Hard works starts now as Francis marks first year as pope
Pope Francis celebrates one year in office today swaddled in a blanket of approval world leaders would die for and most of his predecessors could only dream of.
But he also knows there is more to being pontiff than good PR. Bigger challenges lie ahead as Francis seeks to engineer a renaissance of his Church after years of scandals caused by paedophile priests and corruption and intrigue within the Vatican bureaucracy.
Spreading the word of God via Twitter, posing for selfies, paying his own hotel bills, and washing the feet of young offenders: all have proved to be inspired moves for the erstwhile Jorge Mario Bergoglio.
Humble, modest, approachable and modern. After 12 months, the @Pontifex brand is thriving.
The challenge for Christian spouses:remaining together, knowing how to love one another always, and doing so in a way that their love grows.
— Pope Francis – ARCHIVE (@Pontifex266Arch) March 8, 2014
The 77-year-old is not only loveable, he’s also cool. Sufficiently so for his first year to have been marked by appearances on the covers of an unlikely trio of US magazines.
He was Time’s person of the year for 2013. Esquire declared him their best-dressed man and Rolling Stone decided: “He rocks”.
Church attendances are said to be rising and pilgrims are flocking to Rome in unprecedented numbers.
A UN report accusing the Catholic Church of having covered up for tens of thousands of child-abusing priests failed to dent the impression that Francis is serious about reshaping the Church in his own open and forgiving image.
Questions raised over whether he might have done more to oppose the 1970s military junta in his native Argentina also seem to have melted away.
Overall, things could hardly be rosier.
Or could they? Within the walls of Vatican City, Francis’s popularity is not universally acclaimed as a positive sign amongst traditionalists suspicious of the new pope’s desire to reach out to believers who have abandoned regular interaction with the Church.
That has involved striking a more compassionate, understanding tone on the vexed issues of the Church’s attitudes to homosexuality and its treatment of divorced people.
Francis made waves early on by telling journalists, “If someone is gay and seeks the Lord with good will, who am I to judge?”
More than any other, that remark helped secure the Time man of the year accolade. But Vatican insiders insist it would be wrong to infer from it that Francis is bent on breaking with established doctrine on this or any other issue.
One year in, it is evolution not revolution that is on the menu in Rome.
