The gypsy people, who are almost unbeatable in insight, would have said eight days ago: “All the fish have already been sold.” And, in fact, my intuition tells me that among the rings given to the new cardinals is already the fisherman's ring. It is true that we need to listen to the opinion of God, who is the one who really decides, but he usually speaks through the humble. And again in that, unfortunately, the gypsies have taken the cake for centuries.
On Saturday, September 30, during the cardinal's consistory convened and presided over by Pope Francis, this idea hovered among the attendees who were able to see him up close. Despite his lucid head, always Ignatian and lung-mirant, who knows where he wants the arrow to go as soon as he launches it although the opposite appears to be true, his physical limitations, visible and not visible, which he faces with great serenity and deep faith, were more than evident. . It was enough to see him pass through the ranks. And it seemed like the beginning of the first scene of the last act of his pontificate.
To understand the Holy See well you have to know how to read gestures. And that Saturday was very evident. It was the second consistory with the most cardinal electors, a total of 18, a number only surpassed in the first of his pontificate, with 19, held on February 22, 2014. However, it created seven Ibero-American cardinals compared to five last year. nine years. With this, the college of cardinals is made up of 136 electors (one exceeds the maximum number of 135 set by John Paul II), of which only 52 are European, 12 of them from Spain and Portugal, to which we must add 6 from Africa and Asia who speak Spanish or Portuguese. In other words, 60 are of Ibero-American condition or origin. That is, half.
He sent a double message to them. The Church lives from the present, from collegiality and from unity. There is no power but service. The created order has its autonomy and we must learn to dialogue with it. Through the metaphor of an orchestra, she implied that unity does not mean uniformity and that listening does not mean self-referentiality. Each one has to express themselves after listening, and then make their contribution to a common project. That is the synodality on which the XVI Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops will reflect, whose first session began last Wednesday, until October 29. Communion, participation and mission are its three axes, on whose Council is Cardinal Omella.
There were unusual moments in the long history of the Church. For the first time, a superior general of an order, congregation or institute was created cardinal, in this case the Salesians, which with 256 bishops and 11 cardinals, plus one who rejected him, is currently the largest in the Church. His presence in Spain is due to Cardinal Joaquim Lluch, great-granduncle of Minister Ernest Lluch. He got justice with Agostino Marchetto, titular archbishop of Écija, whose statements to the president of France about his treatment of the gypsies cost him his position. And there was Víctor Manuel Fernández Lucho Fernández, alter ego of Pope Francis, for whom he collaborated on Fratelli tutti (2020), which is nothing more than the reinterpretation of the parable of the good Samaritan.
The third act of this last chapter will be the closing of the synod, in October 2024, which will be followed by the fourth and last: the Jubilee of Hope, in 2025. With that, the pontificate can be considered amortized, except for an Ignatian surprise, after having established a way of pontificating based on various levels of collegiality, having brought the peripheral presences of the Church to its very heart, proactively seeking frontier debates, returning faith to its more emotional than rational dimension, beginning a path of declerigalization of services, make faith credible through testimony in works, reorganize the Curia (despite not completing its internalization) and dismantle the institutions that had conceived tradition as something from the counter-reformation and not from the pre-Constantinian stage (there are close to of 15 commissariats). Pope Francis himself is aware that he is opening doors that his successor will walk through, as happened to Moses with the promised land.
Who among those present knows the job of a fisherman well? Who has traveled the world several times as a good shepherd? Who would never have expected his creation as a cardinal? Who was one of the last to be called two Saturdays ago? The hierarchical era seems to give way to the charismatic era. I can think of a name and obviously I'm not sure, but something tells me that in due time we will understand everything. A Galician friend says that he brings bad luck; The gypsies call it mal fario. For me, it's called prudence.
