Pope Francis and the Challenges of the Jubilee

Pope Francis will begin the Holy Year on December 24 with the opening of the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica. Francis’s desire for the Year is to see it unfold under the sign of hope: Spes non Confundit—“Hope does not disappoint”– is the opening sentence and the title of the special instrument by which he established and declared the Ordinary Jubilee, so-called because it is a regular recurrence once every quarter-century.

In Spes non confundit, there are many themes Pope Francis considers important: from caring for the least to canceling the debt of poor countries, from pardoning prisoners to caring for the environment, to the crucial and central hope for peace, Pope Francis has set ambitious and concrete goals for the Holy Year.

But what are his goals regarding the government of the Church? Which Pope and which Curia are entering this Holy Year?

First, we have a pontificate that is experiencing its final transition. In the eleventh year of his pontificate and the second since the death of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, Francis is now playing with his cards on the table and without any hesitation. At the beginning of his pontificate, Pope Francis limited himself to changing the balance of power, as is customary, but tried not to give the impression of a real revolution.

A certain continuity initially characterized the appointments Pope Francis made to key Curial positions. He gave some spoils, but mostly to positions seen from Rome as belonging to the second or third tier.

In essence, however, Pope Francis, in the earliest phase of his pontificate, mostly either circumvented or short-circuited the established modes and orders of government by setting up an informal parallel Curia.

In the beginning, there were commissions (for the IOR, the administration, and even two for communication). There were men of trust in some positions that became—on paper—stable with the revolutionary reform of the Curia, but only several years into Francis’s reign.

Grosso modo, as the Italians say—broadly and generally speaking, that is–Pope Francis made it so power no longer resided in any particular Vatican office but in proximity to the pontiff himself. At the same time, he mostly preserved the institutional channels at least formally.

Pope Francis has implemented a different paradigm in the last two years.

With the arrival of Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernandez as prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Pope Francis has, in fact, concretely institutionalized and effectively governed his style, modus operandi, and ideas. Since Fernandez’s appointment, a succession of government or para-government decisions has demonstrated a new face of the pontificate.

To name some examples: the Fiducia Supplicans, which caused a compact revolt by entire episcopates; the reform of the vicariate of Rome, which removed power from the Pope’s vicar and instead placed more power on the Pope himself; the appointment of the new vicar by proclamation, while Pope Francis announced his name on the list of new cardinals; the asymmetric appointments at the head of the dicasteries; the dismantling of the diocese of Rome, with three auxiliaries sent to peripheral dioceses, the disappearance of the historic center sector, the new formula of episcopal vicars who replaced the bishops.

Pope Francis does not need a parallel Curia at this point, nor does he require structures that can advance his notions through the kind of more-or-less public discussion that gave, for a while at least, a semblance of collegiality (if not “democracy”) to the Pope’s own directions.

Even the Synod of Bishops, which is no longer made up of bishops alone, has become a mere assembly to which the Pope gives the honor of accepting the final document and at the same time the displeasure of not allowing it to decide anything.

When Pope Francis merely accepted the late Assembly’s recent Final Document and ordered it published, he was not empowering but neutering the Synod Fathers. In case anyone was fuzzy on the point, he brought out the actual real-life Chair of Peter to clarify it.

Pope Francis enters the Jubilee Year, therefore, with the full weight of his responsibilities for every choice. There is a new Vatican, with new rites and protocols born in the pontificate’s extemporaneity and in the “reform on the go.” Everything still needs to be deciphered, and the completeness of the information is intelligible only to the Pope.

Thus, we enter the Holy Year with a Church government that has never been so divided.

On the one hand, there is the awareness that there was an absolute need for reforms, just as there was a need for a shake-up in an environment now saturated with ancient logic. On the other hand, however, there is the profound risk of an identity crisis combined with a crisis of rejection.

Pope Francis has not faced resistance to reforms, at least at the beginning of his pontificate. He has faced criticism but not resistance. There was a Vatican world enthusiastic about serving the new Pope. This enthusiasm, in many cases, has been lacking.

Pope Francis enters the Jubilee Year to restore enthusiasm and weight to the Vatican world. This is a very difficult task, considering that in recent years—and in these last two months—there have been measures that have not been made public and discussed. Archbishops have been sent home and forced to leave their apartments in less than twenty days, cardinals no longer receive their life pensions without reason, and butlers have been suddenly transferred.

Will Pope Francis be able to look inside his Curia, or will his attention be turned only to the outside world?

As we write, previews of Pope Francis’s latest autobiography, Spera, have been released on Pope’s 88th birthday. This is Pope Francis’s third autobiography in the last three years. Among the most striking passages is the one in which the Pope recounts that in Iraq, there were two attackers ready to put his life in danger and that both would be neutralized, one even blown up.

This story tells that even the Pope’s bodyguard had to kill to protect the pontiff. However, the impression this story gives in Ukraine is more complex. One wonders why the Pope accepts that people kill to protect him but does not accept that Ukraine responds to Russian attacks to protect its own life.

The Pope’s positions on the issue are indeed more complex and nuanced, but it is also true that the Pope’s message has triggered the reaction. Will Pope Francis develop an approach to war and peace that is not just about the utopia of a ceasefire without consequences? The Pope is calling for a truce in the Holy Land, in Ukraine, and everywhere, and he is right because he respects his mission. But the way he calls for it changes the fate of wars and the world.

Will Pope Francis be able to give the Church hope of a Vatican that is finally not divided?

It is easier said than done, not least because the Vatican is a village and because Pope Francis himself divides people into two categories: those who are with him and those who are against him.

Finally, will Pope Francis be able to give hope to those who have been tried in the Vatican? Will he be able to guarantee a fair and just trial? In the case of the prosecution on managing the funds of the Secretariat of State, this was not the case. The Pope intervened four times, and the sentence even identifies specific crimes without a particular case of the crime itself (for example, embezzlement contested, even admitting that there were no personal gains).

The defendants’ appeal should begin precisely during the Jubilee, will the defendants be able to find justice?

These are some of the challenges that the Pope is facing.

We await Pope Francis’s historic journey, in May of the coming year, to Nicaea to commemorate the 1700th anniversary of the first ecumenical council. And there, during that journey, in that ecumenical atmosphere, we could realize that the transition of Pope Francis is over.

From a man of government with a refined political mindset to the leader maximo of the Church. As was his intention from the beginning.