Insubstantial pageant of the Christless philosophy of Pope Francis

To enter the thought of Pope Francis

Bergoglio's philosophical teachings emphasize four guiding principles: time is greater than space, unity over conflict, the importance of reality over idea, and the primacy of the whole over the part.

“…as I prayed the Office,… I felt within me a great sorrow for not having truly converted to God and for not having used well even one day or one hour. May I, and may I again, hope that from now on I may find days filled with good works, and may idleness and vain actions disappear from my life. Amen.” (Pedro Fabro, S.I., Fabri monumenta: Beati Petri Fabri, primi sacerdotis,…Societatis Iesu, Romae, 1972, -240b-, cited by Fernando M. Gil, Annex III,, page 419, Argentine theology and Pope Francis).

"I should not categorize others to decide who is my neighbour and who is not. It is up to me to be a neighbor or not to be a neighbor, the decision is mine... to be or not to be a neighbor to the person I meet who needs help" (Pope Francis, Angelus, July 10, 2016)

The purpose of this note is to express my gratitude for the invitation from the Unidos por Francisco group to the discussion that will take place next Thursday at UNLA and to contribute to the concern of this group of university leaders and others who, with the laudable purpose of understanding Pope Francis's thinking, would meet virtually to see and hear Bergoglio respond to some journalists from our country who reported on him in Rome. This columnist, who met, spoke with, and appreciated Francis in action throughout his pontificate, would like to congratulate the authors of this initiative and say two things.

These interviews have great documentary and pedagogical value, along with the monumental legacy of his daily work at the head of the universal Church: his work, his writings, speeches, and messages. The purpose of this article is none other than to make a small contribution specifically aimed at young university students, so that, while capturing the image, dynamism, and dialogue with Francis, they may feel invited to delve deeper into the philosophical guidelines with which Bergoglio built his thinking at the beginning of his priestly life. In the beginning, despite the fact that he later completed them and included them in many of his homilies and other documents.

In this regard, the epigraphs at the head of this note: the first, a text by one of his great teachers, co-founder with Saint Ignatius of Loyola of the Jesuit Order, sanctified by Pope Francis on December 17, 2013; and the second, the Argentine pontiff's own words that mark beyond theoretical instruction the permanent purpose of action, serve as a threshold for this brief note.

Spiritual conversion or reconversion

In our opinion, anyone who wants to dive into the deep waters of his thought and the example of his life should begin by embracing his calling. To believers to a spiritual reconversion and to non-believers to a conversion, to believe in God, to encounter Him, to allow themselves to be encountered by the Lord (Laudato si', pp. 12 and 14). This call Francis extended to all at the beginning of his apostolate, in the Apostolic Exhortation Evagelii Gaudium and in the first encyclical cited above. A call he would reiterate throughout his papacy.

Deeds, not words

Hence, in addition to the many expressions that characterized him as "the pope of tenderness," "the pope of fraternity," "the great reformer," and many others, this chronicler prefers to remember him with one of his favorite mottos, of which he was a faithful teacher: "Deeds, not words." Where works are those of good to those who challenge us from their need, not to vain words, not to mere speculation, and not to lying or hypocritical speeches.

Hopefully, the aforementioned meeting will be the trigger for a serious and responsible study that calls young people to live out his charisma of faith, talent, honesty, austerity, incorruptibility, love of country, and dedication to one's neighbor.

It is worth noting that, in our opinion, and notwithstanding the fact that the interviews referred to cover a wide range of topics, an approach to his thought should begin with the principles that Bergoglio enunciated, like an adage-sentence, as a professor and rector of the Colegio Máximo de San Miguel and which, as we mentioned, serve as a guide for his thinking. This is about learning to discern in Catholic and Bergoglian terms.

Pope Bergoglio's Four Starting Points

The four philosophical principles he upholds in his homilies and conferences as Provincial of the Jesuits, Bishop and Archbishop of Buenos Aires, and later in his pontifical documents. The latter are found in the first Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, Chapter Four, Social Dimension of Evangelization, Section III. They are:

1. Time is greater than space;

2. Unity prevails over conflict;

3. Reality is more important than the idea.

4. The whole is greater than the part and is more than the mere sum of its parts.

“Time is greater than space.”

In outlining these four guidelines, Bergoglio draws on the theory of contrasts expounded by the Italian-German philosopher Romano Guardini. Guardini's polar thought is presented as the theory of opposites, which can be contrary or complementary. Guardini's polar theory is presented as a philosophy of the “living concrete.” The living concrete is essentially manifested in humankind's capacity to reveal oppositions, which occur especially within human life in its various spheres. Within these, there are subordinate oppositions, such as act and structure, form and fullness, whole and part, etc.

The passage of time can therefore be considered in a space without limits (horizon-utopia) where there is fullness, or with limits (moment, conjuncture). In this framework of oppositions, life unfolds in tension and contrast between plenitude and the moment.

