Columns

As both non-believers and fervent Catholics look on, the Mexican Catholic Church, which throughout its jagged history has tended to side with dictatorial elites, is having twitchy days since its new leader, Jesuit Pope Francis, was elected.  

Even non-Catholic Mexicans have been asking: Why wasn’t a Mexican given a look when the prelates in Rome decided the new pope had to be a non-European?  Does the new Jesuit pope, Francis, realize that from the moment he was selected a no-holds-barred war commenced between him and Rome’s Vatican/Curia?

During that just-past “crazy” March — from the Mexican saying, Febrero loco, Marzo mas poco —‘Nando Diaz Mendez had an unusual occurrence in the small covered corral of his chilly mountainside ranch.  Two of his mares dropped foals within five days of one another. The blocky dun, always fat, surprised him. She was early. But now, as government-monopoly gasoline becomes so “dear,” the foal was a welcome surprise. Horses, especially valued during the rainy season, now represented a year-round economic bounty despite “painful” prices of supplemental livestock feed.

The bowl hasn’t changed much since the Neolithic era, 4,000-10,000 years ago, said Julie Lasky, the deputy editor of the New York Times’ House & Garden section March 27.  She was reporting that a small white ceramic bowl carved with the lotus blossoms had just fetched more than 2.2 million dollars at auction at Sotheby’s in New York. That was ten times more than the famed auction house expected. (But present day peoples have a habit of devaluing bowls generally, no matter how useful and striking they are.)

For the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics – and for Latin America’s 483 million Catholics – Semana Santa (Holy Week) has been a surprising time of provocative and perhaps uncharted change.   The new pope is not only the first non-European to become heir to the throne of St. Peter in more than 1,000 years, he is the first pope from the Americas, the first pope from Latin America, and the first to take the name Francisco (Francis), after the humble, much revered Francis of Assisi, the founder of the Franciscan Order.

Suddenly it’s Jesuit season. A surprise for most of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics and a puzzle for non-Catholics. The reason for the surprise within the Church is the fact, the media says, that in the Church’s 2,000-year history, no Jesuit has ever even been truly considered a candidate to take St. Peter’s throne. Actually, the Jesuits didn’t exist until 1534, and didn’t receive papal approval until 1540 (Pope Paul III – 1418-1549). Which means none were ever chosen in the 473 years of the order’s existence. That’s due in great part because Jesuits have actively shunned ambitions, or lobbying for such higher positions as bishops, etc.