The Great Reformer

by Austen Ivereigh

  47 Saint Ignatius, The Spiritual Exercises, Third Week, no. 195.

  48 Bergoglio, “Silencio y Palabra,” in Reflexiones en Esperanza.

  49 Klaiber, The Jesuits in Latin America. After Moyano’s death in 2006, Verbitsky identified him as the “anonymous Jesuit” he had earlier quoted, and in 2014 described him as a “key source” (fuente privilegiada) in his research on Bergoglio.

  50 Bergoglio, “En Él Solo Poner la Esperanza,” in Reflexiones en Esperanza.

  SIX A BISHOP WHO SMELLED OF SHEEP (1993–2000)

  1 Tim Worstall, “In Which a Good Catholic Boy Starts Shouting at the Pope,” Forbes website (November 26, 2013).

  2 Evangelii Gaudium, paragraph 97.

  3 Bergoglio, “Nuestra Carne en Oración,” in Reflexiones en Esperanza.

  4 Rubin and Ambrogetti, El Jesuita, ch. 12.

  5 This account is in Marcelo Larraquy, Recen por Él (Buenos Aires: Sudamericana, 2013), pp. 167–68, and confirmed to the author by Father García-Mata.

  6 Quoted in Piqué, Francisco: Vida y Revolución, pp. 115–16.

  7 In the interview with Father Spadaro, Bergoglio recalls an exchange he had while a bishop. Asked provocatively if he approved of homosexuality, he replied: “Tell me: when God looks at a gay person, does he affectionately approve of this person’s existence, or does he reject the person with condemnation?”

  8 He recalls this in his 2011 dialogue with Rabbi Skorka in Jorge Bergoglio and Abraham Skorka, Sobre el Cielo y la Tierra (Buenos Aires: Editorial Sudamericana, 2010), ch. 9.

  9 The Desatanudos story is well told by Carmelo López-Arias, “La Devoción Personal del Papa,” Religión en Libertad website (June 23, 2013); Himitian, Francisco: El Papa de la Gente, ch. 6; and Puente, La Vida Oculta de Bergoglio, pp. 122–23.

  10 Vallely, Pope Francis: Untying the Knots, p. 102.

  11 Bartolomé de Vedia, “Bergoglio Será el Sucesor de Quarracino,” La Nación, June 4, 1997.

  12 Sergio Rubín, “La Iglesia que Busca Menem,” Clarín, June 22, 1997.

  13 “Una Multitud Oró ante San Cayetano,” La Nación, August 8, 1997.

  14 John Allen, “Pope Francis Gets His Oxygen from the Slums,” National Catholic Reporter, April 7, 2013.

  15 This account is drawn from off-the-record accounts supplied to the author in interviews with CELAM officials in 2003 in Madrid and in Bogotá in 2005.

  16 Alberto Methol Ferré and Alver Metalli, El Papa y el Filósofo (Buenos Aires: Editorial Biblos, 2013).

  17 On the Cuba visit, see George Weigel, Witness to Hope (New York: Cliff Street Books, 1999), pp. 790–92.

  18 Grupo de Reflexión “Centesimus Annus,” Diálogos entre Juan Pablo II y Fidel Castro (Buenos Aires: Editorial de Ciencia y Cultura, 1998). Bergoglio is described on the cover as the coordinador.

  19 Tello quoted in Chilean magazine article, “El Papa Villero,” Qué Pasa, February 20, 2014.

  20 Henri de Lubac, The Splendor of the Church (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1986).

  21 “Obispos Argentinos Piden que no Se Utilice a la Iglesia con Fines Políticos,” Noticias Eclesiales, August 5, 1998; Carlos Pagni, “De Pronto, Todo Ha Cambiado,” La Nación, March 18, 2013.

  22 Jorge Mario Bergoglio, “Fervor Apostólico,” in Cuadernos de Pastores, Año 5, no. 15 (September 1999), at www.cuadernospastores.org.ar.

  23 Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Corrupción y Pecado. Algunas Reflexiones en Torno al Tema de la Corrupción (Buenos Aires: Ed. Claretiana, 2013).

