Pope Francis on 85th birthday remains strong, energetic and robust with his reforms
- Pontiff celebrates birthday in year he cut pay for cardinals, approved law for investigating sex abuse cover-up, and curbed abuses of power
- Despite recent surgery he took a whirlwind trip to Cyprus and Greece and jaunts to Iraq, Slovakia and Hungary campaigning for a sustainable and just world
Pope Francis celebrates his 85th birthday on Friday, a milestone made even more remarkable given the coronavirus pandemic, his summertime intestinal surgery and the weight of history: His predecessor retired at this age and the last pope to have lived any longer was Leo XIII over a century ago.
Yet Francis is going strong, recently concluding a whirlwind trip to Cyprus and Greece after his pandemic-defying jaunts this year to Iraq, Slovakia and Hungary. He has set in motion an unprecedented two-year consultation of rank-and-file Catholics on making the church more attuned to the laity, and shows no sign of slowing down on his campaign to make the post-Covid-19 world a more environmentally sustainable, economically just and fraternal place where the poor are prioritised.
“I see a lot of energy,” said the Rev. Antonio Spadaro, one of Francis’ trusted Jesuit communications gurus. “What we’re seeing is the natural expression, the fruit of the seeds that he has sown.”
But Francis also is beset by problems at home and abroad and facing a sustained campaign of opposition from the conservative Catholic right. He has responded with the papal equivalent of “no more Mr Nice Guy.”
After spending the first eight years of his papacy gently nudging Catholic hierarchs to embrace financial prudence and responsible governance, Francis got tough, and appears poised to keep it that way.
Since his last birthday, Francis ordered a 10 per cent pay cut for cardinals across the board, and slashed salaries to a lesser degree for Vatican employees, in a bid to rein in the Vatican’s 50-million-euro ($57 million) budget deficit. To fight corruption, he imposed a 40-euro ($45) gift cap for Holy See personnel. He passed a law allowing cardinals and bishops to be criminally prosecuted by the Vatican’s lay-led tribunal, setting the stage for the high-profile trial under way of his one-time close adviser, Cardinal Angelo Becciu, on finance-related charges.
In the past year, Pope Francis has accelerated his efforts at reform by putting real teeth into the church’s canon law regarding finances
Outside the Vatican, he hasn’t made many new friends, either. After approving a 2019 law outlining the way cardinals and bishops could be investigated for sex abuse cover-up, the past year saw nearly a dozen Polish episcopal heads roll. Francis also approved term limits for leaders of lay Catholic movements to try to curb their abuses of power, resulting in the forced removal of influential church leaders. He recently accepted the resignation of the Paris archbishop after a media storm alleging governance and personal improprieties.