I have just read the report in preparation for Pope Francis that this Saturday and Sunday will be seen on Net TV and on Sunday it will appear in its entirety in the edition of the newspaper Perfil and on perfil.com. It was performed this Thursday at the Vatican by Jorge Fontevecchia. The meeting lasted for 3 hours and the context was the tenth anniversary of Jorge Bergoglio as head of the Holy See.
There are more than one hundred thousand characters, which predicts an unprecedented length for a report. Almost a short book.
The most surprising thing is not that in such an extensive interview with the founder of Perfil, the Pope touched on topics such as his return to Argentina, abortion, cases of pedophilia within the Church, his political history, his relationship with Cristina Kirchner , international conflicts, the phenomenon of evangelical churches or the most outstanding events of his papacy.
The surprising thing is to read a deep man. A quality that should not surprise him being a trained person, but his depth reveals the superficiality that is usually found among the leadership, not only national.
At times more scientific than mystical, this religious leader makes a theological interpretation of the Big Bang, explains the idea of ”myth” as a form of knowledge, answers about Kant, Fukuyama, Hegel, talks about the concept of “hell” beyond what is symbolic, he vindicates the “good atheist” and rebels against the “starched young people in series, no sins, museum pieces”. And, comfortable with the plasticity of words, he explains, for example, a neologism of his own stamp as “indietrismo” and criticizes the ideologies that “depotentiate differences”, the “cropophilia” of the media and the “Argentine disharmony” .
But neither are these rather short-term reflections, which will question and surely provoke new debates, the most striking of this interview.
What impacts and denotes the depth of a different leader, is the number of times over three hours in which he answers, simply, that he does not know the answer.
Faced with the assertiveness of the time, Bergoglio doubts. Faced with those interviewed with quick answers, this Pope recognizes himself as “a limited person.” Faced with the closed and simplistic definitions, so common among communicators and politicians, this Pope surprises with “I couldn’t say” or “I don’t know, I would have to study it.”
When that assertiveness of the time even tries to pass off the social sciences as exact sciences, his moderation seems rebellious, an unexpected gesture of political incorrectness for someone who leads an organization with more than two thousand years of tradition.
That is the great revelation of this atypical note. And it is the virtue of this Argentine who a decade ago came to the Vatican from the end of the world. While the others know, he knows that he doesn’t know. It’s not little.
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