  24 On the Trusso-BCP affair, see Wornat, Nuestra Santa Madre, pp. 225–73; Larraquy, Recen por Él, pp. 175–79; Puente, La Vida Oculta de Bergoglio, pp. 267–68, plus other biographies and contemporaneous press reports. The results of the ongoing investigations have been summarized for me by a lawyer close to the events.

  25 “Palermo, Escenario de la Fe,” La Nación, October 13, 1998.

  26 José María Poirier, “Quiet Thunder in Argentina,” Catholic Herald, October 7, 2005.

  27 “Bergoglio Rescata la Mirada de los Niños,” La Nación, December 17, 1999.

  28 In Horacio Verbitsky’s El Silencio, 2nd ed. (Buenos Aires: Sudamericana, 2005), he mentions the Bergoglio interview and quotes from it.

  29 Margaret Hebblethwaite, “The Pope Francis I Know,” Guardian Comment Is Free website, March 14, 2013.

  30 “Te Deum, 25 de Mayo de 1999,” in Bergoglio, La Patria es un Don, la Nación una Tarea. Refundar con Esperanza Nuestros Vínculos Sociales (Buenos Aires: Ed. Claretiana, 2013).

  31 “Te Deum, 25 de Mayo de 2000,” in ibid.

  32 Commission Sociale de l’Episcopat Français, Réhabiliter la Politique (February 1999), at www.cef.fr. Father Accaputo says Bergoglio knew the document well. It is footnoted in paragraph 205 in Evangelii Gaudium and is described in Pope Francis’s interview with La Vanguardia, June 12, 2014, as a “beautiful text.”

  33 “Ibarra, el Agnóstico, Coincidió con Bergoglio, el Arzobispo,” Página 12, December 2, 2000.

  SEVEN GAUCHO CARDINAL (2001–2007)

  1 Rembert Weakland, “Images of the Church from ‘Perfect Society’ to ‘God’s People on Pilgrimage,’” in Austen Ivereigh (ed.), Unfinished Journey: The Church 40 Years After Vatican II (New York: Continuum, 2003), pp. 78–90; Ladislas Orsy, SJ, “The Church of the Third Millennium: An Exercise in Theological and Canonical Imagination: In Praise of Communio,” Studia Canonica 38 (2004): 5–36; John R. Quinn, The Reform of the Papacy: The Costly Call to Christian Unity (New York: Crossroad, 1999).

  2 Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, “Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on Some Aspects of the Church Understood as Communion” (May 28, 1992) at www.vatican.va.

  3 In his encyclical letter Ut Unum Sint (1995), Pope John Paul II asked for help in finding “a way of exercising the primacy which, while in no way renouncing what is essential to its mission, is nonetheless open to a new situation.”

  4 Quinn, The Reform of the Papacy. Kasper’s article, originally in Stimmen der Zeit 219 (December 2000), was published in English as “The Universal Church and the Local Church: A Friendly Rejoinder” in Walter Kasper, Leadership in the Church (New York: Crossroad, 2003). Cardinal Ratzinger responded in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, December 22, 2000, defending the primacy of the universal over the local.

  5 Sodano’s financial relationship with Maciel is detailed in Jason Berry’s 2010 investigation, “How Fr. Maciel Built His Empire,” National Catholic Reporter, April 12, 1990. John Cornwell, The Pontiff in Winter: Triumph and Conflict in the Reign of John Paul II (New York: Doubleday, 2004), portrays the Vatican in the final John Paul II years.

  6 Austen Ivereigh, “Streams of Scarlet as Pope Appoints New Cardinals,” The Tablet, February 24, 2001.

  7 “Bergoglio: El País Debe Apelar a Sus Reservas Morales,” La Nación, February 18, 2001.

  8 See Robert Mickens’s reports in The Tablet: “Extraordinary Rome Meeting Brings Ordinary Results,” May 26, 2001; “Cardinals Press for More Sharing in Church Government,” June 2, 2001.

  9 October 2, 2001. He spoke in Spanish. My translation.

  10 Robert Mickens’s synod reports in The Tablet: “Synod of Bishops to Meet Without Benefit of Reforms,” June 9, 2001; “Bishops in a Think Tank,” October 13, 2001. I was at Bergoglio’s press conference.

