Question 3.59

3.59 What do you think about the name Francis that he took as pope?

Pope Francis thinks that the founder of the Franciscans can help us to begin a profound reform of our spiritual life. Saint Francis loved Jesus so much that he had the privilege of being absolutely identified with him, to the point of bearing the stigmata of his Passion. In drawing our attention to Saint Francis, the pope invites us to imitate the Poverello of Assisi so that we, too, might bear, always and everywhere, the sufferings of Jesus’ death (2 Cor 4:10; Gal 6:17). So it is that Saint Paul, seeking to be identified with Christ, could say: “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the Church” (Col 1:24). For the Holy Father, Christians can never hope for anything but the demanding, arid way of Jesus, which is lined with pitfalls.

Saint Francis, too, experienced an era of moral, spiritual, and political crisis. The Church seemed to be crumbling. Jesus asked Francis to repair his Church; this was not about the little church in San Damiano, but about the whole Church of Christ, which was in ruins, symbolized and represented by the Basilica of Saint John Lateran, which Pope Innocent III saw in a dream, ready to collapse, while a little monk supported it with his shoulders to prevent it from falling.

Today how can anyone deny the fact that some men of the Church are in a state of moral ruin? The careerism and the temptation to worldliness that the successor of which Peter speaks so often are very real evils. Some people imagine they are products of the pope’s imagination. Alas, clerical narcissism is not just a literary theme. The sickness can be deep-seated.

In order to turn the tide, we must first reform our interior life. The Church depends on the purity of our souls.

Finally, Saint Francis was a great evangelizer. He went as far as Morocco and Egypt to try to convert the Muslims. Missionary work was written in golden letters in the depth of his memory. He wanted the Gospel to be his only light. The Word of God is at the heart of his Rule.

Francis follows in the footsteps of that great pioneer. I find again in him the true missionary impulse of Saint Ignatius of Loyola. The founder of the Society of Jesus never balked at discerning between good and evil, nor does Pope Francis hesitate to do so.