The contest over the meaning and implication of papal statements has probably never been this intense. Ever since Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio stepped onto a balcony at St Peter's Basilica as Pope Francis, his words have been abbreviated, deconstructed and turned into memes.
The interview published last week, conducted by La Civiltà Catolica and America on behalf of major Jesuit journals worldwide, has prompted fresh fervour. It presents a candid profile of the first Latin American and first Jesuit Pope. The interview has been met with admiration and delight, as well as astonishment and caution, as has been the pattern for seemingly every remark and gesture the Pope has made over the past six months.
If nothing else, the attention suggests that the Roman pontiff is still held relevant, even by those who regard religious institutions as anachronistic. What he says, matters. What this Pope says and does probably matters more than usual, given the crossroads at which the Catholic Church finds itself, as well as the global challenges to which it must respond. The Church still has something to say in a world that continues to demonise and exploit the vulnerable, and it must be able to say it with force and resonance.
All this would have weighed on the conclave last March. At the time, however, I did not think the election of a new pope mattered. It seemed to me that the conclave had always been about maintaining the status quo. The sitting pope appoints the cardinals who must eventually choose his successor, which tends to secure continuity.
Still, I got into the spirit of poring over papabili and wished for a pope from Africa or Asia, saying that it would be like having Yoda in the Vatican. A desire for change lay underneath my irreverence. I wanted to see some sort of institutional acknowledgement that things aren't working; that the hierarchy understood what was required to revive the Church for the ages. I wanted, most of all, to be surprised.
Of course, there was already the surprise of Pope Benedict XVI relinquishing office, nearly six centuries after the last papal resignation. Perhaps it was this unexpected turn of events that enlarged the sense of possibility for the cardinal electors; it constituted opportunity and permission to do something different. On the fifth ballot, they elected a man who had not even appeared on anyone's radar.
I had wanted a surprise outcome, yet met