutes the main growth basin not only of the faithful,
but above all of the new clergy, given that priestly vocations in the
old continent and in North America are in free fall. The evolution of
the international political situation has enhanced the role of the
Episcopal Conferences, which have grown in competence also with respect
to the tasks of the Curia, which has been significantly downsized, thus
taking note of the evolution of the dynamics of relations between the
States and the national Churches. This explains the decrease in the
number of Congestori, which is reflected in the lack of knowledge among
the cardinals from different parts of the world.
As a great communicator, Bergoglio has renewed the image of the Church,
subjecting the life of the clergy to transparent rules, he has
strengthened and cultivated relationships and dialogue with the secular
world, with culture, adopted an intelligent policy of relations with the
media, never forgetting to reiterate and return to what he considered
the cornerstones of his activity as pontiff, in addition of course to
pastoral activity: the protection of the least, the fight for peace.
The geopolitical role
The fight against wars has absorbed most of the forces and energies of
this Pope. Today, analysts and politicians, even if aligned with the
most diverse positions, recognize Bergoglio's intuition in identifying
what he defined as the third world war in pieces. In the new multipolar
balance, the head of the Catholic Church has made no distinction between
the different empires, fighting and opposing all contenders equally,
indeed seeking and cultivating the stabilization of relations with those
furthest from the Holy See such as China.
The pontiff has not missed an opportunity to speak out against all wars,
even the most remote and forgotten, and has forcefully made his
condemnation of what is happening in Gaza heard. He had the courage to
define the genocide of the Palestinian people, while not denying the
responsibility for the actions of Hamas. This position of his translated
into an open hostility towards the Zionist State that was reflected in
the lack of condolences for his death on the orders of Netanyahu. His
position was so clear and unequivocal that whoever the future pontiff
is, it will be difficult to withdraw from this condemnation.
More complex was the position he took towards the Ukrainian conflict, of
which he identified with lucidity and clarity the causes and with
respect to which his action, even if apparently ineffective, had the
effect of providing a solution to the return of children transferred to
Russia and to the reunification of families as well as establishing the
procedures for the return of bodies and the exchange of prisoners;
procedures that have become customary and repeated. In the task of
promoting peace, Bergoglio was the only voice in international politics
that, with clarity and coherence, since the beginning of the conflict,
proposed negotiations for a ceasefire and to reach a peace between the
parties. In particular, this position led the pontiff to oppose above
all the actions of the warmongering European governments, governed by a
foolish and inept political class, which avoided proposing a truce and
peace, preferring to side with a victorious war against Russia. There is
no doubt that Bergoglio's death leaves a void, also and above all on the
political level for all those who look to peace negotiations as the only
possible solution to conflicts and there is no doubt that many will miss
the Bergoglio who, far from limiting himself to taking positions and
appeals, passed the facts with concrete support to the NGO Mediterranea
dedicated to the salvation of migrants or by sending his personal
almoner to support the families occupying a building in Rome, personally
reconnecting the electricity to the occupied building. On these lines of
action before political ones, Bergoglio fought to unify and direct the
action of the Catholic Church and to give it a mission of peace in the
world.
Gianni Cimbalo
https://www.ucadi.org/2025/04/28/jorge-mario-bergoglio/
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