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Sep. 29th, 2023|12:37 pm |
When Time magazine published its issue on the 100 most influential people of the 20th century, the columnist and pundit Peggy Noonan wrote the profile for her former boss, Ronald Reagan. She began by recounting Clare Boothe Luce’s quip that every president is remembered for a sentence: “He freed the slaves.” “He made the Louisiana Purchase.” Sometimes a presidency boils down, fairly or not, to a single word. Watergate. Lewinsky. Obamacare. The same parlor game applies to popes and papacies. “He called the Council.” “He changed the Mass.” “He resigned.” What will Pope Francis’s sentence be? His most famous catchphrase, “Who am I to judge?” appeared early, just months after ascending to Peter’s chair, and set a tone of openness or ambiguity (depending on one’s point of view) that would become a hallmark of his pontificate. His legacy, though, will more likely be captured by another phrase, uttered during that same trip to World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro. During his remarks on Copacabana beach, the Holy Father went off-script and exhorted the millions of young people there, “¡Hagan lío!”—“Make a mess!” Among the possibilities for Pope Francis’s sentence, a leading contender would have to be, “He made a mess.”
https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2023/09/cleaning-up-the-popes-mess |
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