The recent election of Jorge Mario Bergoglio as the successor of Pope Benedict XVI was surprising on several counts. The new pope took the name of Francis, comes from what the Vatican still thinks of as the New World and is a member of the Companions of Jesus or the Jesuits. All papal firsts.
He has communicated by gesture, tone and style that the accoutrements of papal living, the ornate vesture and the spirit-constricting protocols that have defined the papacy for centuries, will be put aside as so much imperial baggage, the residue of an earlier time and a more monarchical modality.
Francis is not the first pope to begin stripping away the majestic rubrics and finery associated with the papacy. John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul I, John Paul II and even Benedict XVI sought to simplify the ministry of Peter: the Noble...
Michael W. Higgins is the author of, most recently, A Synod Diary: Sixty Days That Shook the Church.
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