From Francesco Le Lion Xiv. What the future will reserve for us?

We wish the very beat Father Leone XIV to be himself, no longer Robert Prevost but Pietro, A wounded healer, to reconstitute the figure of the sweet Christ on earth healthy and to know how to heal the Church that lives in a traumatized situation. You have to at least try us, even without succeeding, but try. This will already constitute a merit of grace and salvation, Through that logic of the Christological failure that shines the world in the glory of the cross and wins the world.

- Church news -

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Author
Ivano Liguori, Ofm. Cap.

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Just two weeks after the election of the Roman Pontiff Leone XIV We cannot fail to notice in the Church an atmosphere of generalized euphoria combined with that feeling of relief similar to the one who at the end of the day dismisses the narrow shoes to get comfortably in slippers. It is enough to retrace the images of the pontificate beginning Holy Mass to notice a San Pietro square very crowded until the entire Via della Conciliation, which has not happened for at least a decade now.

Many were present. Not only did ordinary people want to be present at the event of the beginning of the Ministry of the new Roman Pontiff but also several prominent personalities from all over the world have made their tribute, nourishing in their hearts the secret hope that the new head of the Church could constitute a valid political and social ally in the current geopolitical chessboard.

The election of a pope is something extraordinary, Without a doubt it is a unique event in the world, which with easy irony takes place precisely “at every death of Pope”. but yet, This election in particular was loaded with numerous hopes and expectations precisely for the singularity of the pontificate of Pope Francis and of that objective eccentricity of the man Jorge Mario Bergoglio of which, if necessary, We talked with regret and sometimes embarrassment on our magazine, always with respect but above all to "Pope Vivo", unlike the "heroes" who only today, to "Dead Pope", they raise perplexity, criticism and even irony. Hence the realistic comment of our canonist editor Padre Teodoro Pjudged:

«To us who, in the face of certain undeniable extravagances, If necessary, we criticized the Holy Father Francesco with a face open, with grace and respect, Now it will be the task of defending him from dead from those who have enhanced him alive, up to sink into forms of real papolatria, Obviously far from disinterested, having then obtained what is hoped for benefits, Ecclesiastical appointments and charges ".

We pay attention, After each papal election there is from many commentators and journalists the immoderate use of that female noun which is "continuity", term that means and indicates the resumption of that line of government - made of tradition, idea, guidelines and styles - that the deceased pontiff had in his government of the Church and that the new should continue almost as a testamentary legacy. Confirming the fact, Most of the latest predictions about possible papabili all focused on profiles similar to of which, Just as that Latin phrase teaches: Similar with similar. But the history of the papacy and the conclaves always reserves surprises and unexpected events.

I remember how in the 2005, Upon the death of John Paul II, Benedict XVI's election was greeted as a sign of great continuity with the predecessor. Time then highlighted how the two pontificates proved to be different both for personal history, Both for styles and temperaments and that the only continuity found was the one present in the command of the Risen Lord to Pietro: "Pasci my sheep" (GV 21,17). These two Pontiff's Romans have been united by the desire to lead the spacecraft of the Church and to feed the Holy People of God with fortress and not without the painful calvaries.

This is to say that regimenting a pontificate Within personal expectations and previous inheritance leads to disappointments and that the continuity that counts for a pope is that with Jesus Christ and not with his predecessor, It was also a canonized saint. This was also the thought that many cardinals shared during the latest general congregations in view of the conclave and is the one that in a not so veiled way was also able to express Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re during the Holy Mass before entering the conclave.

Such scattered reflections are positive Because they help us mature in the knowledge that a pope should be loved both in his ministry and as a figure but at the same time we are equally convinced that the Pope, whatever it is, In his fragile and bankruptcy humanity it is not a outsider and therefore it needs all the support and the advice possible, Because we are all passable of that failure that our director Father Ariel has masterfully expressed in one of his recent article (you see WHO).

The advice is a gift from the Holy Spirit and not a human compromise, It is that gift that the psalm 16 it describes this: «The Lord gave me advice, Even at night my heart instructs me " (Shall 16, 7). The task of advising and instructing the Supreme Pontiff belongs primarily to God through the Son but also through the suggestion, The wisdom and mediation of the Sacred College to which it is responsible for generously exercising the gift of the Council towards the person of the Supreme Pontiff.

