The road to Emmaus and the late Pope's idea of synodality
The fellowship that the disciples, without knowing it, have with Jesus seems to be an apt image for the vision that Pope Francis had for the Church under the concept of synodality—as he understood it. He wanted to set it on its way, set it in motion, and mobilize it for missionary work. That he meant this honestly and well should be accepted at face value.
However, the fact that the Church in Germany in particular thoroughly misunderstood him and probably continues to deliberately misunderstand him was clearly evident in the initial reactions in the media coverage of the Pope's death. Francis' unconventional style, the unpredictability of his agenda and his twelve-year pontificate are now being appropriated and exploited for one's own reform ideas, and a successor is suddenly being sworn in and committed to continuity with the Argentine pope, after people were so happy and relieved to finally be rid of Ratzinger's personal continuity, which was so annoying.
After the Letter to the German Church in 2019, it was clear, or at least it should have been clear, that the Church's own plans for the future could not be based on Francis's views on key issues. Although the reigns of John Paul II (1978-2005) and Benedict XVI (2005-2013) as a double pontificate, but due to the resignation of Pope Ratzinger, paradoxically the very radical discontinuity that paved the way for Bergoglio to become pope in the first place, the real double pontificate is that of Benedict XVI and Francis (2013-2025).
The simultaneous papacy of 2013 to 2022
After Benedict's resignation from the papacy, which admittedly remained inconsequential since he did not want to renounce the name and vestments of a pope, he lived for almost ten years and even recovered quite well. Until the end of 2022, when Joseph Ratzinger finally died, a kind of simultaneous pontificate emerged in the public eye, including a bizarre neo-sedisvacantism, according to which he had not really resigned and was still the real, true pope. When Pope Francis was elected after the resignation and conclave, someone who is now once again being consulted as a Vatican expert said that Benedict XVI had been such a great pope that Francis could not possibly erase the achievements and legacy of his predecessor. However, the supposed expert (Andreas Englisch) was very much mistaken, as not only lovers of the Old Mass can lament.
Now, this should not be held against the Argentine pope who has just passed away. Gloria von Thurn und Taxis recognized much more astutely that the pope from Bavaria was the real deconstructor of his own pontificate. Even though Francis has made great efforts to make the papal decisions he has taken irreversible, just as his ostentatious modesty has cost him dearly, the future pontiff will not be bound by his predecessor in these productions. In terms of content, even the most benevolent interpretation of Francis' synodality may soon prove to be as short-lived as Ratzinger's continuity.
Distancing himself from Bergoglio's questionable trademarks will require stature and backbone from his successor, because the approval Francis enjoyed came precisely from the secular media and predominantly from the non-church, anti-church, or even anti-Catholic public. Of course, this also came from left-wingers within the Church, but it has already been noted that their representatives in Germany themselves fail to understand and distort the caricature that Francis may have had in mind as a vision or – as he liked to say – a dream for the future of the Church.
The fact that Jorge Mario Bergoglio was able to develop such a view is certainly a generational issue. He was a victim of his education and formation in the Jesuit order during the most turbulent phase of the immediate post-conciliar period, and that under the special circumstances and difficulties of the South American Church and theology of those years. A new and different generational issue is now emerging, of course. For the first time in the upcoming conclave, the majority of cardinals no longer have autobiographical experience or even formative influence from a Church before the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965).
It is questionable how the coming pontificate can and should develop. The cardinals who will elect the new pope were created by Francis with an overwhelming, overwhelming majority. Since he admitted many of them to the Sacred College solely because they come from geographical peripheries or are otherwise unknown, in order to celebrate his supposed originality, which had long since ceased to surprise anyone, there is now a real possibility that there will be surprise candidates in the College of Cardinals who are truly Catholic.
Admittedly, the cardinals hardly know each other, and it must be said that Francis has exercised his authoritarian and autocratic style of government specifically to prevent his cardinals from getting to know each other. In addition, the pope deliberately ignored the archiepiscopal seats traditionally associated with the dignity of cardinal in his appointment practice.
