It is purported that Joseph Stalin, when presented with certain concerns of the Catholic Church in eastern Europe, quipped, “How many divisions does the Pope have?” The papacy in the modern world, now largely stripped of its temporal power, wields a power that is symbolic. Symbolic, but not merely symbolic, if by “symbolic” we mean unreal. The symbolic power of the papacy can have real-world effects, as witnessed in the role played by Pope John Paul II’s 1979 visit to Poland, which helped spark the formation of Solidarity, the first non-communist labor union in the Eastern Bloc, which in turn contributed to the breakup of the Soviet Union. In recent memory, John Paul’s deployment of the symbolic divisions of the papacy has been rivaled only by Pope Francis, who has now departed this life.
The very choice of the name Francis was itself symbolic. No Pope since the 10th century had chosen a previously unused name (John Paul I simply combined the names of his two predecessors), and by doing so Jorge Bergoglio signaled that he intended to bring something new to the papacy: the spirit of simplicity embodied in Francis of Assisi. In his first appearance on the night of his election, forgoing the traditional papal ermine mozzetta and asking the blessing of the crowd in St. Peter’s Square, Francis projected an image of humility that to many seemed a sharp contrast with his immediate predecessor.
Though by all reports Pope Benedict was himself an extraordinarily humble man, his respect for papal traditions and symbols—itself a kind of humility—led him to embrace much of the pomp that had accrued to his office. Francis, unlike Benedict, had not served in the Curia and was very much an outsider to the Vatican and its ways, and seemed to feel freer to cut his own path. Perhaps he understood that the humility before custom and tradition that Benedict represented was not the kind of humility that spoke to the modern world; what was needed was a willingness to break with the past and adopt, if you will, a style of being Pope that was distinctively “Franciscan.”
Francis’s use of symbolic power was not solely focused on the imagery of the papal office. He deployed the symbolic power of the papacy in the service of the Gospel, in particular the call of Jesus to seek and serve him in the sick and the stranger, the impoverished and imprisoned. His first papal visit, to the island of Lampedusa in 2013, called attention to the plight of migrants in the face of rising anti-immigration sentiments in Europe. He spoke often of the need for the Church to go out to the “peripheries,” and put this into practice by visiting places that had very small Catholic populations, such as Mongolia and Myanmar, showing the “little flock” in those places that they were no less important than the vast throngs that greeted him in places like Rio and Washington. But he also knew that the papacy was important to more than just Catholics. His journeying to the peripheries was a way to bring the light of world attention to places often overlooked by the “globalized indifference” that he decried.
But it was not only in high-profile travels that Francis deployed his symbolic power. What were often so striking were the small gestures, almost-but-not-quite hidden acts that captured the world’s imagination: a child embraced, an alienated Catholic welcomed, an encouraging phone call made. Since the start of the war in Gaza, each night at 7, Francis called the only Catholic parish in that devastated place, asking how they were doing, whether they had sufficient food and water, assuring them of his prayers. Insignificant as the world counts significance, this small act proclaimed to the world what it means to put the Gospel into action in situations of seemingly intractable violence.
The importance of symbolism was reflected in Francis’s use of language. He was the master of the memorable phrase: in addition to decrying “globalized indifference,” he spoke of resisting “throwaway culture” and fostering a “culture of encounter,” of listening to both “the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor,” of the Church as a “field hospital” deployed on the spiritual and physical battlefields of the world, a people engaged in a synodal journey of “walking together.”
Francis’s writings did not show the expansive philosophical vision of John Paul II or the theological acuity of Benedict XVI—in all honesty, they were often sprawling and unfocused—but they contained verbal gems that lodged in the mind and suggested new ways of living out the Gospel in the world of today. Those who did not have the time or inclination to follow the arguments of earlier papal documents could latch on to one of Francis’s memorable phrases and catch a glimpse of the Gospel.
But this points to one of the limitations of symbolic power. Symbols are multivalent and can be bent this way or that according to one’s inclinations. A memorable phrase can become a slogan deployed for purposes quite alien to the speaker’s intention. Does “walking together” mean that everyone gets to vote on Church doctrine and practice? A gesture, grand or small, can be subject to a variety of interpretations. When Francis met with and welcomed an alienated Catholic, did this constitute an endorsement of that person’s lifestyle?
Francis tended to speak first as a pastor and only then as ruler of the Catholic Church, and he was criticized by some Catholics for being “unclear” and sowing “confusion,” by which they meant that his off-the-cuff remarks and gestures often projected an image of papal flexibility on neuralgic issues that his more considered statements and actions did not. This sometimes simply convinced people that they had finally found a Pope who agreed with them, who conformed to their pre-existing opinions.
But this “unclarity” was part of why the world found Francis fascinating: he always came across as genuine and unfiltered. His gnomic phrases and spontaneous gestures could reach places where more carefully articulated statements and actions could not. For many they opened the possibility that the Gospel of Jesus might be meaningful to them in a way they had not previously thought—that it might actually be true.
The power of the papacy, however, is not only symbolic, even in the modern world. The Pope governs the Church, which is a vast organization with considerable assets. Here the legacy of Francis is more mixed. On the still festering issue of sexual abuse in the Church, one sometimes got the impression that Francis still did not “get it” (and in this regard fell short of his predecessor, Benedict). While capable of showing compassion for individual survivors of abuse, he could also call their veracity into question when the accused was someone close to him, and seemed resistant to holding enablers of abuse accountable.
The cases of Chilean bishop Juan Barros and Jesuit Father Marko Rupnik suggest that Francis’s penchant for pastoral flexibility and personal contact did not always serve him well in governance. And despite his promotion of synodality, Francis could often act quite autocratically. By comparison with his predecessors, he made frequent use of the motu proprio, the ecclesiastical equivalent of the Executive Order. Some felt that Francis relied too much on unofficial advisers with whom he felt a personal affinity, rather than trying to use and improve the ordinary means of governance in the Vatican. This fit well with his penchant for the spontaneous and the personal but did not always serve the cause of “walking together” as a Church.
The doctrine of papal infallibility does not guarantee that the Pope will never make a mistake; every Pope leaves behind a somewhat mixed record of wisdom and folly, success and failure. And every Pope brings the stamp of his personality to the Petrine Office. Because of the peculiarities of the Church of Rome, most of those who elect a new Pope have been chosen by the previous Pope.
This might lead one to expect that Francis’s successor will be closely aligned with Francis in both style and substance. But history shows that this is not in fact the case. Who will emerge as the new Pope in the next few weeks will probably be a surprise, and he will doubtless carry out his ministry in ways quite different from Francis. But we all should hope that he, like Francis, recognizes the real power of symbols and, like Francis, deploys them effectively in service to Christ and his Gospel.
Frederick Christian Bauerschmidt is a guest writer. He is professor of theology at Loyola University Maryland and a deacon of the Archdiocese of Baltimore. He is the author of several books, including The Love That Is God, which won the 2023 Michael Ramsey Prize for Theological Writing.
