Wednesday, May 14, 2025

Pope Leo XIV


One of the most famous works of modern literary criticism is Mimesis by Erich Auerbach, first published in its original German in 1942.  The subtitle to Mimesis is “The Representation of Reality in Western Literature.”  It has since been translated into most of the languages on earth.   Auerbach was a brilliant German philologist and wide-ranging literary scholar who, as a Jew, fled Nazi persecution to take up a rather obscure academic appointment in Turkey, where he completed his great book.  After the war he moved to America and eventually to Yale University.  He published several other books of wide-ranging erudition and influence.  He is, indeed, one of the giants of twentieth-century literary study.  It is he who introduced into general academic currency the Greek word mimesis, often translated as “imitation” or “representation” as we use those words to describe the relationship between “real life” and life’s portrayal in literary or visual art. The word makes an important appearance in Aristotle’s Poetics, one of the fundamental books of our literary criticism.   As a character invented by one of our more notable playwrights famously remarked, “All the world’s a stage, /And all the men and women merely players.”  Is the whole thing “performative”—that is, one big act?

 

The phrase “art imitates life” has naturally invited the riposte that “life imitates art.” It is always pleasant to see art imitating life imitating art.  During the week just past, like millions of others throughout the world I found myself caught up in the papal election.  Well, “caught up” is probably overdoing it.  But we were subliminally prepared for it in a curious way.  Like a lot of other people, Joan and I had seen the film “Conclave” a few months ago. This engaging film exemplifies the principle that art also imitates art, because it is a cinematic version of the novel Conclave by Robert Harris, an excellent writer of historical fiction whose subject matter has often been taken from Antiquity.   (I particularly recommend the Cicero trilogy.)  Conclave is the fictional account of a papal selection in contemporary times.  You might say that Harris has mastered two thousand years of Roman political intrigue.  The fictional new pope, selected as a dark horse over a quite diverse field of leading candidates, is himself significantly diverse, but I won’t spoil things by explaining just how.  Art imitates life; it doesn’t reduplicate it.

 

We like to say that life is stranger than fiction, but, come on, you know that isn’t true.  There is no Saint Hermaphrotidus on the papal roster even in the darkest of the Dark Ages.  Pope Joan—that’s another issue!  Returning briefly to reality, Pope Leo XIV—concerning whom my entire knowledge comes from limited and often eccentric press coverage and the personal experience of two very brief statements he made in two Romance languages—seems a humble, dignified and sincere man.  He is obviously a man of deep and sincere faith, of unusual administrative capacity, of considerable learning, and of no small amount of diplomatic skill.  That he is by birth an American citizen is of real historical interest and apparently to much of the press the most interesting thing about him.  My own suspicion as a medievalist interested in the origins and histories of the principal religious orders in the Roman Church is that many decades living under the ancient Rule of Saint Augustine and long service as a missionary bishop in a developing country have had greater influence on his character than his American birth.  I am not a member of his branch of the universal Christian Church which is, however, the most numerous and widespread of all its branches, making him easily the most obvious and influential single spokesman for the Christian religion in the world.

 

The coverage of the papal transition has mainly been treated with what I have come to regard as conventional superficiality in our press’s discussion of religious matters.  There seems to be an unconscious imperative to make adversarial comparisons between Pope Leo and Donald Trump and to predict or at least wish for some manifest open conflict between Church and State of similar consequence to that between the pope and the secular potentates of the twelfth-century Investiture Controversy.  This contest between secular and ecclesiastical authority may be remembered from a history course as being important for—well, important for something important.  I am a professional medievalist, and as I can’t give you a serious explanation of all the issues involved, I can hardly assume such knowledge in my readers.  Jesus said that his kingdom was “not of this world,” but at least since the time of the Roman Emperor Constantine, who died nearly seventeen hundred years ago, the Church has failed to eschew temporal political power and has often eagerly pursued it.  Christians have to live with paradox.  Whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave.  This invitation to servility is perhaps not a particularly attractive job description.  No number of decaying Roman palaces and halberd-carrying Swiss guards could persuade a sane man to take it on.  The new pope shows every sign of sanity, and his long record of votive self-discipline and ministerial service in Latin America offers no suggestion of a vaulting personal ambition.  It is, I suppose, of some interest that the new pope might be a fan of the Chicago White Sox—this factoid has been prominent in several reports—but not of as much interest as his demonstrated commitment to the wretched of the earth.  To this outsider he appears to have a servant’s mentality, and I wish him well in the burdensome role he now undertakes.  It is a pity that the mimesis—the representation of this election in the popular press—has been mainly and sometimes trivially political.  All Christian churches, among which the Church of Rome is of conspicuous and unique importance, are facing formidable head winds.  That the clearly designated leader of this church appears to be a person of intelligence, integrity, noble vision, and true Christian charity is good news for a world that gets too little good news.

1 comment:

  1. The following news coverages on the new pope may be evidence of his “many decades living under the ancient Rule of Saint Augustine and long service as a missionary bishop in a developing country” being a continuation of building his character since his American birth, American growing up, and American education at Villanova University and Catholic Theological Union. Yes, he earned two degrees at Rome’s Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas, including a doctorate that was published in 1987, but the character that marks Pope Leo as one who is capable of listening has its roots in his American family.
    (1). On May 13, 2025, the NYT carries the new pope's speech—his first as pope—to the media group on freedom of speech in the First Amendment:
    “Let us disarm communication of all prejudice and resentment, fanaticism and even hatred; let us free it from aggression,” Leo told more than 1,000 journalists, including the Vatican press corps, who were gathered in an auditorium. “We do not need loud, forceful communication but rather communication that is capable of listening,” he added, delivering his address in Italian.
    One wonders, what has inspired the pope to choose freedom of speech in the First Amendment as his first papal communication? The NYT provides the answer nine days later.
    (2) On May 22, 2025, it carries the front-page article under the headline “Pope Leo’s Doctoral Dissertation: Thoughts on Power and Authority.” It opens with the citation from the 167-page text, “There is no room in Augustine’s concept of authority for one who is self-seeking and in search of power over others.” Robert Prevost writes on the framework within which the Chapter’s authority can be understood:
    “In this community, authority is service, and that service is rendered, within a context of listening to what the Spirit is saying in His people so that His projects can be carried out freely and willingly. The Prior then is called to listen, so that together they can discern and implement what the Spirit inspires. This theology of listening as the Spirit welds the group into community provides a framework within which the Chapter's authority can be understood.”
    With this coverage on Robert Prevost’s Ph.D. dissertation, an earlier passage in the NYT, on May 17, headlined “Long Drives and Short Homilies: How Father Bob Became Pope Leo,” now can be understood as revealing the American root cause of this capable-of-listening pope:

    But back then [at Villanova], when all seemed certain, he revealed his doubts to his father. “Maybe it would be better I leave this life and get married; I want to have children, a normal life,” the future pope, in a 2024 interview on Italian television, recalled saying. His father responded, he said, in a very human but deep way, telling his youngest son that, yes, “the intimacy between him and my mom” was important, but so was the intimacy between a priest and the love of God. “There’s something,” then-Cardinal Prevost recalled thinking, “to listen to here.”

    What an extraordinary time in America: a president who signs executive orders and a pope who listens.

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