Francis disrobes to cover the nakedness of the Pope
15/04/2013
- Opinión
Historians know that Innocence III, (1198-1216), the Pope of the time of Saint Francis, took the papacy to an apogee and splendor such as never had been before nor would ever be again. A skillful politician, he turned all the kings, emperors and feudal lords, with few exceptions, into his vassals. Under his regency there were two supreme powers: the Empire and the Priesthood. Being the successor of Peter, the fisherman, meant little to him. He declared himself «representative of Christ», but not of the poor Christ, who walked the dusty paths of Palestine, a peregrine prophet, announcer of a radical utopia, the utopia of the kingdom of unconditional love towards his fellow human beings and God, a kingdom of universal justice, of boundless fraternity and of compassion without limit. His Christ was the Pantocrator, Lord of the Universe, head of the Church and of the Cosmos.
This vision favored the building of a monarchistic, powerful and rich Church, but one that was absolutely secularized, contrary to everything in the Gospel. That reality only served to provoke a contrary reaction from the people. Pauperism movements appeared, of rich lay people who acted like the poor. They preached the Gospel on their own in the popular tongue: the Gospel of poverty against the pomp of the courts, the Gospel of radical simplicity against the sophistication of the palaces, the worship of the Christ of Bethlehem and the Crucifixion against the exaltation of the all powerful Christ the King. They were the Valdense, the poor of Lyon, the followers of Francis, of Dominic and of the Seven Serfs of Mary, of Florence, noble people turned mendicants.
In spite of all the pomp, Innocence III was sensitive to Francis and his twelve ragged companions who visited him, in his palace of Rome, to ask for permission to live according to the Gospel. Moved and remorseful, the Pope granted them oral permission. It was the year 1209. Francis would never forget this generous gesture.
But history has its turns. What is true and imperative, when it reaches maturity, reveals itself with volcanic force. And it revealed itself in 1216 in Perugia, Italy, when Pope Innocence III went to one of his palaces.
Suddenly the Pope died, after 18 years of a triumphant pontificate. Soon the mournful sounds of the Gregorian chants were heard coming from the pontifical cathedral. The grave planctum super Innocentium («the cry for Innocence») was intoned.
Nothing stops death, lady of all vanities, of all pomp, of all glory and of all triumph. The casket of the Pope lay in front of the main altar covered with tinsel, jewels, gold, silver and the signs of the twin powers, the sacred and the secular. Cardinals, emperors, princes, monks and lines of the faithful followed one another in vigil. Bishop Jacques de Vitry, from Namur and later named Cardinal of Frascati, related the following.
It is midnight. All retire aggrieved. Only the flickering light of the candles project phantoms on the walls. The Pope, in another time always surrounded by the nobility, is now alone in the darkness. And unexpectedly thieves enter secretly into the cathedral. They quickly strip the corpse of all the precious clothing, all the gold, silver and pontifical symbols.
There lies a naked body, already almost in decomposition. It becomes true what Innocence III once wrote in a famous text on «the misery of the human condition». Now it reveals itself with all its crudity. in its true condition.
A poor man, dirty and miserable, had hidden himself in a dark corner of the cathedral to maintain the vigil, to pray and to spend the night close to the Pope. He took off his ragged and dirty tunic, the tunic of penance, and with that tunic he covered the shame of the reviled corpse.
Sinister is the destiny of the wealthy, grandiose the gesture of poverty. The first did not save him from looting, but the second saved him from shame.
And so concludes Cardinal Jacques de Vitry: «I entered the Church and understood, with full faith, how brief is the deceitful glory of this world».
The one whom everyone called Poverello and Fratello said nothing and thought nothing. He only acted. He disrobed to cover the nakedness of the Pope who had once sanctioned his way of living. He was Francis of Assisi, the inspiration of Pope Francis of Rome.
- Leonardo Boff, Theologian-Philosopher / Earthcharter Commission
Free translation from the Spanish by Servicios Koinonia, http://www.servicioskoinonia.org. Done at REFUGIO DEL RIO GRANDE, Texas, EE.UU.
https://www.alainet.org/en/articulo/75391
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