THE AGGIORNAMENTO OF POPE FRANCIS

When Pope John XXIII launched his epochal Second Vatican Council in 1962, he labelled it an aggiornamento or "updating" of the theological cannons & practices of the Catholic Church to the realities of the new world order after World War II, which had ushered in decolonization in Africa & Asia and the triumph of U.S. liberalism and Soviet socialism as the guiding rival secular ideologies ("geoculture") of the modern world-system.

One of the fruits of that II Vatican Council (1962-65) was the spectacular emergence of Liberation Theology in Latin America, inaugurated by the 1968 "Medellin Declaration" issued by the Conference of Latin American Bishops. 

That declaration broke with centuries of the Church's traditional role of upholding the highly unjust social order and proclaiming henceforth a "preferential option for the poor" and issuing a call for the Church and its faithful followers to accompany and be a witness to the people as they contemplate and assess their condition and seek to liberate themselves from all forms of oppression and injustice. It encouraged poor faith-based communities to self-organize, largely through "basic ecclesial communities" (BECs) in rural areas and urban shanty towns. 

The result was immediate. Most revolutionary insurgencies and peoples' movements that emerged in Latin America, from Brazil Sem Terra Movement and PT (Party of the Workers), to the Sandinista FSLN, the Salvadoran FMLN, the Colombian FLN, and the Zapatista EZLN, contained or originated from these BECs and the work of patient encouragement and defense by renown liberation theology bishops & priests - like Hélder Câmara in Brazil, Camilo Torres in Colombia, Ernesto Cardenal in Nicaragua, Sergio Méndez Arceo and Samuel Ruiz in Mexico.

But exactly ten years later after Medellin's Declaration, and upon the ascension to the papacy of the Polish anti-communist Bishop Karol Józef Wojtyła (John Paul II) in 1978 came the strong reaction of the traditional and most reactionary branch of the Church. 

Considered a formidable foe of "really existing socialism" in the last stage of the Cold War, he traveled to Nicaragua in 1983 to publicly scold, as soon as he got off the plane and in plain view of the world, Fathers Ernesto Cardenal and 4 other Catholic priests who held office in the Sandinista government, which had succeeded 4 years earlier in overthrowing the hated 50-year-old brutal dictatorship of the Somoza family. At the time, the Sandinistas were being subjected to the full brunt of a U.S.-orchestrated "Contra war" of counterinsurgency, imposed in flagrant violation of international law by the Reagan administration. When later that evening he held a public Mass in front of hundred of thousands, and did not mentioned the Contra war and its devastation, the people began chanting "¡Queremos la Paz! ¡Queremos la Paz!" The pope's response was to scold the masses by repeatedly yelling "¡Silencio! ¡Silencio!”.This was probably the lowest point of his papacy, on par with the many predatory sexual scandals he covered up.

During John Paul II papacy, which ended in 2005, and subsequently during the papacy of Pope Benedict XVI (Joseph Alois Ratzinger, 2005-2013), the Church veered to the conservative right and frowned on the pastoral teachings of Liberation Theology - by then a global trend noticeable in Africa and Asia.

When the Conclave of Bishops gathered at the Vatican in 2013 to elect the Argentinian Bishop Jorge Mario Bergoglio as Pope Francis, a rebirth of the Church’s interest to address the systemic causes of social injustice commenced anew, updating the teachings of Vatican II to now include the plight of migrants and refugees - and even ecological devastation and climate change -, under the leadership of the new Latin American pope. The updating of the Church’s norms on gender and sexuality advanced, but only modestly. The real radical vision of the pope consisted of his return to embracing the poor, the destitute, the vulnerable, and the persecuted, in a social system characterized by the “globalization of indifference.”

The article below provides an excellent analysis of this new updating of the Church's vision for the modern world under Pope Francis, his own aggiornamento of the Church, building upon the legacy of his true theological predecessor, John XXIII.

As the article explains, this new aggiornamento, revolutionary in its potential, remains still more in the realm of bold critiques of the perversions of the capitalist world (dis)order than updated Church practices and a concrete program for world social change.

The new Conclave of Bishops assembled in Rome has the daunting task of choosing the three paths now opened to the Church: 1. continue building on the bold visions of Pope Francis & John XXIII for the period of world transition to a post-capitalist global order; 2. pause the aggiornamento and elect a centrist pope with the main mission to keep the Church unified to survive the turbulent times it faces already; 3. end the aggiornamento process altogether, as a failed experiment, and return the Church to its traditional role of being a conservative bastion of the social order, hand-in-glove with the secular state powers that be.

We shall soon find out which direction they want to take today's 1.4-billion-strong Catholic Church. Regardless of the choice they make, the future of the Church- and literally of the planet - hangs in the balance.

Stay tuned, get engaged, act up & resist!

Another world is possible! Another theology is required! 

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ARTICLE: The Unexpected Pope