Biographer: In 12 years since election, Francis demonstrates papacy is a mission, not a job

(OSV News) -- As Pope Francis celebrates 12th anniversary of his election in the hospital, the papal biographer told OSV News that the pontiff has "given a very significant witness these last few years ... which in many ways is comparable to the witness that John Paul II gave ... demonstrating or communicating that the papacy is for life, that it's a mission, not a job."

Austen Ivereigh, papal biographer and author of "The Great Reformer" and "Wounded Shepherd," said that Pope Francis, hospitalized in the Gemelli hospital since Feb. 14 has shown in the last years that "he's willing to be pope in a wheelchair, frail, sometimes unable to read his speeches because of his bronchitis."

While "we're at the moment facing a situation of enormous uncertainty in respect of his long term prognosis" and "we also don't know what his short term prognosis is," he continued, the pope gives the world a lesson "of docility and humble acceptance" and "an important example of the centrality of mission and vocation."

Ivereigh recently wrote "First Belong to God: On Retreat with Pope Francis" -- a homage to the pope and his spirituality, the author said.

"The purpose of the book was to provide a workable instrument for ordinary people in parishes and religious communities who could enter into the spiritual dynamic of the pontificate and the path of conversion to which the pontificate is calling us through an eight-day (program of) spiritual exercises, which in practice can be given over eight weeks."

The book is based in part on the collection of talks Father Jorge Mario Bergoglio gave between the 1970s and early 1990s.

"What you see is somebody who is actually profoundly shaped by the (Ignatian) spiritual exercises and who at the heart of the exercises is putting Christ at the center. And when you put Christ at the center of your life, and you choose to reorganize your life around the Christ priorities rather than your own, then it's profoundly transformative," Ivereigh said.

"In fact, I think his whole pontificate has been about putting Christ at the center of the church, and the reforms and the changes ... flow from that choice."

Ivereigh said that in the hospital, Pope Francis hasn't lost his sense of humor, which also teaches us a lot about the pope.

When Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni visited the pontiff Feb. 19, Ivereigh said, the pope supposedly told her: "There are people praying for me to go to paradise. But the Lord of the vineyard seems to prefer me to stay put."

Ivereigh said that "even though it was funny, I actually said to a lot of people: That is basically his view. That is essentially his view of his life, of the pontificate. ... He has this freedom, this serenity," which "is the result of that choice that he's made," to put Christ in the center.

Referring to critics of Francis, Ivereigh said that "the idea that a pope should do things and say things that are acceptable to all Catholics is, of course, absurd. Every pope has been opposed," he said, adding that it's part of "the loneliness of the papacy."

"A pope who doesn't offend and scandalize some Catholics is not putting Christ at the center, because, of course, Christ does exactly that. ... The Christian choice is a scandalous choice because it's unworldly. And I think so much of the criticism of Francis is understandable, but it's also ignorant because it starts from a framework -- theologians call it a hermeneutic -- a way of seeing which is essentially worldly."

He said that with documents dubbed controversial such as "Amoris Laetitia," the post-synodal apostolic exhortation published in 2016, "there's a sort of worldly assumption that what Francis was setting out to do was to liberalize Catholic doctrine on marriage. But he wasn't ever trying to do that."

"There was never, ever a moment where Francis sought to liberalize either the doctrine or the law on either of those things," Ivereigh emphasized. "What he was trying to do, or what he felt was necessary for the church to look at (was) how the doctrine and the law are applied in the circumstances of today's world in such a way that we hold in tension, truth and mercy, which is ... a Christ-like choice."

Controversies surrounding the document concerned the part where the pope said that in certain conditions and in certain circumstances, some divorced and remarried people may receive the Eucharist.

More recent controversy regarded the December 2023 document "Fiducia Supplicans" ('Supplicating Trust") -- subtitled "On the pastoral meaning of blessings" -- which stated that Catholic priests could bless a same-sex or other unmarried couple. However, it cannot be a formal liturgical blessing, nor give the impression that the church is blessing the union as if it were a marriage.

Ivereigh said that "it didn't change Catholic doctrine on marriage at all" and that "there's nothing doctrinally liberal about it. What it said very simply and clearly was that even though the church cannot bless, that is to say, approve" blessing same-sex or other irregular relationships, "it can bless the people in them if they are seeking God's grace."

