 |
|
| Alejandro Bermúdez, the speaker at this fall’s St. Thérèse of Lisieux Lecture at the Bishop O’Connor Center in Madison, speaks on “Who is Pope Francis? What is his mind?” on September 19. Bermúdez is the director of ACI-Prensa, the world’s largest Catholic news agency in Spanish, as well as the executive director of Catholic News Agency. (Catholic Herald photos/Kevin Wondrash) |
MADISON — On a near-autumn Friday evening in Madison, hundreds of people arrived at the Bishop O’Connor Center’s auditorium to learn more about current successor to St. Peter — Pope Francis.
It was the second of 2014’s St. Thérèse Lectures presented by the Office of Evangelization and Catechesis of the Diocese of Madison.
The topic on September 19 was “Who is Pope Francis? What is his mind?” The speaker was Alejandro Bermúdez, director of ACI-Prensa, the world’s largest Catholic news agency in Spanish, as well as the executive director of Catholic News Agency and the Portuguese agency ACI digital.
Bermúdez, who spent part of his life in Argentina, met and interviewed Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio (now Pope Francis) on several occasions. Bermúdez recently compiled a book of interviews regarding Pope Francis shortly after his election titled Pope Francis: Our Brother, Our Friend: Personal Recollections about the Man Who Became Pope, which has since been adapted into a show on EWTN.
As Bermúdez began his talk, he said Pope Francis is the next pope in a streak of “incredibly virtuous human beings at the head of the Catholic Church.”
Bermúdez outlined what he called “three crucial factors” to understanding Pope Francis: his background as an Argentinian, his background as a Jesuit, and understanding his intellectual mentors.
Pope Francis as an Argentinian
Bermúdez said Argentina has a major Catholic culture with a great number of Catholic theologians and writers. He said this creates of culture of “very lively debates” among Catholics.
He added Argentina is very Euro-centric, with most of its people descending from European cultures who came to the county hundreds of years ago as opposed to other counties in Latin America with more native backgrounds. He said for many years, Argentina has had “its back to the rest of Latin America and looking toward Europe.”
Argentina, where Pope Francis comes from, also has a highly formed episcopate — with many experts in theology, especially among the Latin American conference of bishops.
When it comes to personality traits, Bermúdez said Argentinians like Pope Francis tend to have a high opinion of themselves and are very blunt. He added this makes them look rude to the rest of the world.
Argentinians also tend to be slightly pessimistic. “They have this melancholy, southern Italian personality,” Bermúdez said. They can say things like it’s not the first time Argentina has had a crisis, and it won’t be the last.
Pope Francis as a Jesuit
Bermúdez outlined some important factors to knowing Pope Francis as a Jesuit.
The first factor is that personal holiness is at the center of Pope Francis’ life, with Argentina having a very strong Ignatian Jesuit identity. Bermúdez told the story of a young Jorge Bergoglio who became “mesmerized” by a Jesuit spiritual director when he was in the seminary through the Archdiocese of Buenos Aires. He soon switched from an archdiocesan seminarian to the Jesuits.
Another important factor to getting to know the pope as a Jesuit is the aggressive apostolate and mission practiced by the Jesuits. He recalled that, as master of novices in the order, then Father Bergoglio would send them to do apostolic work at some of their busiest times, such as when they were in the middle of their spiritual exercises.
“He [Pope Francis] would constantly push people to do this apostolic commitment in the most unexpected times,” Bermúdez said.
Bermúdez called the third Jesuit trait of Pope Francis as “astute and strategic.” He recalled a friend of Pope Francis who said after Pope Benedict XVI was elected, a reporter asked him to write a story on then Cardinal Bergoglio, a supposed “runner up” to the papacy. He called the story, “What does Cardinal Bergoglio think? Nobody knows.”
Bermúdez said this illustrated Pope Francis’ “great friendliness” but also the secrecy and “complexity of his thoughts about all the important subjects.”
Pope Francis’ mentors
Bermúdez also talked about two mentors that influenced Pope Francis, who he called a “voracious reader.”
One mentor was Uruguayan theologian Alberto Methol Ferré.
Ferré had the core ideas that there is a “manifest destiny” for Latin America. Also, the U.S.S.R is the end of militant atheism, but hedonistic atheism has replaced it. Ferré believed the West, especially the United States, is the ultimate expression of hedonistic atheism and the U.S. is a natural obstacle of Latin America’s “manifest destiny.”
Bermúdez said that Pope Francis is interested in seeing what the United States is like up close and may get a chance if he comes for the World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia, Pa., next year.
Another mentor was Russian sociologist Pitirim Sorokin.
Sorokin’s main ideas were that all cultures go through periods of crisis, and such crisis is marked by moral decay. Also, salvation can only come from the “peripheries.”
Bermúdez used the example of Latin American countries being the peripheries to the United States.
After the talk, Bermúdez met with attendees to talk with them and sign copies of his books.
For more on the St. Thérèse Lecture series, visit the Office of Evangelization and Catechesis page at www.madisondiocese.org