This is the introduction to the special commemorative issue of America celebrating Pope Francis and his five groundbreaking years. Purchase a copy of Pope Francis: Five Groundbreaking Years here. 

Here’s something you may not hear a Jesuit say very often: I had no clue.

On March 13, 2013, white smoke suddenly started pouring out of the chimney of the Sistine Chapel in Vatican City, indicating that a new pope had been elected—and more quickly than most people expected.

A few minutes later I was in a television studio in New York, and it fell to me (as it did to countless other commentators) to explain to at least a part of the English-language television audience who was likely to emerge on the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica as the new pope, the successor to Pope Benedict XVI.

And, frankly, I had no clue. Scola? Ravasi? Another Italian cardinal whose biography I would be expected to know well but probably didn’t?

In truth, few commentators had any idea what to expect; and those who claimed they did have a grasp on what was to come would have to admit that the events of a few weeks prior had amply proven the dangers of prognostication, when an event no one predicted came about: the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI on Feb. 28, 2013.

Not since Pope Celestine V voluntarily quit a few months into his pontificate in 1294 had the church seen anything but death bring an end to a pope’s tenure. (That’s assuming, of course, that we count on God to have figured out what happened in 1415, when for a while three men claimed to be pope). Now we had a pope in apparently good health resigning his position “for the good of the church.”

Pope Benedict’s resignation was one of the most powerful examples of humility in all of church history. Imagine voluntarily relinquishing that kind of power. It still stuns me.

As an aside, I thought at the time, and still do, that Pope Benedict’s resignation was one of the most powerful examples of humility in all of church history. Imagine voluntarily relinquishing that kind of power. It still stuns me.

Because Benedict XVI was widely seen as a pope in continuity, at least ecclesiology-wise, with his predecessor John Paul II (later declared a saint) and because the vast majority of cardinal-electors (those cardinals who are eligible to vote in a papal election) were appointed by Benedict or his predecessor, the bulk of them were assumed to be “John Paul II cardinals.”

Many of us thought this would mean they would elect a candidate who would more or less continue the legacies of John Paul and Benedict, as a doctrinal rigorist and perhaps a standard-bearer for the more “conservative” wing of the College of Cardinals. (Nota bene: terms like liberal and conservative mean something quite different in church contexts than in American political discourse. One could argue, for example, that Pope Benedict was far more “conservative” than most U.S. Republicans on sexual morality, but far more “liberal” than most Democrats on issues like climate change and economic policy).

So who would it be? An official of the Roman Curia? A protégé of Benedict XVI himself, like Cardinal Marc Ouellet of Quebec or Christoph Schönborn of Munich? Or even an American like Seán O’Malley of Boston or Timothy Dolan of New York?

A name mentioned eight years earlier in the conclave that elected Joseph Ratzinger to the papacy still came up here and there, but his star seemed to have dimmed: Jorge Mario Bergoglio, S.J., the cardinal-archbishop of Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Among his own Latin American brethren in the episcopacy, Bergoglio was known as a staunch advocate for the poor and oppressed.

For one thing, Bergoglio was a Jesuit, and no member of the Society of Jesus had ever been elected pope. In addition, Bergoglio seemed something a cipher to the other cardinals, and to most of the Vaticanistas giving odds on the papal favorites as well. Known as a traditionalist among many of his Jesuit brethren, he nonetheless had been a leading proponent of the somewhat daring “popular theology” in Argentina, and had also made unorthodox moves around interreligious dialogue and church traditions that sometimes puzzled outsiders. Among his own Latin American brethren in the episcopacy, he was known as a staunch advocate for the poor and oppressed. Too much of a wild card, many commentators thought…and besides, no one thought anyone in the College of Cardinals was going to vote for a Jesuit to become pope.

Among not a few Jesuits worldwide there were also some hard feelings about Bergoglio. His stint as regional superior (“the provincial” in Jesuit lingo) had been, according to nearly all Jesuits with whom I spoke, highly divisive. In later accounts, including an interview with America shortly after his election as pope, he would ruefully look back on that time, when as a younger man (he was all of 36 years old when named provincial) he made decisions in an “authoritarian” way. In fact, in the wake of his time as provincial the Jesuits were forced to name a successor from another country—a highly unusual step that underscored the divisiveness experienced in the province during the Bergoglio years. What many of us failed to take into account was that these were the actions of a much younger man, and that Bergoglio had changed.

It was with all that on my mind that I watched the white smoke pour forth that day. Cardinal Scola, I thought, or Schönborn; or maybe Cardinal Ravasi. The cardinal electors will play it safe, pick someone known, someone local. Hoping against hope, I also said a prayer for some of the cardinals I actually knew: Dolan, O’Malley.

