Millions of pages have been written about the possible consequences of Pope Francis’ election in the Catholic Church. Reams of paper have been written on the problematic relationship of Cardinal Bergoglio with the Argentine government. Hastily, the smearing came, hit and went back, becoming resigned acceptance of the inevitable. About all this, it has been written up to death. Little or nothing was said, instead, about the impact for the world of the appointment of one of its most important political authorities. Nothing to be surprised in a world whose main religion is nationalism; this curious superstition that allows us to believe that our country will flourish among terrible global crises and that our children will survive, even if nuclear proliferation goes on and the consequences of climatic change will explode. The issue would deserve more notes, but I’ve promised myself to dedicate this one to the new pope. Let me close the question, then, saying that if we continue to build a more and more unified and interdependent world by technology and economics, while teaching our children that their own country is the measure of all things and its interests the ultimate principle that should inspire our actions, something bad will soon happen to us. Then, don’t say that nobody warned them.
In the meanwhile, let us hope that this time the owl of Minerva takes her flight before the world explodes, let’s go back to the Pope, whose choice of a name has excited the largest religious enthusiasm that my poor agnostic heart is capable of. I mean, I lived seven years in Italy and one in Gubbio, home of the wolf, a few meters from where his meeting with Francis took place, who right there built one of the first leper-hospital in history. So, my anticlerical soul has surrendered long ago to the little poor man (il poverello) of Assisi and his three wonderful miracles: peace, harmony with nature and his choice for the poor. With such a burden, it is not surprising that no pope wanted to use his name before. So, are not the Franciscan values of peace, respect for nature and help to the poor the right counterpart of the three major global crises that threaten the world today? What else but peace does a world overwhelmed by the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction need? What else but respect for nature does a humanity lost in the corruption of the ones and in the consumerism of the others, and that runs the risk of causing a planetary ecological collapse, need? What else but attention for the helpless does this civilization, the human one, whose dazzling techno-economic boom hasn’t been matched with a proportional improvement of the living conditions of its poorest half, require?
Nevertheless, let’s go beyond the good wishes of the beautiful souls. Think of the current economic crisis. Are the liberal economists serious when they propose another round of Keynesian drinks, i.e. a new bubble of first-world consumption able to stimulate once more the production of objects with planned obsolescence, the re-flourishing of the great world factory that Asia has become, the consequent rise in commodities and a new peak for the BRICs? Don’t they understand that this is the model that has just exploded, and that the return to it can only lead to incalculable consequences at ecological level and to a new financial crisis with even more ravaging consequences? Didn’t they understand the ABC of the Keynesian recipe: moving from a model based on individual consumption of objects for the richest to one based on the production of public goods, which today means: clean air and stable climate worldwide, a computer for every child in the world, water, food and medicines for all human beings, the moving from the age of cars to that of public transport, the abandonment of fossil energy, cheap but deadly, and use of wind, solar, tidal power?
I speak of an exit solution from the crisis based on the Franciscan values: 1) austerity in the First World, with an improved distribution of wealth and a new paradigm of social satisfaction that doesn’t depend on the acceleration of washing-machine change but on working less and better, in more enjoyable and meaningful tasks, that give time for an ecologically sustainable consumption, already in progress (gourmet food, sports and culture for everyone, widespread artistic production, short-haul tourism, weekend concerts, yoga classes, tango lessons); 2) peace and redirection of the arms industrial complex to the production of technological components able to change the energy sources before the planet explodes, 3) help to the poor and a new economy full of opportunities, aimed at the satisfaction of the basic needs of that half of humanity that lacks the basics amid a widespread wastage.
Utopia? Utopia is believing that we will save ourselves if we don’t start to go this way as soon as possible. And lying is arguing that we lack resources to do so. Resources abound. What is lacking is political will. What is lacking are generosity and intelligence to understand that in a global world we are the humanity, and not one of her tribes. And what we lack are institutions adequate to the situation, i.e. democratic and global, able not to submit to the ongoing techno-economic changes, but to direct them to the benefit of the survival and the welfare of all human beings. Peace, respect for nature, help to the poor. Will the new pope be able to speak to all human beings with the words of Francis? Not to his flock, or his compatriots. To all human beings. And if so, would the patriarchs of other faiths be able to take up this challenge? Will we be able to put behind us too many centuries in which religions were one of the ways to divide men, and to move towards a new era in which they serve to unite them against the threats posed by a reason without heart and a heart without reason?
Maybe there is more faith than intelligence in this hope. However, thinking of the parable of Jorge Bergoglio, who grew up in Flores, a barrio of Buenos Aires, and became Pope, I can’t avoid remembering one of the songs that marked my adolescence. It was a Pedro y Pablo’s song, named Padre Francisco (Father Francis), and ended with this exhortation:
Padre Francisco, /salga por Cristo a predicar, /una justicia más audaz. /Ya no recaiga, háblele al alma, /Del pueblo de pié, /se necesita tanta fe, /sea usted capaz.
“Father Francis, / go out for Christ and preach / a bolder justice./ Do not fall, talk to the soul/ of the standing people. / It takes a lot of faith, / be you up to the task”.
Hopefully, Bergoglio heard it too.
Translated by Laura Roscio
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