by Paul Eliefrom Georgetown University
John Allen on Pope Francis: “A Living Photo Album”
Among John Allen’s many gifts is thegift of good timing. Now into a third pontificate as the dean of
English-language “vaticanisti,” John
once again has written a book that consolidates his insights
about the Pope and the Vatican and those of his myriad sources with an enviable blend of ease and confidence.
And good timing, too: as people in Rome – and in magazine
feature sections worldwide – mark the second anniversary of Pope
Francis’s election, The Francis
Miracle
is
just out in North America.
The Francis “miracle,” as Allen explains it, is the transformation of a somewhat shy and often dour archbishop of Buenos Aires to an ebullient pope with a transfixing force of personality. And yet Allen also enters into the record plenty of evidence that Archbishop Bergoglio was no stranger to crowds and cameras. Such as this:
In Argentina, they say that if you want to understand the priestly soul, then you have to know the villas miserias. where the poorest of the poor in Buenos Aires are found. Villa 21, the largest of the approximately 20 slums in the city, has a population of almost 50,000. It’s a difficult place to work. The slum’s former pastor, a popular priest named Fr. José “Pepe” di Paola, had to be transferred out because of persistent death threats related to his efforts to break the grip of the drug gangs. But despite its manifold dangers, virtually everyone in the neighborhood knows Bergoglio, and many adorn the walls of their tin-and-wood shacks with prized photos showing him baptizing their children, confirming their nephews, or sitting in their living rooms to offer consolation when a family member died.
“I’d say that over the 15 years he has been walking down the streets here, at least half of the people have met him at some time and have a picture with him, meaning at least 25,000 people in this villa alone,” said Fr. Juan Isasmendi, one of the priests who lives and works in Villa 21. Members of the parish celebrated a mass of thanksgiving when Francis was elected; thousands turned up. holding their pictures aloft like a living photo album.
Two years and many millions of photographs later, they – and we – are still celebrating.
A La Repubblica slideshow of Francis’s first two years is here.
