Front Burner - The legacy of Pope Francis

Episode Date: April 22, 2025

Pope Francis brought a lot of firsts to the Catholic Church. He was the first from Latin America, and under him, the church became increasingly globalized and diverse. He spoke up for LGBTQ rights, for the people of Gaza, and for migrants and refugees around the world. In 2022, he apologized for the Catholic Church's role in Canada's residential school system.But his death on Monday comes at a complicated time for the church. The Vatican is grappling with the new political direction in the United States, and the college of cardinals is bigger and more diverse than it has ever been.Massimo Faggioli, a professor of historical theology at Villanova University, breaks down the legacy of Pope Francis and what the future of the Catholic Church could look like under his successor.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

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He took a progressive stance on some issues, including welcoming LGBTQ people into the church. He made repeated calls to end the war in Gaza. And here in Canada, he made a historic apology for the Church's role in residential schools. Pope Francis died on Monday morning of a stroke after months of health problems and hospital stays. He was 88.

His death comes at a complicated time for the Church, particularly with the changing geopolitical tides in the United States and its approach to immigration. I'm here today with Massimo Fagioli. He's a professor of historical theology at Villanova University, which is just outside Philadelphia, and he's going to take us through the legacy that Pope Francis leaves behind and what could be next for the Catholic Church. Hi Massimo, thank you so much for coming on to Frontburner. Thank you. I mentioned some of the firsts that Pope Francis was known for there.

What would you say made him unique as a pope? What did he bring to the role? He was the first pope of a church which is no longer bound to its European, Italian culture, not even North American culture. He was a man of the South and he read everything through the lens of the global South, which historically means colonialism and decolonization. This is something that was really the first time we saw from a pope. I know after his election that he talked about wanting a poor church for the poor. And just could you tell me more about his legacy as a frugal street priest at heart? He was a frugal street priest not because of an ideological choice but

because it was really who he is, who he was as a person even before becoming Pope. Jorge Bergoglio was born in Argentina, the son of Italian immigrants. He studied to be a chemist but felt drawn to the Catholic Church and the Jesuit order. During Argentina's military dictatorship critics say the Church and Bergoglio did not stand up to a brutal government. But as he rose from the priesthood to Archbishop, Bergoglio always related to the destitute, leading a simple life that anticipated his future papacy. His favorite places in Rome were not in the Vatican, but were the prisons, the shantytowns, those places for the marginalised.

In his early gestures, like washing the feet of the elderly and prisoners, he showed desire for his priests to be closer to the disadvantaged. That was really who he was, where his heart was, and it was not a choice to spare money, not to waste money. It was not a rationalization of resources. It was much more than that. I know he was known for taking a fairly progressive stance on a number of issues. He said that homosexual people are children of God. If someone is gay, he said, who am I to judge? He allowed transgender people to be baptized.

He also appointed a number of women to high ranking positions. But at the same time, he also took a pretty hard line stance against abortion. And he spoke out about what he called gender ideology. And so how do we square what I think a lot of people thought were inconsistencies there? Well, they look like inconsistencies from a European, North American point of view, but they are pretty typical of the Catholic of the global south. On the good side, from our point of view, on LGBT rights and on the less positive side on women,

where his language was really outdated, not really up to the current language of theologians and of Catholics in the Catholic Church. So there are inconsistencies, but if we adopt blindly the liberal versus conservative framework, which works to a certain extent in the Catholic Church, it works less and less now that we have a global Catholic Church, a global college of cardinals and the most global conclave ever in the next few weeks. Cardinal Peter Turkson from Ghana has long been considered eligible, and he still is, despite unexpectedly resigning as head of the Vatican's Peace and Justice Office in 2021 amid an internal investigation into its management.

Also in the running is Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagley from the Philippines. The Catholic media sometimes calls him the Asian Francis because of the esteem he was shown by the Pope. Do you think his reputation as a more liberal pope is a fair one? I think so because he was a Jesuit and Jesuits are risk takers. they are the explorers of the new frontiers within Catholicism, his liberalism could be summed up in this choice of not being afraid of talking about issues until his election were taboo or considered not appropriate for public discussions in the Catholic Church. In that sense, he was a 19th century liberal, maybe.

