OPINION:
Pope Francis’ passing on April 21 was unfortunate for many reasons. For me, it was his unavailability to help end myriad wars killing millions of innocent people and to help feed and shelter a growing number of the poor, especially those living in the Global South.
Pope Francis died at 88 after serving 12 years as the first Jesuit to lead the Roman Catholic Church. As the first pope from the Southern Hemisphere, expectations were that he would focus on cleaning up the scandal-plagued church. Pope Francis did address the clergy sexual abuse issue. Still, his was a reformist papacy, embracing the struggle with climate change, finding a place in the church for the LGBTQ community and recognizing same-sex civil unions while focusing on the plight of persecuted religious minorities and societal issues dealing with migrants and refugees. It was a liberal agenda, pursued with great humility.
Conservatives in the church gave considerable resistance, but Pope Francis persisted. Indeed, this was a major transformation of a church formerly led by Pope Benedict XVI.
What stands out for me, however, was Pope Francis’ visits to 68 countries during his papacy, preaching justice, peace and love for the entire human family. He visited South Sudan, Iraq, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Congo and other states to meet with religious counterparts and the people to discuss the need for peace and reconciliation and to focus on the “common good.”
Many of his foreign trips focused on interreligious dialogue, with Shiite counterparts in Iraq, Sunnis in Egypt, Buddhists in Myanmar and Hindus in India. Pope Francis also met with the political leaders during these state visits, focusing on the common good for the people, especially in countries experiencing conflict and hunger.
Pope Francis had only modest support for his efforts to bring peace and reconciliation to a world in disarray. The wars in Ukraine and the Gaza Strip continued, and food scarcity in South Sudan and other countries persisted, as did internal strife in Myanmar. However, Pope Francis tried in his dialogue with interreligious counterparts and heads of state. Pope Francis’ funeral in the Vatican on Saturday was attended by numerous heads of state and religious leaders representing Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism. This was a powerful testimonial to a man of peace.
The College of Cardinals, leaders in the Roman Catholic Church, will be convening soon to vote for the next pope. A diverse group of 135 out of 252 cardinals — any older than 80 is ineligible to vote — will decide by secret ballot who will be the next pope.
The 135 cardinals, all eligible to be elected, represent a diverse group from Africa, Asia, Europe and the Western Hemisphere. More than 80 of the cardinals were appointed by Pope Francis. Indeed, the 108 voting cardinals will discuss the core ecclesiastical issues affecting the church.
Hopefully, they will also discuss the need for the church to play a more active role in dealing with the wars, conflicts and starvation affecting so many of the 8 billion people inhabiting this planet. It would be tragic if the cardinals did not discuss using the office of the pope to rally interreligious counterparts to enter a dialogue with their constituents and political leaders to pursue a more just world that, at a minimum, deals with wars of aggression and hunger.
The establishment of the United Nations was meant to do much of this work. Unfortunately, the United Nations and other international organizations have been unable to end these wars of aggression and deal with the food scarcity issues affecting so many countries. The next pope, with his Hindu, Islamic, Buddhist, Jewish and Christian counterparts, can and should take the lead to help bring countries together to negotiate the multitude of issues responsible for the myriad wars and conflicts.
The next pope will have an opportunity to build on the legacy of Pope Francis and personally play a leadership role in helping bring leaders together to resolve a multitude of tense geopolitical issues. Some of these issues are currently contested on the battlefield with tens of thousands of casualties; others could easily devolve into wars and conflicts with the potential use of nuclear weapons.
The Vatican has an opportunity to help resolve some of these geopolitical issues. This would be an opportune time for the P5 +1 countries — the U.S., China, Russia, Britain, France and Israel — to encourage and assist the next pope in being more of an active peacemaker.
• The author was the special envoy for six-party talks with North Korea from 2003 to 2006. He is a former director of the National Counterproliferation Center and associate director of National Intelligence. The views are the author’s and not those of any government department or agency.
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