A Pope come and gone, an apology made — and the reality of reconciliation laid bare
to this country, seemed to encapsulate as well as any the uneasy state of play that the 85-year-old Argentine Pope Francis discovered in Canada.
But he did not — or could not, or would not — admit clearly to the guilt or responsibility of the powerful and wealthy multinational institution over which he presides: the Roman Catholic Church. Repeating this in Quebec, the soft-spoken Spanish-speaking Francis paraphrased the Gospel of John, but with an Old Testament tone: “There is only one path, a sole way: It is the way of Jesus.”
In an interview afterwards, Fox acknowledged the space that Christianity continues to occupy in Indigenous communities, and the need to respect those who still put their faith in a God whose earthly servants failed them utterly. There was very real hope that the liberal-minded, progressive Pope Francis would arrive in Canada and, with one grand gesture, atone.
Not the one who delighted Christendom and beyond with his prosaic turns of phrase, his rejection of papal glitz, his refusal to cast judgment on homosexuals, his attempts to shake up the Vatican elite — the curia — and his revolutionary mission to shift the Catholic Church closer to being a champion of the miserable and marginalized, an agency in the image of Christ.In his public comments this week, he has championed the cause of refugees, the homeless, the sick and elderly.
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