My hosts at ABC News quickly seated me with a microphone to narrate the events as the new pope’s name was announced. Soon the heavy curtain was pulled back on the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica, and the famous words were intoned:

“Annuntio vobis gaudium magnum; habemus Papam!”

The crowd roared with joy. I was genuinely excited, with a lump in my throat.

“Eminentissimum ac reverendissimum Dominum, Dominum Georgium Marium Sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae…”

The crowd muttered. George Mary? Who was he? I ran through the rather short list of names that I remembered from the College of Cardinals. George Mary who?

I will admit I broke a cardinal rule of broadcasting when I heard what came next—because I gasped into a live microphone when I heard:

“Cardinalem Bergoglio. Qui sibi nomen imposuit Franciscum.”

Bergoglio! That Jesuit!

It was three shocks at once, because it was three firsts at once. Then the list of firsts cascaded into my mind, and it was hard to take them all in: The first Jesuit pope. The first pope from the Global South. The first pope to take the holy and distinguished name of Francis.

And frankly, a Jesuit about whom I had heard nothing good! My cell phone immediately started buzzing with messages, “A Jesuit pope!” “Isn’t he a Jesuit?” And from a Jesuit who knew him, “Watch out! You’ll be in cassocks in a year!” (In other words, your new pope is an authoritarian and traditionalist.)

Then I thought, “Wait a minute. He’s taking the name of St. Francis of Assisi? (Or maybe Francis Xavier?) He can’t be all bad!”

The list of firsts cascaded into my mind: The first Jesuit pope. The first pope from the Global South. The first pope to take the holy and distinguished name of Francis.

It seemed as if the new pope knew as well as we all did what a shock his election was. (Perhaps he felt that shock himself.). His first words, translated here into English, were a disarming acknowledgment of his “outsider” status and a recognition of his famous predecessor:

Brothers and sisters, good evening! You know it was the duty of the conclave to give Rome a bishop. And it seems that my brother cardinals have gone to the ends of the earth to get one! But here we are. I thank you for your welcome. The diocesan community of Rome now has its bishop. Thank you! And first of all, I would like to offer a prayer for our bishop emeritus, Benedict XVI. Let us pray together for him, that the Lord may bless him and that Our Lady may keep him.

After a few more words of welcome, Francis gave the first indication that he would be a different sort of pope from what we were all used to:

And now I would like to give the blessing, but first I ask a favor of you. Before the bishop blesses his people, I ask you to pray to the Lord that he will bless me: the prayer of the people asking the blessing for their bishop. Let us make, in silence, this prayer: your prayer over me. Now I will give the blessing to you and to the whole world, to all men and women of goodwill.

Then he did something that, I admit, moved me to tears: he bowed silently before the vast crowd. Again, I thought, “How bad can he be if he’s doing this?”

That night our Jesuit community in New York City was abuzz. We had a previously scheduled community meeting, so all of us happened to be home. Not surprisingly, we scratched the normal agenda and simply talked about our feelings. Who was he? Did we know him? What did we think? What did it mean to have a Jesuit pope? That last question was the same one a reporter asked me earlier that day. And my answer was the same: “Who knows? There’s never been one!”

We have a pope of surprises, and a pope of surprising mercy.

Five years since, we know. We have a pope of surprises, and a pope of surprising mercy. A pope who says in all honesty to reporters, “Who am I to judge?” A pope who speaks up for the marginalized, insisting that a global church consider the entire globe. A pope who eschews many of the trappings of the papacy for a life of relative austerity. A pope who has little patience for the accretions and pomps of past centuries, who scandalizes Catholics at times with his blunt rejection of false pieties or arbitrary rules. A surprising pope in many ways, one who encourages young people to “make a mess, cause a scene,” one who is not afraid to call out the Pharisees and hypocrites of our day in his preaching and teaching. A thoroughly Jesuit pope: one unafraid of discernment, of encouraging people to use their consciences, of trying something new.

Daily I pray for my brother Jesuit, this former provincial superior, and now my earthly boss, not simply for his continued health and presence among us, but for the church he shepherds, and for the church he calls to new life in new forms with new ways of thinking and being.

Feliz aniversario y que cumpla muchos mas, Pope Francis!

This is the introduction to the special commemorative issue of America celebrating Pope Francis and his five groundbreaking years. Purchase a copy of Pope Francis: Five Groundbreaking Years here. 

 

The Rev. James Martin, S.J., is a Jesuit priest, author, editor at large at America and founder of Outreach.