In his lively, sometimes compelling biography, Jimmy Burns sets out to offer his reader “fresh insight into a key spiritual figure of our times”, cautioning the reader that, nevertheless, this is “not a hagiography”. It is not, he assures us, the story of a “picture-book saint”, but of a “complex man” with a “mixed record”.
For example, the book’s most searching chapter, “The Dirty War”, sifts through the evidence for the Jesuit provincial Jorge Bergoglio’s relations with the Argentine military junta in the 1970s. Burns judges that Bergoglio cannot be credibly accused of collaborating with the generals, and yet that his conduct was less than heroic. He cites approvingly the view of Fr Michael Campbell-Johnston (one-time aide to the superior general of the Jesuits, Pedro Arrupe) that Bergoglio “had fallen short of the standards set by other more courageous members of the Church in the era of military government in Latin America”, including and especially Archbishop Oscar Romero and the Jesuit martyrs of El Salvador. Bergoglio had concentrated on diplomacy rather than public denunciation, and on his own direct action in harbouring at the Jesuit seminary, at definite risk to himself, escapees fleeing from torture and death, perhaps numbering 100. Burns quotes Thomas Reese SJ: “In the face of tyranny, there are those who take a prophetic stance and die martyrs. There are those who collaborate with the regime. And there are others who do what they can while keeping their heads low.” In Burns’ judgement, Bergoglio fell into the third category.
Yet this searching treatment of Bergoglio under the junta is not intended, ultimately, to discredit him but to set the stage for a story of “spiritual transformation” that begins with a “dark night” for Bergoglio after he was replaced as provincial and sent to Germany to do a doctorate. Since his election to the papacy, Francis has himself reflected publicly on his failings as Jesuit provincial, questioning his authoritarian style of leadership. Burns adds that many of those he (anonymously) interviewed agreed Bergoglio had “exercised his authority with an iron fist”. And, though Burns reminds us that Francis did not list his “ambiguous record on human rights” among his failings as provincial, nevertheless his record later as Archbishop of Buenos Aires shows that he had begun to look back on his actions during the Dirty War with a feeling that he had not done enough: “He was a man who listened to his conscience, and who now felt … he had a moral obligation to make up for the shortcomings he had shown as a leader while serving as Jesuit provincial.” Following in the mould of Romero, Bergoglio moved from “the political and moral shadowlands he had occupied” as provincial, because of, not in spite of, his promotion to archbishop: “like … Romero, his appointment to high office had brought with it paradoxically a new humility as well as courage in facing up to a range of issues …”
The best hagiographies emphasise the complexity of the saint in question, lest one might think that sainthood is bought cheaply or that one’s admiration is dependent on turning a blind eye to inevitable human shortcomings. They are often a story of conversion. Despite Jimmy Burns’ disclaimer, I wonder if Pope of Good Promise isn’t a little closer to the story of a “picture-book saint” than he imagines, with a “conversion” narrative – from the “authoritarian” to the consultative, the pragmatic to the prophetic, from “tradition, discipline and orthodoxy” to “the reforming Second Vatican Council”, from the failures of Benedict XVI to a new beginning – tailor-made for the (admirable) liberal kind of Catholic that Burns himself is.
Burns cites the earlier biography by Austen Ivereigh (The Great Reformer) rather negatively. Ivereigh is “a Catholic author who holds his subject in unwavering reverence”, and Ivereigh’s book is apparently the kind of hagiography which Burns is resisting. But – and Burns invites the comparison – Ivereigh’s biography is more thoroughly documented, more willing to specify the uniqueness of the Argentine situation, and finds more continuity across the various “reforms” that Bergoglio accomplished, including his reform of the Jesuit seminary and province. Ivereigh offers more texture on many points, including what “Peronism” is exactly, and what Bergoglio’s unique “theology of the people” amounted to. Burns, by contrast, mentions both only in desultory fashion. Burns’ chapters sometimes seem as though they were intended to be self-standing essays, as there is a lot of introductory and background material repeated as though it had not been given before (and I counted 17 typos and a picture caption that confuses the dispensing of ashes with Holy Communion). One can begin to wonder if the “conversion” narrative is at least partly a function of Burns’ somewhat disjointed compositional strategy, which would tend to highlight discontinuities.
Yet, paradoxically, Burns’ book is intended to serve the same purpose as Ivereigh’s book, that is, to feature Pope Francis’ strengths without compromising the truth, if for a different audience, one more likely to be impressed by conversion than continuity. And for that reason alone it is worth reading and enjoying.
