Pope Francis

As we approach the 10th anniversary of Francis' pontificate, columnist Michael Sean Winters reflects on his pastoral style.

He is not afraid to engage the politicians of the world, but he lacks the discretion of a diplomat. He knows and loves the people who have been kicked to the side of the road after falling in with the robber barons on the road to the neoliberal Jericho. Francis, a son of Latin America, has been the beneficiary of that continent's reception of Vatican II with its continuing determination to pose the question: What does it mean to exercise a preferential option for the poor? In our own time, the pastor Pope John Paul II was not reactionary, but he did lend a more conservative interpretation to Vatican II than many of his brother bishops. Pope Francis stops to kiss a child as he makes his way in the popemobile to Independence Hall Sept. Is it just me or does he seem more at home in the midst of desperately poor people than he does at the airport welcoming ceremonies when he is surrounded by potentates and their handlers? But the images of him stopping the popemobile to allow a parent to hand him a child for a blessing, or stepping out of the vehicle to Hard to find a better definition of a pastor than that, engaging people with the eyes of Jesus. With the intrigue of the Roman Curia, not so much. After greeting the crowd with a "buona sera" and telling them the cardinals had gone to the "end of the world" to find a new bishop for Rome, he asked the crowd to pray first for his predecessor, Pope Emeritus Benedict. At one point, the Holy Father spoke about the character of scrupulosity in every age: "This is the drama of the hypocrisy of this people. Conservative critics expressed " [confusion](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-pope-anniversary-conservatives/three-years-on-pope-leaves-catholic-conservatives-feeling-marginalized-idUSKCN0WD0TF)" but the rest of us recognized a pastor more interested in encouraging people than judging them.