Pope Francis: Person of the Year

Every year Time magazine, as part of its review of the year just ending, selects its Person of the Year. For 2013, their choice was Pope Francis. As their writer Nancy Gibbs explains, “In his nine months in office, he has placed himself at the very center of the central conversations of our time: about wealth and poverty, fairness and justice, transparency, modernity, globalization, the role of women, the nature of marriage, the temptations of power.” He has certainly made a big impact, giving a softer feel and a more humane face to the papacy, with genuine compassion for the poor and those on the margins, along with greater openness. Retiring the papal Mercedes in favour of a scuffed-up Ford Focus is more than a gesture. One can only welcome such changes.
At the same time, I am aware that the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church remains unchanged, and not only its moral teaching. Karl Barth, the great twentieth-century theologian, was once asked what he thought was the main thing standing in the way of the Reformed churches being reconciled with Rome. He said that, “the greatest obstacle could be a very small word which the Roman Church tacks on to every one of our propositions. This very small word ‘and’.” So, for Catholics, it is Jesus and Mary; they seek to obey Christ and his earthly vicar the Pope; they rely on the merits of Jesus and their own merits; they look to Scripture and Tradition for revelation. That still matters.