It is now over a month since the election of Pope Francis and it is clear that he has a strong agenda of reform in mind. From his symbolic refusal of the red cloak on his election by the conclave, to his washing of the feet of young offenders in detention, both male and female, believers and non-believers, he has set a path of change in the Church starting from the top, but with ramifications for the Church as a whole.
Of course it is difficult to get into the mind of a person who might have been pope eight years earlier, when it appears he requested those who were voting for him to direct their votes to Cardinal Ratzinger. Would the intervening years have been filled with 'what ifs'? Would he have viewed the direction taken by Benedict XVI and wondered how he might have dealt with the issues that arose?
While we are not likely to know the answers to this without some personal revelation from Francis himself, it is clear that he came to the preconclave debates with a strong sense of purpose. As the cardinals gathered prior to entering the conclave they were given the opportunity to present their case for the qualities needed in the new pope. Cardinal Jorje Bergoglio, Archbishop of Buenos Aires, gave a speech which was ecclesiastical dynamite.
He spoke of the dangers of a Church becoming 'self-referential' and 'sick'. He warned of the dangers of a 'theological narcissism' overtaking the Church. He referred to the Gospel image of Jesus knocking on the door wanting to enter our lives. 'But think of the times when Jesus knocks from within to let himself out. The self-referential Church seeks Jesus Christ within and does not let him out.
'The Church is called to come out of herself and to go to the peripheries, not only in the geographical sense but also to go to the existential peripheries: those of the mysteries of sin, of pain, of injustice, of ignorance and of religious indifference, of thought, of all misery.'
Statements such as these do not arise in a vacuum. They are not a disinterested statement of timeless theological truths. They arise from an analysis of the current situation of