Francis: An ultramontane modernist Jesuit pope
Francis was imbued with a keen awareness of the power of the papacy. This must certainly be recognized as a classic Jesuit trait, and it should be remembered that it was largely Roman Jesuits who did the theological groundwork before and during the First Vatican Council (1869/70). In doing so, they went far beyond the dogmatizations that were ultimately adopted, but they also continued to exert a great influence on how the dogmas of papal infallibility and jurisdictional primacy were subsequently incorporated into theology and preaching.
Francis' power-conscious exercise of office, which was mostly carried out single-handedly down to the last detail and stood in stark contrast to the image that Francis knew how to create for himself in public, invites comparison with Pius IX. (1846-1878), who was not unlike Francis in his understanding of office and character, and whom he may even have surpassed. An ultramontane Jesuit exaggeration of the pope, which may originally have been intended as a conservative safeguard and consolidation of his authority, has in Francis entered into a tragic liaison with the prevailing modernist Jesuit view of the Second Vatican Council and its intentions and perspectives.
Benedict XVI left behind the heavy burden of the canonically inconsistent and unclear figure of a Papa emeritus. Francis has not overcome this problem, instead burdening the Church with a flood of his own ambiguities and problems.
An obvious conflict came to a head with Francis
The experiment of a Jesuit pope has shown us its limits. With some distance, these limits will even reveal the failure that is almost inevitable when a member of a religious order who has taken a fourth vow of special obedience and loyalty to the pope himself holds the office of pope. It does not help if, like Papa Bergoglio, he adorns himself with the name of the poor little man from Assisi, who, incidentally, also sought a special relationship of closeness and loyalty to the Lord Pope in Rome, but expressly wanted his brothers not to hold positions of honor in the Church.
Of course, there have also been bishops, cardinals, and popes from the Franciscan Order in later times. Sixtus V (1585-1590) continued to wear the rough and not easy habit of the Friars Minor under his papal vestments, with the rich and heavy liturgical vestments over it when necessary. This was only discovered after his death. In this way, he concealed his personal humility and love of poverty under the dignity of the office of Peter, without detracting from its external splendor and charisma. The strategic approach of the Jesuit Francis appears to be in sharp contrast to this.
In the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, which Francis chose as his final resting place, lie Sixtus V and Honorius III (1216-1227), who was closely associated with the beginnings and first praise of the Franciscan movement; Nicholas IV (1288-1292), the first Franciscan to be elected pope; Pius V (1566-1572), who is well known in traditional circles; and, since the turn of the 17th century, Popes Clement VIII (1592-1605), Paul V (1605-1621), and Clement IX (1667-1669). It might have been more beneficial for the Church and also for Francis himself if he had sought common ground with these successors of Peter during his lifetime.
Emmaus as an image for Francis' last journey and for the mission of the Church after his extraordinary pontificate
Returning to the motif of the road in the Emmaus story: we know that the supposed stranger, using the Torah and all the prophets, reveals to the disappointed and dejected disciples, who, based on the women's reports, have not yet brought themselves to believe in Easter, the profound meaning of Jesus' suffering and death as the way to salvation. When the three companions reach Emmaus, he pretends to want to continue on his way. As evening is falling, the two disciples urge their stranger to stay with them. He does so, but it is only during the meal that they recognize Jesus when he breaks bread, whereupon he disappears from their sight.
The two disciples now think to themselves with emotion: Did not their hearts burn within them while he explained the Scriptures to them on the way? And they return without hesitation to Jerusalem, where they learn from the circle of the eleven apostles and their companions that the Lord has risen and appeared to Simon. Thus they receive the apostolic-Petrine testimony of the Resurrection and in turn report what happened to them on the way to Emmaus.
We now pray that the late Pope Francis may truly return home and truly recognize Jesus, the risen Lord. The disciples' journey to Emmaus involves a radical conversion. After Pope Francis, this is the task of the pontificate that lies ahead of us and the path of the whole Church into the future.
(German original here)
(German original here)