Well, let's talk about some of those issues that he was pretty outspoken on. One, I guess, would be climate change. I know that he framed climate change as a spiritual issue. He emphasized the connections between global warming, poverty. In a video launching a paper in Cyclical, he said climate change amounted to rich countries inflicting damage on poor ones. Hi, my name is Greta Thunberg. I'm a climate activist and I just met with Pope Francis and he was very kind and he told

us that we should continue like we do now, and he supports the school strike. What do you think his legacy is on that? It's the legacy of the first pope who devoted two encyclicals to climate change and creation. But again, not only as a spiritual issue, but also as a social issue, because he said very clearly that these changes affect poor people and poor countries first. So for him, it was not a romantic choice to live in a more beautiful planet, but a choice of solidarity

with those who are already affected by change in our environment. So that's his integral part of his interpretation of the Catassocial Doctrine, which he updated in the context of the globalized finance, in the context of the globalized finance, of artificial intelligence, of social media, and of the crisis of democracy, we have to say also. I know here in Canada, he's remembered fondly. One of the most significant things that he did was visit here in 2022 to apologize for the Catholic

Church's role in the residential school system. He said what happened in those schools amounted to genocide. And how significant a moment was that trip and his apology? It was very significant because it was a key moment in the new phase in the history of the Catholic Church dealing with abuse. He apologised for the scandal of sexual abuse of children by priests, his words here spoken by a translator. God weeps for the sexual abuse of children. Which is no longer just pedophilia committed by clergy,

but it's a much wider range of abuses, cultural, social, psychological. It was Pope Francis who finally invited indigenous representatives to the Vatican, and with the world watching, admitted his shame and sorrow. I ask for God's forgiveness and I want to say to you with all my heart I am very sorry. And for him it was remarkable that a man from Latin America could acknowledge something that was really part of the legacy of colonialism and Christianity in the Northern Hemisphere. Francis then came to Canada. Brothers and sisters, let us acknowledge our sins.

It was a difficult visit, one of the most difficult, much more difficult than in Mongolia or in Indonesia for that matter. And the Canadian visit was also very important because it came after clear pressure from the federal government of Canada. And so that was a very important moment in the history of this continent. Sorry for the ways in which, regrettably, many Christians supported the colonizing mentality of the powers that oppressed the indigenous peoples. He was also known more recently for his nightly phone calls

to the Catholic parish in Gaza. Salam alaykum. The brief calls were a small but powerful gesture, the Vatican said, offering connection and hope amidst isolation. Yesterday I called, as I do every day, the parish in Gaza. They told me, today we ate lentils with chicken. It's important because these days they weren't used to it

and only made some vegetables. They were happy. But let us pray for Gaza, for peace." He repeatedly called for a ceasefire there and for the release of hostages. This morning I received two delegations, one of Israelis who have relatives held hostage in the Gaza Strip and another of Palestinians who have relatives held hostage in the Gaza Strip, and another of Palestinians who have relatives imprisoned in Israel. They suffer so much, and I heard how both sides suffer. Wars do this, but we have gone beyond wars. This is not war. This is terrorism.

He noted that several experts believe what is happening in Gaza is a genocide, and he called for an investigation into whether it was. And just, can you tell me a little bit more about just how out into whether it was. And just can you tell me a little bit more about just how outspoken he was on that particular issue? He was very outspoken and he did a very risky thing because in these last 70 years, more or less, Catholicism has realized how much it owed to Jews and to Israel for the Holocaust. Now, Pope Francis was faced with this request, which was coming from his own global South,

of making justice also to be marginalized from that narrative that the Holocaust was the center of Western history. That is a very difficult thing to do. That exposed him to misunderstandings and unfair accusations. But what he did there was to try and keep together the clear choice of the Catholic Church against anti-Semitism and anti-Judaism, together with the choice to speak on behalf of those who have no voice, meaning also those who have no state. When you talk about it exposed him to misunderstandings, I just wonder if you could tell me a little bit more about what you mean there.

Well, because his style of talking and of communicating was not going through the institutional filters of the Vatican, or the Vatican diplomacy often. And that sometimes was unfortunate because he used words that didn't help get his message across. So his pontificate was met instantly a few days after he was elected from stronger position, especially from the United States, from Catholics who literally accused him of not being Catholic. It's something I've never seen in my life. But that was his integral part of his pontificate, the challenge his catholicity coming from militant Catholics

on some issues particularly, but this is, it was bigger than a clash of personalities, was really a moment in the globalization of Catholicism which is made of tensions. On the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz comes an unprecedented exhibition about one of history's darkest moments. Auschwitz, not long ago, not far away, features more than 500 original objects, first-hand accounts and survivor testimonies that tell the powerful story of the Auschwitz concentration camp, its history and legacy, and the underlying conditions that allowed the Holocaust to happen.

