“The pontificate of Francis, a pastoral care of proximity”

Gaultier Bès is an associate professor of modern literature.

He is notably the author of

Radicalisons -nous!

Politics by the root

“

,” I wrote in these columns on the occasion of the publication of the first issue of the review

.

It was 8 years ago.

Since then,

has ceased to appear and you, Pope Francis, are increasingly challenged, at least in the West.

Would I say the same today?

The Bergogliomania fizzled out.

You probably know it much better than I do, Pope Francis, because no one really hides it: it's getting louder and louder about you, on your right as well as on your left.

We find you, it depends, too modern, or too conservative, too democratic or too authoritarian.

The backstage of the Vatican is buzzing with rumors of renunciation and everyone places their pawns in view of the next conclave.

One publishes vengeful memoirs, the other multiplies low blows.

And during this time, secular or religious, the little people of faithful Catholics who live in France – the only ones I know even a little bit – are struggling with the bad conscience of their disintegration, the rehashing of hopeless statistics, the dread in front of the abominable betrayals of so many clerics he already had,

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Since my baptism - on October 2, 1988 - I have known little more than a Church in crisis - Lefebvrist crisis, crisis of vocations, crisis of abuses... - and yet, personally, in this house which unfortunately showed itself , too often, so insecure, I have so far only lived happy moments.

I do not count the number of lay people, priests, monks or nuns, who will have edified me, put me on the path of a more Christian life.

Your two predecessors too.

I remember John Paul II, a sick pilgrim among the sick pilgrims in Lourdes in 2004, and who, his face exhausted and his hand wavering, told us that human freedom, marked by sin, itself needed be released.

I remember this sentence, of luminous simplicity, of Benedict XVI:

, and of his departure, overwhelming with humility.

And you have been my pope for ten years.

To Catholics, you relentlessly preach the urgency of the mission: to get out of our comfort, material or spiritual, to reach out to others.

Gaultier Bes

Pope Francis, I am not a theologian;

even less Vaticanist;

I am only a French father wishing to follow Jesus: it is as such that I would like to thank you.

You have recognized it yourself: “

But, despite all the disappointments, the controversies, and the attacks, you point out to the boat of the Church and to all humanity in its wake the only worthwhile course: universal love, such as Christ lived and taught.

It is sometimes said that John Paul II was a pope of hope;

Benedict XVI of Faith.

Of course the three theological virtues are inseparable, but perhaps you will be remembered as a pope of charity.

From the evening of your election, apparently intimidated (one would be less so), you presented yourself as the bishop of Rome whom the cardinals had sought, what a strange idea!

"at the end of the world" and bow down before the assembled people to pray for you.

A good part of your pontificate was tied in this gesture: a pastoral care of closeness, which wants, by simple words and strong gestures, by humor and by humility, to reach the peripheries to bring there the "joy of the Gospel”, as Saint Francis of Assisi, out of love for Jesus, himself went to meet the leper, the sultan and the wolf!

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To Catholics, you relentlessly preach the urgency of the mission: to get out of our comfort, material or spiritual, to reach out to others.

Your first apostolic exhortation recalls

Seeking to connect the temporal and the supernatural, you are the first pope to confess publicly (in St. Peter's Basilica in March 2014: an effective way of saying how much we all need divine mercy), and the first to get involved as much in welcoming refugees.

Your gestures surprise, destabilize, sometimes shock internally, but they seduce outside the Church.

You are not pope for Catholics alone, you are pope, successor of Saint Peter, for all of humanity.

Your Urbi et orbi blessing will be remembered - to the City (Rome, that is, the Church) and to the world - alone in the square, in March 2020, in the midst of a pandemic.

To the confined world, you seemed to keep saying:

, 47).

And there was, in 2015, what for me is the pinnacle of your pontificate: the publication of

, your encyclical on

.

Gaultier Bes

Many of my compatriots are saddened that you are not coming to France.

They see it as a form of disdain.

I rather see it – because you like to quote authors or saints from our region!

- a form of prophetic realism.

"Rome is no longer in Rome" (Corneille, Sertorius, III, 1), it is a fact: the Catholic Church no longer overlaps with Europe, from being hegemonic, it has become such a minority there that the Europe today is a minority of the universal Church.

The poor and the peripheries take precedence over wealth and power.

The priority is no longer to influence society, but to serve the underprivileged.

It is a rather painful mourning to which you call the "Elder Daughter of the Church": dying to Christianity (or to what

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And there was, in 2015, what for me is the pinnacle of your pontificate: the publication of

, your encyclical on

.

It was for all people concerned about ecology, including many believers, a magnificent encouragement to change our lifestyles in depth to finally respond to the cry of the Earth and that of the poor.

The late

magazine had tried to develop this appeal which unfortunately resounds a little in the void, because many, within the Church and outside, remain deaf and blind, far from the radicalism demanded by the situation and required by a conversion integral ecological.

There again, it is not so easy to shed the old man in us!

So, thank you, Pope Francis, for your gestures and your words which jostle and disturb us.

May your pontificate still bear beautiful fruits for the Church and the world!

I sometimes find it difficult to follow you, I share the dismay of many in the face of some of your untimely declarations, I understand the feeling of injustice in the face of brutal decisions (I am thinking of the restriction of the so-called traditional Mass), I I would have liked you to break more clearly with the culture of silence which unfortunately too often turns into the culture of abuse, spiritual and sexual, but I know that Pierre's boat is heavy to handle.

I also know that the Divider is around.

But the Spirit is blowing stronger: for this work, Pope Francis, the cardinals alone have not chosen you.