Pope Francis became the Pope on 13th of March 2013 and he has completed eight years of his papacy. All through these eight years he has proved beyond doubt that his twin contributions are credibility and hope.
He is the 266th Pope and more relevantly the first non-european Pope in 1200 years. He is a true disciple of St. Francis of Assisi. He embraces the poor, the marginalized, attacks gree, nuclear weapons and champions the environment.
The centrality of redeeming human beings that is the core element of his papacy. Everywhere the inalienable rights of the human beings, the valley of being a human being is central to his principles. Overall here is a Pope who lives the gospel. To quote him: life is often a dessert, it is difficult to walk but if you trust in God it can become beautiful as a highway. Never lose hope continue to believe always in spite of everything. Hope opens new windows, making us capable of dreaming what is not even imaginable. I would like to personally qualify him as an engine of hope and an exception to the so-called ritual pharaohs.
His pedagogy is one of mercy and empathy and that makes him very different and dear to the entire world.
He calls globalization as a pandemic in fact a more dangerous pandemic than Covid 19 because he believes that globalization is no more a multi-jet no self-spray for economic Recovery and financial catastrophe, terrorism,
climate chaos and poverty. Instead of addressing these fundamental issues globalization has further aggravated the extent and reach of these challenges.
In fact, he believes that globalization should be an antibody to prevent injustice to humanity and it should work towards charity and solidarity. All through one can say that hope is the manifesto of all his actions. His indomitable faith in hope takes us back to the words of Charles Dickens in his classic novel a tale of two Cities. Dickens emphasizes two key concepts resurrection and transformation. To quote Charles Dickens: It was the best of times, i t was the worst of times. It was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness. It was the epoch of hope, it was the epoch of incredibility. It was the season of light, it was the season of darkness. It was the spring of hope,
it was the winter of despair. We had everything before us, we had nothing before us.
Again when we go to the words of Gaither who says that hope is a second soul Pope Francis comes very close to that. His original name was George Mario Bergoglio. At the age of 21 he came under the attack of a deadly pneumonia which resulted in surgical removal of a part of his right lung but that only strengthened his resolve.
Perhaps that resolve could be the underlying reason why he considers Covid 19 as an opportunity to liberate the world economic model from the clutches of globalization.
In his recent work which came in 2020 titled Let Us Dream, he suggests an antidote to the endless woes facing the world. Coming to his encyclicals, the first one came in the year 2013, his inaugural year. It is titled Lumen Fidei which means the light of faith. This encyclical can be summed up as the magna carta of the sweeping changes in his mission.
He prescribes remedies for ending exclusion by reforming the global financial systems assuring in a more pastoral church. The encyclical also addresses people's needs in real life.
His second encyclical titled Laudato si which means praise be to you came in the year 2015. This document is addressed to the poorest of the poor which is the mother earth. He calls for an ecological re-tooling of the economy and prescribes remedies to reduce wasteful consumption.
He says the earth can't be squeezed like an orange and he decries the throw away culture that has plunged the earth into global warming. Globalization and wasteful consumption has also massively affected wild life, our communities and our children.
In a recent weekly audience, he criticizes the wrong notion or rather the wrong interpretation of the centrality of human beings. In fact this notion has resulted in massive exploitation and destruction of our natural resources.
Coming to his third encyclical which is titled Fratelli Tutti brothers all- which means brothers all. Pope Francis talks about a balm for the whole world in crisis. It is a skating criticism of the Capitalism. The document is also a meditation on the Corona virus pandemic. Here again he exhorts the world to transform the pandemic into an opportunity.
As we know Covid 19 has further aggravated the destruction caused by globalization and the throwaway culture. A sizable part of this document goes to the discussion of the massive economic polarization in our world where eighty percent of our resources which belongs to the whole world of seven billion people eighty percent of our resources are in the hands of just twenty percent people. Which is a glaring example of the extent to which the world is being exploited. He calls for a globalization of solidarity and of the spirit. He has a clear vision to bring about productive diversity and business creativity. He believes in the creation of jobs and not the elimination.
Coming to his vision on education, the key term to be used is a transformation. He wants education as an instrument of empowering our youngsters to think and to rise up.
There is a close similarity between what Pope Francis believes and what Nelson Mandela once said: education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.
He believes in inclusive education which has within itself a seed of hope. In this respect he calls teachers as artisans of future generations.
He argues for the rights of homosexuals in a recent documentary titled Francisco. It is a work of Afghani Afnisky an Israeli-American film director he says homosexual people have a right to be in a family and nobody should be
thrown out or made miserable over it. Overall one can see that this Pope ventures into the periphery in search of the one lost sheep- the prodigal.
He is a passionate champion of inter-faith dialogue which reminds us of the words of Bede Griffiths a Benedictine monk who says that we may have fingers of different sizes and these fingers can be compared to different faiths but essentially all these fingers originate from the same palm.
This is the spirit with which he approaches his own religion and other faiths and I would say this is the greatest
contribution of Pope Francis. His ability to take into confidence other faiths also. He synthesizes the richness of plurality in his words and actions.
His contribution for bringing about peace in South Sudan and Colombia and for the reception of diplomatic ties
between Cuba and the United States has been immense.
In 2019, he visited the United Arab Emirates and became the first oneto conduct a holy mass on the Arabian peninsula. Pope Francis takes us to the words of Mahatma Gandhi about the bible. Gandhiji says the bible can turn the world upside down and bring peace to a battleground planet.
Here is a Pope who lives the Gandhian vision of the bible. He is a great personality who believes in inclusiveness and encouragement rather than exclusion and condemnation.
Another area of remarkable importance in his portfolio of contributions is his voice for the cause of women whom he believes should be brought to decision-making roles and in fact he has taken some solid steps to bring ladies into the fold of so many such roles within the fold of his own religion.
His sense of humanism embraces the cause of the disfigured people who are reeling under different diseases, people with special needs and young children. He spends his time with patients in hospitals. Even his birthday once he spends with such patients.
He moves very well with the homeless and the deprived without taking care of any protocols. He has shown the gesture to meet the inmates of a detention center and he decided to wash the feet of criminals. He is a true preserver of the bible.
Another area of his contribution is his strident criticism of arms trade because he calls arms trade is money trenched in blood. His recent observation is striking indeed, he says as long as the church places its hope on wealth Jesus is not there. He is not just a man of glorious preaching but his preaching is with credible reach. Also he lives in a simple two-bedroom apartment instead of the affluence of the apostolic palace.
His concern encompasses the Rohingya muslim minority in China the Yezidi community and all persecuted people. His recent book let us dream is devoted to all of them.
He recently visited Iraq and has done immensely towards promotion of interfaith dialogue and he has declared solidarity with the minorities. It is all the more relevant that his iraq visit was the first one ever since Covid 19 broke out.
In the context of Covid19 vaccine he has made some notable contributions. He argues for equal access to the vaccine and talks against vaccine nationalism stockpiling of vaccine by rich countries which is caused rather a kind of vaccine apartheid. He is a big critic of pharma profiteering also. Overall one can see that his leadership has the smell of the sheep Pope Francis to sum up is a stream of spirituality. He teaches us that spirituality is not an escape from the world but a more meaningful engagement with it.
He is an epoch-making architect of connections-global connections. I would conclude by saying that he is a lamp of faith and oil of a charity. So it's my humble submission that he should be called a Pope of all and hope for all.
