Pope Francis: Untying the Knots by Paul Vallely (review)

The election of Pope Francis a year ago generated a wave of interest. His decidedly different pastoral approach to the papal ministry raised questions about the roots of this man so suddenly thrust into a global spotlight. Not surprisingly, a wave of books and articles has appeared, each giving a particular interpretation of the man.

This volume represents the fruits of quick but careful research by Paul Vallely, a journalist who has made it his mission to document the relationship between faith and justice, notably within the Catholic tradition. He has served as an advisor to the Catholic bishops of England and Wales and wrote a book on Catholic Social Teaching as a resource for twenty-first-century politics. The present book, admittedly written in short order after the election of Pope Francis, finds its origins in extensive interviews in Argentina and Rome. He has sought both to understand the roots of Pope Francis’s approach as well as the way in which his election responded to deep dissatisfactions within the College of Cardinals.

At the heart of the book is a principal thesis: the life of Jorge Maria Bergoglio can be divided into two distinct periods. Between the two seems to lie an encounter with a particular image of the Blessed Virgin found in Augsburg, Germany, Mary Untier of Knots. At the time Fr. Bergoglio prayed before this image while “in exile” from Argentina, studying in Germany. He goes “tied in knots” and returns to Argentina with studies unfinished but nonetheless with a change underway that underlies the pastoral approach one sees in his ministries as archbishop and then pope.

Vallely does not assume a radical break in Bergoglio’s personality; he goes out of his way to show an underlying continuity, as in his openness from an early age to others who did not share his world view. His concern for the poor, albeit in a more traditional form at first, also represents a consistent theme in Vallely’s presentation. His fear of the rapid and often violent changes within Argentine society and within the Church does change rather dramatically. He gradually assumes a powerful and fearless demeanour that allows him to engage the poor in new ways, even as he boldly challenges agents of violence, like the drug barons who terrorized the slums of Buenos Aires.

Vallely carefully approaches the difficult period of Bergoglio’s time as provincial of the Jesuit Province of Argentina, listening to a broad range of sources. Bergoglio’s own sense that he assumed this ministry at too young an age, given the radical challenges he faced, forms a kind of backdrop to the book as a whole. In the face of dogmatic, political, and ecclesial turmoil, he opts for stability, unity, and a pattern of avoiding conflicts that could harm the Society of Jesus and its members. For those unfamiliar with the Argentine context, Vallely nicely sketches out the basic historical and social themes, setting the decisions facing the new provincial in a helpful context.

Importantly Vallely investigates the charge that Bergoglio cooperated with the Argentine junta in the Dirty War, leading to the arrest and torture of two former Jesuits. He carefully balances various voices and comes to a sense that while Bergoglio might well have been naïve in understanding the implications of removing priestly faculties from the two when they either left or were dismissed from the Jesuits, there was no collusion and that Bergoglio anguished over the fate that had befallen the priests and sought to arrange their release. Vallely suggests that this chapter formed a key set of the “knots to be untied.” Eventually he reconciled with one of the men; he hesitated no more in confronting the forces of violence. From being a man who never smiled, the freedom he found allowed the joy and boldness we now witness to emerge.

Vallely has excellent sources. He gives a fairly compelling account of the rapid election...