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When debts got you, you've got us. Give credit counseling society a call today. Visit nomoredebs.org. One of the last people to meet with Pope Francis before his death was U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance. Hello. So good to see you. I pray for you every day. Bless you. Happy Easter. Vance converted to Catholicism in 2019, but Francis had actually been publicly feuding with Vance over the last couple of months. Because of the way that Vance had framed his administration's hardline stance on immigration within Catholic tradition, Vance had evoked this bit of Catholic doctrine that talks about

taking care of your immediate community first before focusing on the world more broadly. But the Pope called him out directly on that and said that the mass deportations happening in the U.S US were a major crisis. In his Easter message, he of course called for peace in the world, but he also warned against contempt towards migrants, a message that must have been in the air in that room where earlier in the day Pope Francis met privately with J.D. Vance. What did you make of how that played out? Well, that was a remarkable moment because it really signals a clash between two generations of Catholics, the Vatican II generation of Pope Francis and the anti-Catholic or non-Vatican

II Catholic generation of JD Vance. JD Vance is not just an isolated example, but he's just, he's also the representative of a new militant Catholicism. And so the letter that Pope Francis sent on the 10th of February to the US bishops in response to JD Vance is a one in a century document. This says something on how distant now the Vatican and the White House of Donald Trump are

is something we haven't seen in in a century I would say. Do we have any sense of what the pope and JD Vance talked about when they met? I think was it Sunday? It was Sunday morning. It was a very brief meeting. I don't think they talked much about anything. I know you've not been feeling great, but it's good to see you. The important meeting was the one of the day before when JD Vance had to meet with the

prime minister of the Vatican, Cardinal Parolin. That was a substantial meeting because right now there is a serious crisis in the relations between the Vatican and the West. Besides all the smiles, there is a real distance on a number of issues. And so that is really part of not just what Paul Francis did, but also of what American Catholicism has become. I know the Archbishop of New York, Timothy Dolan, seems to be particularly close to Trump, but I just wonder if you could talk to me a little bit more about how he fits into this

all. Cardinal Dolan is the Archbishop of the city that made the fortune both financial and political of Donald Trump. He has been very quiet about what Donald Trump has done to the church and against the church in these last three months. It's really part of one of the different souls of the US Catholicism, which is now trying literally to understand what to do and what to say

and about Donald Trump. And this is really a clash that will have effects beyond the borders of the United States because what happens in the West rarely stays in the United States. So, given all that, I know obviously now the cardinals all meet to determine a successor to Pope Francis. And my understanding is that there is no clear frontrunner at the moment. Without getting too into all the frontrunners here, I wonder if you could just tell me how the names that are floating around right now might signal

the direction that the church could move in, might give us signals to how they would deal with what we were just talking about. We usually talk about the conclave beginning with the candidates, but usually we should talk about the agenda first. So what is the situation of the church and of the world that the Cardinals will have to face and we'll talk about the agenda that they agree on or disagree on, then that will formulate a list of possible candidates. That is the other way around. Yeah. And so do we have any sense at this moment, like what it is that they think the big agenda items are?

It's still early. We will see in the next couple of weeks because the conflict is being organised now. And we will see how the narrative in the church and in the global media conversation will shape. Cardinal Pietro Parolin is considered by many the most likely to be elected. He's considered a moderate figure within the church. Born in Scavagni, Italy he's become an expert on Middle East affairs and is vocal about the need for action against climate change. Cardinal Peter Odo represents the more orthodox side of the church. The 72-year-old born in Hungary has strong conservative views on issues like remarriage and divorce. He's been critical of gay marriage and European nations for taking in refugees,

likening it to human trafficking. Is there a lot of unity among the Cardinals at the moment, or are there big divisions that could make this process more difficult? It's difficult to say because it's the largest college of Cardinal ever, the most diverse ever, and so it's incredibly complicated right now to speculate. Trumpism might create some unity among them, who knows, but it's a very large college, very diverse, cardinals from all continents, much more than before, so it's going to be an even more inscrutable conflict this time. I'm always interested to ask people like you who are so steeped in these issues

and have studied these figures in such detail. The world lost such a important historical figure today. You know, what else are you thinking about? I've given many interviews today and they helped me catch my breath and I will have some time to, some quiet cry later. Were you very, was he a very important pope to you? I know that you've spent time studying this for so long, but it sounds like he was a very important figure to you.

Yes, he changed the life of many people, myself included, in ways that it's hard to measure now. Do you mind if I ask you how you think he changed your life? Well, he forced me to wake up every day at 4 a.m. because I needed to catch up with what he was doing in the first few weeks of his pontificate. And it's a habit that I have kept. And so I owe him this.

That's nice. Okay, I wanna thank you very much him this. That's nice. Okay, I want to thank you very much for this. Thank you. Bye bye. Bye bye. All right, that is all for today. Thanks so much for listening. We'll talk to you tomorrow.