![]() ![]() When he rejects the pomp and the privilege, releases information on Vatican finances for the first time, reprimands a profligate German Archbishop, cold-calls strangers in distress, offers to baptize the baby of a divorced woman whose married lover wanted her to abort it, he is doing more than modeling mercy and transparency. No red shoes, no gilded cross, just an iron one around his neck. He has retired the papal Mercedes in favor of a scuffed-up Ford Focus. He prays all the time, even while waiting for the dentist. He lives not in the papal palace surrounded by courtiers but in a spare hostel surrounded by priests. He released his first exhortation, an attack on “the idolatry of money,” just as Americans were contemplating the day set aside for gratitude and whether to spend it at the mall. Tone and temperament matter in a church built on the substance of symbols-bread and wine, body and blood-so it is a mistake to dismiss any Pope’s symbolic choices as gestures empty of the force of law. Don’t scold heal.Īnd yet in less than a year, he has done something remarkable: he has not changed the words, but he’s changed the music. Vatican bureaucrats and clergy stand accused of infighting, graft, blackmail and an obsession with “small-minded rules,” as Francis puts it, rather than the vast possibilities of grace. In some quarters, core teachings on divorce and contraception are widely ignored and orthodoxy derided as obsolete. ![]() But it has been weakened worldwide by scandal, corruption, a shortage of priests and a challenge, especially across the fertile mission fields of the southern hemisphere, from evangelical and Pentecostal rivals. At its best it inspires and instructs, helps and heals and calls the faithful to heed their better angels. The Catholic Church is one of the oldest, largest and richest institutions on earth, with a following 1.2 billion strong, and change does not come naturally. The skeptics will point to the obstacles Francis faces in accomplishing much of anything beyond making casual believers feel better about the softer tone coming out of Rome while feeling free to ignore the harder substance. ( PERSON OF THE YEAR: Pope Francis, The People’s Pope) When he kisses the face of a disfigured man or washes the feet of a Muslim woman, the image resonates far beyond the boundaries of the Catholic Church. The world is getting smaller individual voices are getting louder technology is turning virtue viral, so his pulpit is visible to the ends of the earth. In his nine months in office, he has placed himself at the very center of the central conversations of our time: about wealth and poverty, fairness and justice, transparency, modernity, globalization, the role of women, the nature of marriage, the temptations of power.Īt a time when the limits of leadership are being tested in so many places, along comes a man with no army or weapons, no kingdom beyond a tight fist of land in the middle of Rome but with the immense wealth and weight of history behind him, to throw down a challenge. How do you practice humility from the most exalted throne on earth? Rarely has a new player on the world stage captured so much attention so quickly-young and old, faithful and cynical-as has Pope Francis. The next day, it was taken away because he wore it. ![]() Once there was a boy so meek and modest, he was awarded a Most Humble badge. Follow read about TIME’s choice in Spanish and Portuguese, click below.ĮL ELEGIDO: El Papa Francisco es la Persona del Año 2013 de TIMEĪ Escolha: O Papa Francisco é a Personalidade do Ano eleita pela Time em 2013 ![]()
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