How left-wing is Pope Francis?
When Bolivian President Evo Morales presented Pope Francis with a cross in the shape of a hammer and sickle, the pontiff looked as if he had been handed a dead animal.
“That is not good,” he reportedly told Morales.
Perhaps Morales had misunderstood something. He sees Francis as the first pontiff who is on his side, immersed in the fight against capitalism and the evil industrialised nations. Did Morales think that a communist or a Marxist was leading the Roman Catholic church?
The scene sparked the most commentary of any during the Argentinian-born Francis’ eight-day trip to Ecuador, Bolivia and Paraguay, but there were other bizarre moments in his first visit as pope to the three Spanish-speaking South American countries.
Leftist presidents like Morales and Ecuador’s Rafael Correa hugged Francis, and Morales handed him a pouch of coca leaves to help the 78-year-old pontiff fight the effects of an altitude of up to 4,000 metres in the Bolivian Andes. These were among the odd details of welcomes that also featured more traditional military honours.
In Santa Cruz, Bolivia’s most populous city, Francis got ready for mass in a sacristy that had been set up in a Burger King outlet. The curious scene led to internet memes showing the pope lifting a burger rather than communion bread at the altar.
Francis clearly did not know that the controversial communist cross was in fact a replica of a cross that Luis Espinal, a Jesuit like the pope who was killed by the Bolivian dictatorship in 1980, had devised to symbolise the need to build bridges between the church and the left-leaning peasants and workers.
The pope had honoured Espinal hours earlier, and many in Bolivia highlighted the things the two men had in common. The present pointed to the way many Latin Americans see Francis: as a leftist pontiff.
During the whole tour, he fed that image with his criticism of capitalist exclusion. And yet on many other issues – from homosexual marriage to abortion – he is extremely conservative, and that too was apparent in his insistence on the family.
He delivered his most political address at the Second World Meeting of Popular Movements in Santa Cruz. He sees himself as a pope for outcasts, a pope for the poor, and he stood on the side of social movements.”
Colonialism, both old and new, which reduces poor countries to mere providers of raw material and cheap labour, engenders violence, poverty, forced migrations and all the evils which go hand in hand with these,” Francis said.
It is hard to define a left-wing position, but some of the pontiff’s positions are unmistakably associated with it. And yet the pope, who dismisses ideology as empty, insists that his criticism of capitalism, multinationals, individualism and the search for profit is simply Christian values.
Francis apologised for the evils committed by the Roman Catholic church and in the church’s name during colonial times.
“Some may rightly say, ‘When the pope speaks of colonialism, he overlooks certain actions of the Church.’ I say this to you with regret: Many grave sins were committed against the native peoples of the Americas in the name of God,” he admitted in Santa Cruz.
Francis earned the acclaim of his audiences in the three countries, all of which have large proportions of indigenous, poor people. However, it remained to be seen whether his visit would do enough to halt the exodus of Roman Catholics to evangelical churches and sects.
The pontiff promoted his environmentally focused encyclical, released in June, and issued a warning for Correa, who is planning to launch oil extraction in Ecuador’s Amazon region next year.
In Bolivia, bishops hoped that Morales would be more conciliatory towards them after the pope’s visit, and the pontiff called the country’s authorities to improve justice and preserve inmates’ dignity during a visit to the infamous Palmasola prison.
In conservative Paraguay, Francis echoed protests over corruption and a lack of justice. Throughout his trip, Francis highlighted the work of missionaries in poor areas, and tried hard to motivate them to persist in their efforts. Francis did not include his native Argentina in this South American tour, reportedly to avoid getting involved in an election year. He is expected to head to his home country next year, but this week’s stay in Ecuador, Bolivia and Paraguay gave a taste of what one might see when he returns to Buenos Aires as pope.