Both "Amoris Laetitia" and "Fiducia Supplicans" -- "in a very Christ like way" -- Ivereigh said -- "understand that there are people in difficult, irregular, problematic situations who might be trying very hard within limited circumstances to do the right thing."

"And the church, I think, in both of those documents," he continued, "is being pastoral, is allowing the church to walk with those people, reassure them that God loves them, and that you know they are not closed off from God's grace, while at the same time obviously calling them to grow, which is the path we're all called to."

Asked what kind of church Pope Francis shaped in the last 12 years, Ivereigh said that the answer lies in "Dilexit Nos," his latest encyclical, released in October 2024, on the human and divine love of the heart of Jesus, which is "a kind of hermeneutic key to the whole papacy, because of the idea that we need to recover the heart as the place from which to view and to act."

Pope Francis "has talked a lot about God's style" in the last 12 years, Ivereigh said. "The church needs to embody God's style, and God's style is the heart of the good Shepherd that looks and walks with and accompanies her. It's the way Jesus interacts with people ... walks with them, creates space for them, asks them questions. There's a graciousness. ... That's God's style. And the church needs to embrace that style."

The pope's biographer said that "the singular greatest achievement of the pope has been to foster that style and that culture within the church" that encourages pastoral attitude "in respect of people in difficult situations."

Also to be highlighted in Francis' legacy, he added, are the reform of the Curia and putting spotlight on synodality "where the community is constantly gathering to discuss, dialogue, discern and decide together with the Holy Spirit as the protagonist" but where "the bishop or whoever the authority is, still takes the decision."

"There's no challenge to the authority structure, but the whole people of God, the baptized, are involved in the decision making processes."

Ivereigh underscored that in today's turbulent world, "it's a profound witness that the church is called to give now, in this time, in this world, where we have the fragmentation of politics, where we have the breakdown of civil society, where differences are used as weapons and it becomes a power struggle.

"One wins, the other loses. In that context, the church is called ... to recover what is actually its own culture."

"Changing structures and changing people are the easy part," the papal biographer said. "The hardest thing to change in any organization is the culture. And I think that's what he's done," he stressed.

Asked whether we'll see a different kind of papacy now that the Holy Father may not be physically capable to be as present as before in official duties, Ivereigh said: "I think for him, the papacy is full on. It's a total commitment. It's a total service. It's a mission that he's been given by God. He knows that he can carry that out in a number of different ways, and that you can have ... an extrovert pope who's out there constantly meeting people."

But as happened during the COVID-19 pandemic, "he was essentially locked away for a year, so the papacy isn't dependent on any of these particular models," Ivereigh said.

"On the other hand, I think he would not want a papacy in which he would be unable, essentially, to have regular contact with people. I think for him, it would make the proclamation of the Gospel very hard. And in those circumstances, I think he would consider resigning."

While "it's OK that the pope is ill," Ivereigh said something that may cause Pope Francis to consider resignation is that if in a long-term prognosis "he's somebody who's going to need a lot of nursing care, regular risk of hospitalization in which the risk is that the health then becomes the focus point, I think he would hate that, actually," Ivereigh pointed out.

"I honestly don't know," he said, on the question of possible papal resignation. "It's very hard to talk about this question in the abstract, because it really does depend on that long term prognosis."

Asked what particularly stayed with him from the many personal conversations he had with Pope Francis is "that he thinks that this is a time for a Holy Saturday spirituality," where faced with the transformations in society and in the church, "we look ahead with hope but with no triumphalism. ... I just thought that that was a brilliant summary, in a way, of him and his pontificate, that the one thing that you've never had with Francis is triumphalism. ... He sees triumphalism as a real temptation, particularly for the church, ... as kind of spiritual worldliness."

Rather than "putting your faith in sort of particular programs of renewal or evangelization," Ivereigh said, Pope Francis thinks the "spirituality we need is much more one of patient opening to what the spirit is trying to teach us at this time ... as the option to discern and reform rather than to lament and condemn.

"He's the church's spiritual director, leading us on a kind of a retreat, a journey of conversion," Ivereigh concluded. "And he's there with us, sitting with us, walking with us, accompanying us, pointing out the obstacles, the temptations, the resistances, and helping to guide us through to the horizon beyond.

"And I think that's his great achievement as a man, as a Jesuit, as a church leader and, of course, as a pope."