Francis Refused Twice To Become Bishop in the Peripheries
He was also asked to become bishop of an area in Corrientes, northern Argentina. The nuncio encouraged him to accept saying that there were the ruins of the Jesuit past there.
Bergoglio replied that he did not want to be a "guardian of ruins" and refused, not caring about the people of these peripheries. But when he was offered Buenos Aires "with the authorisation signed by the Superior General, Fr Kolvenbach" [which was not needed], he accepted - humorous quote - "in a spirit of obedience."
In The Dictator Pope, Henry Sire writes that Kolvenbach gave a negative evaluation of Bergoglio in an unsuccessful attempt to thwart his promotion.
Francis told the Jesuits that a pope should not resign because the papacy is for life and that he had no plans to resign.
He who hates the Roman Mass praised the Congolese rite which was invented in 1988. Francis called it "not an adaptation", but a "poetic, creative reality, to be meaningful and suitable for the Congolese reality. So yes, I like it and it gives me joy.”
Out of context he added that "one of the ugliest things in the Church is authoritarianism, which becomes a mirror of society wounded by worldliness and corruption." He was talking about himself.
At a February 4 meeting with Jesuits in South Sudan, a sycophant asked Francis about "the secret of his simplicity"? Francis didn't fall for it: “I, simple? I feel I’m too complicated!”
As for his prayer life, he said that he presides at the Eucharist and recites the short Novus Ordo breviary, “Sometimes I pray the Rosary, sometimes I take the Gospel and meditate on it.”
In 2013, Francis still claimed to recite all 15 mysteries of the Rosary every day, while referring to Catholics as “rosary counters.”
Picture: © Mazur/cbcew.org.uk, CC BY-NC-ND, #newsPhymvjuazh
