Discovering The Mindset Of Bergoglio

Rimini, Monday August 20th – The meeting Five Years Of Pontificate. Discovering The Mindset Of Bergoglio took place at the Intesa San Paolo hall and was introduced by Alejandro Bonet, Professor of Social Doctrine of the Catholic Church in the Diocesan Seminaries of Santa Fe and Rosario, Argentina. The participants were Massimo Borghesi, full professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Perugia; Rocco Buttiglione, Director of the Giovanni Paolo II Professorship at the Pontifical Lateran University; Guzman Carriquiry, vice president of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America; Austen Ivereigh, journalist and writer.

Carriquiry opens the round table discussion emphasizing the importance of coherence among the pontificates. According to him, since the II Vatican Council there has been a steady succession and «the devil does not tolerate the presence of harmony». Then he added that in a world where «the suburbs burst into Christianity» Mario Josè Bergoglio represents «the itinerary of the particularity that challenges the sterility of the great European Catholicism». As reported by Carriquiry, the pontificate is an invitation to conversion, purification and mercy.

Then prof. Buttiglione underlined that «those who oppose the memory of John Paul II to Pope Francis do not know that the first pilgrimage Carol Wojtila made as pope was to Puebla (Argentina). He was there to meet the theme of “liberation theology”». Pope John Paul II knew well the failure of Marxist ideology but also the life under a dictatorship. The professor then told about the journey he made to Argentina to meet some of these theologians of liberation. Among them there was father Bergoglio. According to Buttiglione, that group created something similar to the movement of Communion and Liberation. At that time it was clear to father Bergoglio that unity is stronger than division.

Ivereigh focused more on the value of the Chilean encyclical, consisting of the speeches of Pope Francis to Santiago and the three letters to the people of Chile. Ivereigh says that the crisis of the Church was originated during the period after the council. He then concluded claiming that Bergoglio wants to purify the Church especially from Gnosticism and Pelagianism.

Finally Massimo Borghesi, author of The Great Reformer: Francis and the making of a radical pope and of Jorge Mario Bergoglio: an Intellectual Biography: Dialectics and Mysticism, gave his speech. He explained the reasons why he wrote this second paper and the aim of this project. Borghesi said that he wanted to give a contribution to help to understand the charisma of Pope Francis and his personal intellectual journey.