Can Pope Francis bring about aggiornamento?

This week's Independent News & Media Irish regional newspapers' column.

Michael Commane

I was ordained a priest in 1974. Paul VI was pope and the new wind of Vatican II was in the air.

There was a noticeable enthusiasm about. Paul VI was quietly but surely seeing to it that the windows and doors of the Catholic Church would stay open, windows and doors that Pope John XXIII had begun to open.

I lived in Rome between 1974 and 1976 and it was exhilarating to see signs of a new open church appearing.

Youth brings with it enthusiasm and excitement, also that feeling or belief that the old order can be changed and new horizons are within sight.

The mix of youthful vigour and a hope that a staid church was disappearing made it exciting times.

But there were the backwoodsmen, scared of any change.

However, the wind seemed to be in favour of change. It was as if a head of steam had built up and that it would now be difficult to close shut the doors and windows. It had taken time, patience and resolve to loosen some of those rusty hinges, but the hinges were falling off and the windows and doors were blowing in the wind. It was a time of aggiornamento or renewal.

Sacristies can be strange places and a lot of clerical gossip goes on in them. As a young priest visiting an unfamiliar sacristy it was intriguing to meet priests whom I had never met before. One could quickly enough sense the mood and know whether or not the changes happening were being appreciated and accepted.

Albino Luciani was elected pope on August 26, 1978. This smiling Italian, who had been loved and appreciated as patriarch in Venice was going to take the reforms to their next step.

It came to an abrupt end 33 days later when the world learned of the death of the 'Smiling Pope'.

Within a short time of Karol Wojtyla, archbishop in Cracow, being elected pope, I noticed a change when visiting sacristies. I'd often hear a certain style of priest say that this new pope would return the church to its ‘correct’ course. It made me nervous.

A centralised bureaucratic church was being 'restored'. The old guard were quietly smiling. And on it went, ever so slowly. But people, full of enthusiasm and hope, believed there could be no going back.

Alas, they were wrong. And for 35 years the church has been in a process of retrenchment.

As a German teacher I was interested in the idea of a pope from Bavaria. Benedict seemed a kindly man but there was too much of a German about him to open doors and windows.

Have we now come full circle? Is Pope Francis in the process of dismantling those hinges again?

On the day following the election of Donald Trump as US president Cardinal Raymond Burke said he believed that Trump could 'heal' America. Burke's comment was as ludicrous as the liturgical vestments he wears. Fortunately, Francis has told Burke to take a hike.

A Trump-like phenomenon has been germinating in the church over the last 35 years.

Francis is proving himself strong and wily, but he will need all the blessings God will give him to help make our church truly the Body of Christ, a friendly home for the ordinary 'Joe Soap', people like me, who are desperately looking for a kind place, somewhere where love and gentleness play a far bigger role than orthodoxy and procedure.

The church is the people of God, a place of mercy, where there is a warm and genuine welcome for the broken and fragile.