Abstract
Mannion’s study is focused on a single text, Pope Francis’s 2013 apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, The Joy of the Gospel. Released just eight months after Jorge Mario Bergoglio succeeded Benedict XVI as Bishop of Rome, the document was supposed to be the papal response to the 2012 Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops on the new evangelization. But the document is much more; clearly bearing the stamp of the new pope’s vision, the authors see it as the manifesto of Pope Francis’s priorities for the renewal of the church. The book is the result of a symposium in March 2014 at Georgetown University’s Berkeley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs, led by M. and Drew Christiansen. Most probably composed in Spanish by Francis himself, it is organized around three areas reflective of his program for church reform, ecclesiology, social justice, and a wider global and dialogical agenda for the church. In his introduction M. emphasizes how for Francis praxis always has priority over ideas, service and mission over doctrine.
In the first section, Dennis Doyle roots Francis’s ecclesial vision in the writings of Jesuit theologians popular in the 1980s, specifically Sobrino, Orsy, Semmelroth, Rahner, and Teilhard de Chardin, though he doesn’t mention the Argentine mentors that helped shape his thought, Lucia Gera with his emphasis on the sensus fidei in all the baptized and Rafael Tello’s stress on the church as the faithful people of God. Massimo Faggioli describes Francis’s efforts to recapture the spirit of Vatican II, with a missionary ecclesiology that moves beyond the culture wars and debates on the liturgy. In her excellent contribution Judith Gruber argues that for Francis evangelization has a kenotic dimension, with the church going out of itself to discover its true identity, while its doctrine emerges out of its pastoral activities. Francis is not out to change doctrine, but he does want to change the ecclesial practice out of which doctrine takes shape. Sandra Mazzolini outlines the kind of conversion required if his dream of a “missionary option” capable of transforming the church, including the parish, the local church, even the papacy, is to be realized. For M., the pope’s ecclesiological vision is revolutionary when measured against his predecessors, “prioritizing practical, pastoral, social, and moral concerns over and against doctrinal, juridical, and fundamental theological considerations” (99).
In the section on Francis’s social vision, William Werpehowski notes Francis’s caution that EG is not a social document like Rerum Novarum and its successors. Nevertheless the pope argues that to be redeemed means that our social relations have been redeemed as well. He points to inequality as the root of social ills, a view Werpehowski traces back through earlier papal teachings to John XXIII’s claim that serving the common good means making “accessible the goods and services for a better life to as many persons as possible” (Mater et Magistra 79). Maureen O’Connell addresses the legacy of whiteness as a theological problem, one she says affects even Francis as the first Euro-American pope, but others as well. She notes that the Jesuits in Latin America used black slaves to build and maintain their largest mission property. Her critical but appreciative essay shows how Francis’s attention to exclusion, encounter, and mercy suggests ways of moving beyond white sense of superiority and colorblindness. Maryanne Loughry shows how EG treats the option for the poor as primarily a theological category, not simply a social or political one. Mary Doak points out that Catholic social teaching has shifted from seeing work for justice as “pre-evangelization,” rather than recognizing it as does Francis as constitutive of discipleship, making the Kingdom of God present in our world (EG 176). Yet the conflict between the values of God’s reign and the profit motive of the capitalist economy mirrors a greater cultural change.
In the final part on the Church and the World, Drew Christiansen argues for the peace-building potential of intercultural dialogues, defusing hostility by binding persons together. As an example he turns to the Jesuit mission to China in the 16th and 17th centuries. Here the pope’s pragmatism becomes evident, seeking to build communion out of disagreement. John Borelli further illustrates Francis’s pastoral approach, his emphasis on dialogue, fraternity, friendship, so evident in his ministry as archbishop of Buenos Aires. If anything, Francis prefers public or pastoral dialogue to the more specifically theological. As he likes to say, “realities are more important than ideas,” referring to another of his four principles. At points the book could benefit from better editing; at least four essays devote time to unpacking those principles which Christiansen sees as original. But it is a challenging book. All the essays explore the truly radical nature of Pope Francis’s thought.