  11 In Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan, Praying in Rome: Reflections on the Conclave and Electing Pope Francis (New York: Image Books, 2013).

  12 Sandro Magister, L’Espresso, no. 49 (November 28–December 5, 2002), translation “Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Profession: Servant of the Servants of God” at www.chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it.

  13 Eduardo Duhalde, “Aquel Hombre Que Estuvo en las Horas Más Difíciles,” La Nación, March 18, 2013.

  14 Austen Ivereigh, “Argentina’s New Riches,” The Tablet, February 15, 2003. This article followed a period I spent in Buenos Aires at the end of 2002.

  15 Gianni Valente, 2002 interview in 30 Giorni, republished in Valente, Francesco: Un
Papa Dalla Fine del Mondo (Bologna: EMI, 2013).

  16 Te Deum address, May 25, 2002: “La Historia del Publicano Zaqueo,” in Bergoglio, La Patria Es un Don, la Nación una Tarea (Buenos Aires: Ed Claretiana, 2013), pp. 57–66.

  17 Te Deum address, May 25, 2003: “La Narración del Buen Samaritano,” in Bergoglio, La Patria Es un Don, pp. 69–79.

  18 The intermediary was interviewed by Larraquy in Recen por Él.

  19 Te Deum address, May 25, 2004: “Jesús en la Sinagoga de Nazaret: Nadie Es profeta en Su Tierra,” in Bergoglio, La Patria Es un Don, pp. 81–93.

  20 “Bergoglio Tiró Palos, Pero en Gobierno los Esquivaron,” Página 12, May 26, 2004.

  21 “Francisco Va a Vivir Hasta los 140 Años, Dice Su Médico Chino,” Revista Perfil, October 30, 2013; “El Médico Chino del Papa,” Religión Digital website, August 21, 2003.

  22 Austen Ivereigh, “Pope in Lourdes Speaks of ‘The End of My Pilgrimage,’” The Tablet, August 21, 2004.

  23 Jorge Mario Bergoglio, “La Presencia de María en la Vida del Papa,” 30 Giorni, special edition dedicated to John Paul II, no. 4 (April 2005).

  24 Bergoglio 2005 testimony: Stefania Falasca, “Bergoglio: ‘Io, Testimone di Virtù Eroiche di Wojtyla,’” Avvenire, April 17, 2014.

  25 “Homilía del Arzobispo de Buenos Aires, en Ocasión de la Misa por el Primer Aniversario de la Tragedia de Cromagnon” (December 30, 2005).

  26 “Juan Pablo II Fue Simplemente un Coherente,” homily (April 4, 2005).

  27 Gerson Camarotti, “Cartas Quase Marcadas no Vaticano,” O Globo, December 25, 2005.

  28 Verbitsky, El Silencio, pp. 51–61, 101–15. Bergoglio account in Rubín and Ambrogetti, El Jesuita, ch. 14.

  29 Cardinal Francis George of Chicago told me this at Fiumicino Airport after the conclave of 2013. The allegation was made by Román Lejtman, “Exclusivo: Por Qué Fracasó un Informe Secreto K para Bloquear la Elección de Bergoglio,” El Cronista, March 28, 2013; denial in Elisabetta Piqué, “Cafiero Negó que Haya Emitido un Dossier Contra Bergoglio,” La Nación, March 20, 2013.

  30 Lucio Brunelli, “Cosi Eleggemmo Papa Ratzinger,” Limes, September 23, 2005.

  31 Marco Tosatti, “Ecco Come Andò Davvero il Conclave del 2005,” Vatican Insider, October 3, 2013.

  32 Marchisano told this to Gianluca Barile, Diario di un Papista (Tavagnacco: Ed. Segno, 2013).

  33 Piqué, Francisco: Vida y Revolución, p. 144; George Weigel, “The First American Pope,” National Review Online, March 14, 2013.

  34 Meditation on the Two Standards, from a translation of the retreat published as In Him Alone Is Our Hope (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2013), ch. 7.