From a social perspective, there are times of greater balance and others of imbalance. These put the world in danger of dissociation. Complete harmonious equilibrium is found only in God. By considering the complexity of these interconnections, we can seek to approach the harmony of polar oppositions. In this framework, Bergoglio analyzes the relationship between time and space. Here, the tension exists between plenitude and limit. Plenitude provokes the desire to possess everything, and the limit is the wall that stands before us. More clearly, "time," broadly considered, refers to plenitude as an expression of the horizon that opens up to us, and the moment is an expression of the limit that is experienced in a limited space. And Francis adds that "the citizen lives in the tension between the conjuncture of the moment and the light of time, of the greater horizon..." And with a clear reference to leaders, he asks: "Who in today's world truly cares about generating processes that build a people, rather than obtaining immediate results that produce easy, quick, and ephemeral political gains, but that do not build human fulfillment? History will judge them..." (EG 224)

The goal is the horizon of hope that contrasts with the finiteness of the moment; to build a people (a process), we must first have a horizon, which indicates fulfillment, promise, and hope. This is achieved through actions that generate new dynamics in society and involve other people and groups who will develop them until they bear fruit in important historical events (EG 223).

"Unity prevails over conflict"

Pope Francis says there are three attitudes toward conflict: 1) that of those who look the other way; 2) those who “enter into it and become prisoners of the conflict lose their horizons, project their own confusion and dissatisfaction onto the institutions, and thus unity becomes impossible”; and 3) accept the conflict, resolve it, and transform it into a link in a new process.” (EG 227).

In the Exhortation we quote, Pope Francis speaks to us of unity in diversity, and for this, every reconciliation process must bring forth a “reconciled diversity.” He immediately transcribes a Message from the Permanent Committee of the National Episcopal Conference of Congo, which states: “The diversity of our ethnic groups is a treasure (…). Only with unity, with the conversion of hearts, and with reconciliation can we move our country forward” (December 5, 2012).

“Reality is more important than the idea.”

“Reality simply is, the idea is elaborated,” says Pope Francis in 231 of the E.G., which leads him to say that reality is superior to the idea. The idea. We Argentines have extensive experience in the judiciary and in the world of the press, where ideas often modify reality. Plato, whom Pope Francis follows, said that in this way the truth is manipulated, just as gymnastics is supplanted by cosmetics (E.G., p. 205, note 185, Gorgias, 465), and in the same section the Holy Father adds that “There are politicians—even religious leaders—who wonder why the people don't understand them and don't follow them, if their proposals are logical and clear. Possibly it's because they have settled into the realm of pure ideas and reduced politics or faith to rhetoric. Others have forgotten simplicity and imported from outside a rationality alien to the people.” The philosopher and theologian Maurice Blondel stated that “the word must emerge from reality and return to reality” (Làction, 1893). Blondel is another of Bergoglio's sources. I recall that in his Metaphysical Meditations, another French philosopher, Gabriel Marcel, reflects on the crystallization of ideologies. Ideas that are articulated in a system with a predetermined purpose based on the observation of a reality that quickly changes and then fails when it attempts to adapt the new reality to old ideas.

“The whole is greater than the part and the sum of the parts.”

What is the whole? What are the parts that compose it? What is the relationship between the whole and the part, and between the parts themselves?

What does this have to do with us, with the reality of globalization in which we are immersed, which we exalt or demonize, with these questions that philosophers posed more than three centuries before Jesus Christ?

Aristotle calls a whole, first, that in which none of its constituent parts is missing, and second, that which contains its component parts in such a way that they form a unity. In his Metaphysics, he formulated the expression "the whole is more than the sum of its parts."

The whole is a set of contents wrapped in a unitary foundation with another content; the whole is composed of parts, and the parts are distinguished from each other by their function and can also, in turn, constitute other wholes. "The terms of unitary foundation mean that every content is, by foundation, in direct or indirect connection with every other content."

Bergoglio, the philosopher, favors an organicist view of the whole that maintains the primacy of the whole over the part and at the same time affirms that the whole is superior to the mere sum of the parts. Of course, this concept of the whole is guided by a theological perspective, where the whole is conceived as a "plot" whose architecture has God at its summit, and it is the whole that founds and explains our existence.

Of course, the reader may wonder: why associate the globalization of markets, an economic issue that depends on political decisions, with the philosophical and religious question of the whole and its parts?

It is true that whether or not to intervene in and regulate markets depends on those with decision-making power, especially heads of state. But precisely because we understand that politics is nothing more than the concrete realization of a philosophical and sometimes also religious conviction, we understand that political power cannot be delegated to merchants. As has been said, "The market makes a good servant but a bad master" ("The market makes a good servant but a bad master," cited in Compass, June 1994). For this reason, the issue of globalization cannot be handled by the mere convenience of the market but must be the object of social dialogue.

The Sphere: A representation of globalization?

The globe or sphere is a model of today's world resulting from the globalization of markets. In his homilies as Archbishop of Buenos Aires (Conf. at the 13th Conference on Social Pastoral Care, 16-10-2010, entitled "A Bicentennial in Peace 2010-2016" and others) and as pontiff, among other documents in the Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium (No. 236, p. 208), Bergoglio criticizes a mercantilist conception that is nothing more than the result of capital's desire to obtain greater profits and bear fewer costs, leading humanity to a universe of consumers, a vast and growing abysmal gap between very rich minorities and poor and extremely poor majorities.

This globalization, represented by the geometric figure of the sphere, is very different from the integration of peoples and the dialogue between diverse cultures and religions advocated by the Church with the figure of the polyhedron. Each face represents an identity, a nation, a culture. "Neither the global sphere that annuls, nor the isolated partiality that castrates" (Bergoglio).

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