May 8th, from the loggia of the blessings of the Basilica of San Pietro, We were able to see a pontiff overlooking with visible emotion and awareness of his role, The television images could not hide the emotion of the eyes and the nervousness that crashed the lips. He presented himself to the world as a pontiff, with the appearance of a pontiff, For those who wanted to see a pontiff and nothing else. That gift of the Council will have worked effectively in the heart of the cardinals in view of the election? We hope so, But we wish to hope that you continue to work in the years to come both in the Cardinal College and inside the Apostolic Palace. The conditions would seem good - the conditional is a must - from the moment in which Leo XIV overlooked the balcony of the loggia of the Basilica we were able to perceive its intentionality of recovering the Church on the person of the Risen Christ and accompanying all men within a path of Easter awareness.

We want to cultivate the theological virtue of hope and feed a realistic trust, without falling into easy conspiracy "amphibologies" or in the trap of seeing in the mozzetta, in the pontifical stole and on the golden cross of the golden or controversial signs. The presence of these signs is not an expression of a carnival farce or a Renaissance legacy, they represent the elements of a pope and help to outline his clear figure, which respects canons that are not fashionable or political but that take root into a specific language and that mean precise realities. To all those people like in the world you like, it will benefit that it is true that the dress does not make the monk, however the monk has the dress, which must wear and bring with dignity, as a visible sign of the office to which it is called to fulfill.

The world of people who like, dependent on the various look e outfit He lashed out against Leone XIV because of his appearance by blatantly like a pope. Sui social Among the various comments, the most flattering, under the various news of the election, was: "I don't like", And that's why? Simple, For some time the figure of the Pope and the Papacy has been unstructured and mortified and this does not want to be an attack on the predecessor of Pope Leo XVI but only an objective reading. With Pope Francis we saw the successor of the blessed apostle Pietro present himself at the terminus of his earthly existence in a wheelchair, with a poncho sdrucite, with approximate trousers (Perhaps even with the bladder catheter) as well as one of the many elderly people of the worst assisted health residence. What did this way of appearing to that world made of the people like this? Nothing, simply nothing, There were no shields because the goal appeared very clear from the start, Desructuring the soul of the papacy, normalize it and perhaps bring it to the minimum terms and Francesco was in this the right man at the right time, unaware pawn (perhaps?) but also a fragile man who has not had the ability to be protected, guide and defend.

I think none of us would like to carry around his elderly parent in conditions of transading and fragility. I who have served for several years as a hospital chaplain I know well the reality of health and welfare environments and I can guarantee that the sick person, even if attached or terminal, He is not happy to show his physical fragility to strangers, often also with some family members, but always try to keep one's dignity; but yet, The exact opposite happened with Francesco and we must excuse ourselves of this.

Another peculiarity of Leone XIV It was present to the world with the words of the Risen Christ: "Peace is with all of you", It is the word of Christ who wins the world and the Pope can only lean on the Risen One and leave the supremacy to him. This greeting would be enough to be able to identify a possible pastoral journey for the new pontificate of Leone XIV. A pontificate of lift that must touch several fronts: From the most immediate Roman Curia together with the presbytery of Rome - widely mistreated - up to the international relations between the peoples in which the Holy See with its boss can only demonstrate that moral and maternal authority to bring man back to reasonableness.

A necessary reconciliation, I said, that can only start from the recognition of those wounds that are also present within the image of the current papacy. The rest, The Blessed Apostle Pietro himself began his ministry with obvious injuries and a personal past to be repeated, This is good to remember it to escape the mania of the papolatria always lurking.

We wish the Beatissima Father Leone XIV to be himself, no longer Robert Prevost but Pietro, A wounded healer, to reconstitute the figure of the sweet Christ on earth healthy and to know how to heal the Church that lives in a traumatized situation. You have to at least try us, even without succeeding, but try. This will already constitute a merit of grace and salvation, Through that logic of the Christological failure that shines the world in the glory of the cross and wins the world. Who knows that the figure of the Church as a field hospital does not take fullness in the current pontificate. There are those who want to see the new pontiff as the one who will bring back to tradition, There are those who want to see him as a continuer of Francesco's work, who a conservative in the form but a new Bergoglio in substance.

For the moment we want to exercise the doubt understood as an exercise of prudence and suspend the judgment within the frame of a healthy realism. Sure it would like to relive what in the apocryphal book of Acts of Peter It is known as the tradition of quo Vadis. Jesus teaches Pietro that in Rome a pope can be alone and only if he leaves himself crucify. And with this awareness we want to bend our knees since now and pray for the Holy Father. Long live the Pope!

Sanluri, 27 May 2025

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