  35 Carmen María Ramos, “No Es Tiempo de un Papa Latinoamericano,” interview with Methol Ferré in La Nación, April 6, 2005.

  36 The remarks in L’Indipendente were reported by Catholic World News, October 13, 2005: “Argentine Cardinal Refuses to Discuss Conclave Support.”

  37 Robert Mickens, “Rome Synod: The Inside Story,” The Tablet, October 29, 2005; and “Curial Cardinals at Odds over Remarried Divorcees,” The Tablet, November 5, 2005. “Debate la Iglesia la Comunión a los Divorciados Vueltos a Casar,” La Nación, October 6, 2005.

  38 The retreat is published in English as In Him Alone Is Our Hope (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2013).

  39 “Kirchner y Bergoglio, Juntos en una Misa de Homenaje a Sacerdotes Palotinos,” Clarín, April 11, 2006.

  40 “En el Tedéum, Bergoglio Criticó la Manipulación y la Prepotencia,” Clarín, May 26, 2006. Te Deum address, May 25, 2006: “Las Bienaventuranzas,” in Bergoglio, La Patria es un Don, pp. 97–108.

  41 “Bergoglio y los Kirchner: Seis Años de una Relación Gélida,” La Nación, November 8, 2011; “Guillermo Marcó ya no Será Vocero del Cardenal Bergoglio,” La Nación, December 14, 2006.

  42 Bergoglio, “Sentido Eclesial,” in Meditaciones para Religiosos.

  43 Raniero Cantalamessa, press conference following October 13, 2012, CRECES meeting, at www.infocreces.com.ar.

  44 Bergoglio prologue dated April 4, 2005, to Guzmán Carriquiry, Una Apuesta Por América Latina (Buenos Aires: Sudamericana, 2005).

  45 In his prologue to Carriquiry, En Camino Hacia La V Conferencia de la Iglesia Latinoamericana: Memoria de los 50 años del CELAM.

  46 Alberto Methol Ferré, La América Latina del Siglo XXI (Buenos Aires: Edhasa, 2006).

  47 Guzmán Carriquiry, “La Revolución de la Gracia,” Tierras de América website, February 18, 2014.

  48 Gutiérrez said this at the launch of a book cowritten by Cardinal Gerhard Müller, current CDF head, in Rome. See Joshua McElwee, “With Vatican Doctrinal Czar, Liberation Theology Pioneer Reflects on Troubles,” National Catholic Reporter, February 28, 2014.

  49 Interview with Stefania Falasca, “What I Would Have Said at the Consistory,” 30 Days, no. 11 (November 2007).

  50 Interview in Clarín, October 27, 2013.

  51 The Tablet, June 2, 2007.

  52 This debate is described by the then bishop of Petrópolis, Filippo Santoro, in Sandro Magister, “When Bergoglio Defeated the Liberation Theologians,” Chiesa blog, October 1, 2013.

  EIGHT MAN FOR OTHERS (2008–2012)

  1 Padre Pepe Di Paola in Bermúdez (ed., trans.), Pope Francis: Our Brother, Our Friend.

  2 Equipo de Sacerdotes para las Villas de Emergencia, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires, “La Droga en las Villas: Despenalizada de Hecho,” March 25, 2009.

  3 These stories are told in Silvina Premat, Curas Villeros: de Mugica al Padre Pepe (Buenos Aires: Editorial Sudamericana, 2010), and Premat, Pepe: El Cura de la Villa (Buenos Aires: Sudamericana, 2013).

  4 Equipo de Sacerdotes para las Villas de Emergencia, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires, “Celebrar el Bicentenario en la Ciudad de Buenos Aires, 2010–2016,” May 11, 2010.

  5 Conferencia Episcopal Argentina, “Hacia un Bicentenario en Justicia y Solidaridad, 2010–2016,” December 2008.

  6 Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Prologue to Guzmán Carriquiry, El Bicentenario de la Independencia de los Países Latinoamericanos (Madrid: Encuentro, 2011).

  7 “Hace Años que No Se Ocupan de la Gente,” La Nación, August 8, 2009.

