Francisco: Man of the Year

Poder Latino News - There is no doubt. The Pope Francisco is the man of the year 2013, as has just been proclaimed by Time magazine, not only by the wind of renewal that has meaning in an institution as ossified as the Catholic Church, but also by his speech of inclusion, love, tolerance and gentleness, after four decades of absolute pontificates, unanimity that had silence more than a hundred of theologians and of a exclusionary speech that posed that outside of the catholicity there is no salvation.

The election of the archbishop of Buenos Aires, Jorge Bergoglio, as Supreme Pontiff of the Catholic Church, was the best thing that could happen to the world of 2013, urged by new leadership and inspirational innovators and by generating the spiritual forces of progress in human society.

From the first day of his inauguration in March, the new Pope surprised the world by choosing the name of Francis of Assisi, referent of a simple shepherd, who devoted his life to the poorest, embodying a gospel of love and humility. As it was preached Jesus Christ. Removing the papacy of the palaces to take the streets and be placed at the center of the discussions of his era, such as raised the publisher of Time.

The arrival of Bergoglio to the papacy, precisely 50 years since the departure of Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, better known as John XXIII, the good Pope, is the best thing that could have happened to a triumphalist church, which is exclusionary and centralising the incarnated as John Paul II and Benedict XVI, who reneged on the aggiornament and the renewal of the Second Vatican Council.

Refused to dwell in the Vatican palaces, the new pope has avoided the temptation of the king to be close to the people, without filters intermediaries, renouncing the tinsel and the traditional signs of power, to get closer to the rabit of Galilee; to fallow his preaches and practiced gentleness, compassion and brotherhood.

The first Latin American pope has surprised not only by his spontaneous statements and interviews, but also for the depth of his homilies and especially by his apostolic exhortation Evangelli Gaudium, or the joy of the Gospel, where he presented a "conversion of the papacy" to give way to a more collegial church, more open to the plurality and diversity, nearest of the excluded, and in need of solidarity with greater participation of the laity, including women and youth.

The fundamental lines of Father Francisco can be read in the letter recently sent to the Archbishop of Santo Domingo to introduce its new Nuncio in which raises that "The Church does not want to privileges, has no political interests, not looking for strategic alliances. It is to serve, serve all, and by working for the common good, peace, progress, freedom, justice, solidarity and the integral development of the Dominicans. Where it will promote these initiatives, there is the Church ready to offer the best that it has: the grace and peace that are born from the heart of the crucified Christ".

Francisco has awakened a new spring, a great illusion of change in the Vetusta Catholic Church and in a world in need of new paradigms that delivered consistencies to spiritual values, ethical and moral.