POPE FRANCIS has in many ways and on many occasions rejected the dignity and ceremony of the papal office, but at no moment has he done so more strikingly than when he thanked Cristina Kirchner, the President of Argentina, with a kiss. A reader at Tradition in Action asks whether Francis has refused his office, so consistently and often has he discarded the monarchical traditions and authority of his position.

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Don Vincenzo writes:

What strikes me as odd over the apparent kerfuffle of the pontiff planting a kiss the cheek of the President of Argentina, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, is not the kiss, but to whom it was given. For anyone even vaguely familiar with the policies of Senora de Kirchner, or her late husband, Nestor, whom she succeeded, knows that to this “power couple” the then Cardinal/Archbishop of Buenos Aires, now Pope Francis I, was part “of the opposition,” and his thinking, “…really reminiscent of the times of the Inquisition.” Why? Because Cardinal Bergoglio refused to accept the Kirchner’s bill to allow homosexuals to marry, and opposed a liberalized abortion protocol. After Senora de Kirchner was re-elected to a second term as president, the law granting homosexual marriage passed last year.

To me, however, there is something even more disturbing about the kiss, for in that brief moment most of Latin America, as well as the world’s governing class was shown once again, if that be necessary, that this pope continues to align himself with the teachings and practices of his Order, the Society of Jesus. Which are? First and foremost that the Society’s primary responsibility has been transformed from that of  faithful soldiers of the pope to clergy in an organization that seeks “dialogue” with one and all, and one that does not anathematize those Catholic (the Kirchners were nominally Catholics) leaders who violate Church moral law, a policy that now transcends national boundaries, diocese, as well as other Religious Orders. The transformational changes in the Jesuit Order began in the late 60s under the then Father General, Pedro Arrupe, who was removed from that position by Pope John Paul II (1981), but whose ideas were not lost on Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who entered the Jesuit Order in 1960.

The late Malachi Martin, a former Jesuit, wrote that contemporary Jesuits are “…a liberal minded partisanship that quickly solidified into a totalitarianism of thought, an approach so dogmatic that what at the beginning seem a refreshing clarity of vision, quickly became a trap of self-righteous, self-justifying moralism.  All who disagreed were considered immoral.” Perhaps the refusal by Jesuits today to imitate “the Ignatian mold” was a factor in which the new pope, the first Jesuit in history, chose as his name the founder of the Franciscan Order, but not the name of the founder of his.

The kiss, then, conveys the message that no matter the seriousness of the deviation from Church rules and regulations, there will be no ecclesiastic repercussions to those involved. Pope Francis I may be loved, but he will not be feared.

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