It will soon be a year since Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected Pope “from the ends of the earth”, the first Latin American and the first Jesuit, and took the name of Francis signaling an affinity with the saint from Assisi whose order had always placed itself in the ranks of the poor. Of course I was surprised like everyone else. I was impressed by what seemed to be a genuinely warm human personality; of course one can never be sure with public personas, which are constructed in a complicated interaction between the media and public opinion. Yet the information available on Francis suggested that the image of personal warmth had an empirical base in what the man really is and is not just the fabrication of a clever media campaign.
At the same time I suspected (and said so at the time) that the expectation (in hope or in fear) that Francis would initiate a program of radical reform in the Church was very likely unrealistic. This man was not a revolutionary. Given Francis’ Argentine roots the issue of Liberation Theology was almost immediately raised. I think enough information was available to encourage skepticism about the notion that this Pontificate would see a triumphal return of Liberation Theology. We know that during the Argentine phase of his biography Francis had shown no great sympathy for this school of political theology. Indeed, he had been accused of not affording adequate protection to activist priests pursued by the military regime: These accusations have been rejected by just this type of activist clergy, and I would conclude that they are unfounded. As Archbishop of Buenos Aires Francis refused to be drawn into active resistance to the regime—the Church was not to be a revolutionary movement (as many Liberation Theologians thought it should be)—at the same time the Church was to advocate for human rights and for the interests of the poor.
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