The effort to stop the foot to the integralism, represented by the conservative Catholic movements, and the sensitivity shown with respect to Catalonia, as agreed in ecclesiastical sources. For the sovereignty, he was a hand of hand laid to dialogue, for the left and singularly for the president
It is difficult in recent history to find a Pope capable of provoking sympathies in two sectors that have usually been disdained by pontiffs such as John Paul II, who refused to use Catalan -for disgust of a gift Jordi Pujol -while contemporary with neoconservative movements on which they weighed more than suspicions of pedophilia, as the legionaries of Christ of the Christ Maciel Maciel.
The slightest approach to Catalonia arose, ”said nationalist Catholic sources. And this despite the fact that the former president constantly recalled as at the end of the eleventh century the Holy See recognized“ the ecclesiastical independence of Catalonia, which was as much as affirming politics, ”as Jaume Vicens live in Noticia de Catalunya.
But neither the specimens of the Catalan encyclopedia open by the page of those Roman-Christian roots of Catalonia softened a John Paul II more concerned about issues such as why a Catholic could support abortion legislation, de facto couples or divorce than in pronouncing a “bon nadal”. “He says it even in Maltés, but not in cat
Bergoglio spoke in Catalan unlike Wojtila, who never used it
Alán, which is the official language of Andorra, ”Albert Manent, then Albert Manent, then an advisor to the Presidency of the Generalitat.
But with Francisco things changed. In October 2023 and during the blessing of the image of the Virgin of Montserrat that is venerated in the cathedral of Girona, and after greeting with a “beautiful day to tots”, the Pope seeing the text he had to read in Spanish asked Cardinal Archbishop of Barcelona, Juan Josep Omella: “This does not have to be in Catalan?” The ecclesial bureaucracy decided to simplify the gift of languages of the Argentine Pope.
But perhaps one of the most important gestures regarding the spirit of dialogue sovereignty and had already arrived in 2021, during the prison stay of Catalan independence leaders after the process. There were discreet visits from some bishops to prisoners, which would have been unthinkable not to have the Vatican green light. The history of these visits and the concern with which Rome followed this whole issue, as the then prisoner and today president of the Parliament, Josep Rull, remembered last Monday.
There were discreet visits from some bishops to prisoners, which would have been unthinkable not to have the Vatican green light ”
And with respect to the pardon, in June 2021, the Catalan prelates bet – continue the opinion of the right and the Spanish ultra -right – for “the force that the dialogue and the measures of grace have in all the conflict situations”, a text that Rome was warned and to which it gave green light. That moved in September 2021 that the Cope chain will ask the Pontiff about the procés and the Catalonia-Spain relations: “I do not know if Spain is totally reconciled with its own history, especially the history of the last century. And if it is not, I think it has to do a step of reconciliation with the history itself”, and by “enter into dialogue processes” and “flee from ideologies” reconciliation ”.
Mario Bergoglio was a pontiff who tried to approach those sectors to which the ecclesial hierarchy fears as moral or social justice. Knowing the involution that many seminars live, he opted to name religious as prelates. And in the Catalan case, two appointments stand out: Octavi Vilà, former Cistercian Abad of Poblet, for the Diocese of Girona, and the Dominican Basque Xabier Gómez for that of Sant Feliu de Llobregat. In a society in which according to the center d’Estudis d’Esidó 51% have no beliefs and in which only 7% of Catholics fulfill the precept of going to Mass weekly, the Pope sought to advise and not be dragged by the reports of the nuncios.
He has been a moral leader who has put the poor in his papacy’s center, My in favor of social justice, ”says Illa
Therefore, he created a commission of bishops to refine in appointments. The Archbishop Cardinals of Barcelona and Madrid –omella and José Cobo, respectively – among others, were part of it, remember ecclesial sources. His intention to stop the feet to the neoconservative movements led him to intervene the institute of the embodied verb, related to the Argentine ultra -right in its origins and that has the support of the bishop of Vic, Romà Casanova, who has left in his care some parishes and old monasteries. The Institute was founded by Carlos Buela, who died in 2023 in Genoa and on which at least a dozen cases of sexual abuse and pedophilia weighed.
While approaching in conclave and it is remembered that 108 cardinals were appointed by this pontiff, it should not be ruled out that the weight of the Vatican bureaucracy is able to change the course undertaken by Francisco.