  8 “Activista Gay Dice que el Papa Francisco Apoyaba las Uniones Civiles Homosexuales,” CNN, March 20, 2013. The headline is misleading. Cardinal Bergoglio supported civil unions whose legal rights and privileges gay people could access rather than civil unions exclusively for gay people.

  9 Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, “Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions Between Homosexual Persons,” March 28, 2003. The “objections from Rome” were voiced by Esteban Caselli, who gave a radio interview in August 2003 expressing surprise that Bergoglio had not criticized the Buenos Aires law the year before. But given Caselli’s closeness to Cardinals Sodano and Sandri, nobody doubted the origin of the criticism. See Sergio Rubín, “Una Ofensiva Dentro de la Iglesia,” Clarín, August 10, 2003.

  10 See Bergoglio’s remarks in Bergoglio and Skorka, Sobre el Cielo y la Tierra, ch. 16.

  11 Declaración de la Asamblea Plenaria del Episcopado Argentino, “Sobre el Bien Inalterable del Matrimonio y de la Familia,” April 20, 2010. Bergoglio’s position at the plenary was revealed a few months later by Sergio Rubín in “La Iglesia Puso Todo en Juego,” Clarín (July 14, 2010), and subsequently confirmed by various sources.

  12 Vallely, Pope Francis: Untying the Knots. Vallely quotes Father Marcó speculating that this was a “strategy” in which Bergoglio would copy the letter to Rome “to show he was doing what was required.” Marcó was not part of Bergoglio’s staff or close to him at this time, and his reading is contradicted by those who were.

  13 Bergoglio letter to Dr. Justo Carbajales, director of the Argentine Bishops’ Conference Department for Laity, July 5, 2010.

  14 Senator Negre’s account from Bermúdez, Pope Francis: Our Brother, Our Friend, and “El Papa Francisco Nunca Impulsó ‘Uniones C
iviles,’” ACI/EWTN Noticias, April 24, 2013, as well as e-mail correspondence with the author.

  15 Bergoglio and Skorka, Sobre el Cielo y la Tierra, ch. 25.

  16 Luis Zamora appears on the TV show “Palabras Más, Palabras Menos,” March 19, 2013, on YouTube.

  17 “Luis Zamora Declaración de Bergoglio,” Canal de Política Provincia, November 9, 2010, on YouTube.

  18 The questions and Bergoglio’s written answers are at the website of the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, www.abuelas.org.uk.

  19 I attended the November 2013 Jornada. Among those attending are normally the head of the Association of Industrialists, the leading trade unionists, the head of the Agrarian Federation, as well as the leaders of the non-Kirchner Peronist parties and non-Peronist parties. The fullest expression of the work of the Jornadas was the document produced in September 2007, which is almost a charter for a re-foundation of Argentine political life. Pastoral Social de la Arquidiócesis de Buenos Aires, “Hacia una Cultura de Encuentro: La Política, Mediadora del Bien Común,” September 15, 2007.

  20 See Fortunato Mallimaci, Atlas de las Creencias Religiosas en la Argentina (Buenos Aires: Editorial Biblos, 2013).

  21 See Marco Gallo, “El Papa Francisco y la Shoá,” in the magazine of the Buenos Aires Shoah Museum, Nuestra Memoria 19, no. 37 (May 2013).

  22 Sergio Bergman, Un Evangelio Según Francisco: Maestro, Líder y Estadista (Buenos Aires: Ediciones B, 2013).

  23 Published as Biblia, Diálogo Vigente (Buenos Aires: Planeta, 2013).

  24 Bishop Venables’s comment was published without his consent on the website of the Anglican Communion following Francis’s election but he has confirmed its accuracy. The Ordinariate, which was created in response to requests from Anglicans, allows Anglican priests to become Catholics along with their congregations, and to preserve key traditions in liturgy and customs.

  25 Comisión Permanente del Episcopado Argentino, “El Juego se Torna Peligroso,” December 20, 2010.

  26 “Informe sobre Talleres Clandestinos en la Ciudad de Buenos Aires,” August 29, 2006, commissioned by the national deputy Elisa Carrió and on her website.