Pope Francis, a pontificate of gestures?

During his trip to Indonesia, Pope Francis bent down to kiss the hand of the Grand Imam of the Istiqlal Mosque, the largest in Asia. The gesture of kissing the Imam’s hand is just the latest in a series of dramatic gestures by Pope Francis, who often takes advantage of the cameras to leave his mark.

No one has forgotten when the Pope bent down to kiss the feet of South Sudan’s warlords, who had accepted his and the Archbishop of Canterbury’s invitation to gather in the Vatican for a prayer retreat.

Just so no one forgets, the Pope dramatically kisses the enkolpion, the icon around the neck of every Orthodox bishop, to show reverence and devotion.

But Pope Francis has gone even further.

He donated a relic of Saint Peter to the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew. He started a real “diplomacy of relics” when he accepted the translation of a relic of Saint Nicholas to Russia for the veneration of the Orthodox faithful. Pope Francis sent the relics of Saint Philip to Smyrna (another gift to the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople), and relics of Sts. Potitus and Clement to the Patriarch Neophyte of Bulgaria.

These are just some of the striking gestures carried out by Pope Francis during his pontificate.

However, we must also consider a series of even more different gestures to show the Pope as a man equal to others. His decision, for example, to have his Argentine passport renewed. The Pope doesn’t need a passport, since he is the sovereign ruler of an independent state. Other examples—different in degree and kind—are his surprise outings for things like new eyeglasses or an orthopedic visit, or even to go record shopping. Then there are his habits, like showing up with worn shoes and the cuffs of his white cassock unstitched, to signal a sort of humility and poverty in his choices.

The truth is that Pope Francis speaks through these gestures, thus building his pontificate and managing its image.

It was evident from Day One of this pontificate: The Pope went to pay his bill at the hotel where he had stayed before the conclave, a Vatican structure owned by the Holy See; then he went to Santa Maria Maggiore, inaugurating the first of a series of trips; then he made it known that he would continue to use his silver cross, thus launching the idea that he was a Pope who would do without luxury.

Only some things worked out.

The choice not to live in the Apostolic Palace was later explained as a personal choice and not connected to the (non-existent) luxury of the place. Some critical lines in the narration of the pontificate – such as “the carnival is over,” which he is said to have exclaimed while refusing to wear the mozzetta before going out for his first blessing as Pope – have been scaled down. The pontificate of Pope Francis itself has experienced narrative highs and lows, and it cannot be denied that the highs are the result of happy narratives, and the lows are the result of situations in which the narratives ultimately didn’t get the job done.

Pope Francis’s pontificate is one of narrative and gestures. Gestures, however, do not serve only to create a narrative. Instead, they make a narrative while Pope Francis acts the way he prefers.

The gestures of the pontificate are not part of a pontificate of gestures.

The Pope makes decisions. He governs. He promulgates documents and decrees, and he does so within a legislative activity that has no equal in the recent history of the Church. Pope Francis decides so much that one is not even surprised to hear rumors of a consistory at a time when the College of Cardinals seems complete, because a consistory to lock in the next two years of red hats is precisely what is expected from Pope Francis.

Still, one wonders whether there is a real pontificate and a pontificate of the media—or, better said, a pontificate that has been favored by the image that the media gives of the Pope.

The image of the Pope kissing the hand of the Indonesian Imam did not, ultimately, elicit the indignant reactions that were expected. This is indicative of the fact that many of the Pope’s gestures are now considered normal—perhaps even a sign that folks are no longer willing to be scandalized by such or similar stunts.

Just couple of weeks ago, Pope Francis visited the Basilica of St. Augustine on the feast of St. Monica. It was a surprising and unexpected gesture—the Pope had never visited St. Augustine as Pope—yet it did not receive the attention this type of outing would generally have received.

Is the Pope no longer newsworthy?

In part, both the press and the public are hip to the game and are looking for precise facts and not gestures. In part, the interpretations offered effusively by friendly media have long since reached the point at which they became subject to the law of diminishing returns.

When Pope Francis was elected, there was talk of a necessary narrative change for the Catholic Church. Today, 11 years later, we realize that a substantial change is required. Pope Francis calls it a “conversion of hearts,” perhaps he was in good faith when he began to ask for it to happen. But was it just a slogan, or was it a genuine desire to change things?

While the Pope is in Asia, everyone waits for the next curial reshuffle and the upcoming consistory. Perhaps this is the limit of the pontificate, that of having reduced being Pope to the government of Vatican public affairs. Thus, the Pope is not only king but also the micromanager of a microstate that needs reform and not leaders—a bit like the Church, which needs reform and not leaders.

Gestures work best when you have to hide something. However, they become challenging to contextualize when everything is open.