麻豆社

Good morning.
This week sees the tenth anniversary of the election of Pope Francis. The wide-ranging reforms he is making to the Catholic Church lead some to describe him as liberal or progressive, but I think this risks misrepresenting him.
Pope Francis is a traditional Catholic, albeit one who for many Catholics is interpreting the tradition in creative and inspiring ways. He weaves together ancient and modern sources of wisdom to inspire a vision of faith that seeks justice, peace and care for creation, and cries out against all forms of violence and oppression. This is the same vision that led the prophet Isaiah to write nearly three thousand years ago of a world in which 鈥淭hey shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.鈥�
The idea of progress based on an optimistic and linear view of history suggests that, however many failures there may be along the way, we are on a trajectory of improvement through time. Such thinking is implicitly freighted with problematic assumptions about the superiority of western society, for this is the benchmark against which other cultures and values are measured and often found backward or wanting.
There has been progress in our scientific understanding of nature and our technological abilities, but these have trailed in their wake devastating environmental damage, and ingenious new ways of waging war and killing others. Pope Francis uses the term 鈥榯he technocratic paradigm鈥� to describe western culture鈥檚 obsession with technological fixes to every problem.
The challenges facing humankind today are the same as those faced by our ancestors. War, poverty, pandemics, exile, floods and earthquakes 鈥� these afflictions have always been with us, and for all our science and technology, they continue to blight the human condition. To say that it need not be like this is neither progressive nor liberal, for it expresses a yearning that is written into the stories that people have told since the beginning of history.
Life itself is not progressive. It鈥檚 my sixty eighth birthday tomorrow. I hope I鈥檓 a little wiser than I was when I was thirty, but ageing brings with it new limitations and struggles. Many of us are living longer thanks to medical science, but that makes us more vulnerable to some of the more debilitating aspects of the ageing process.
At 86, Pope Francis experiences limited mobility and often uses a wheelchair as he continues to shape his reforming vision 鈥� a vision that draws on the riches of the past to offer inspiration to the present and hope for the future.