The Figure of the Bishop According to Pope Francis

On many occasions the pontiff has appealed to bishops to be “bishops who are pastors, not princes,” making references to images he had already used when he governed his previous diocese.

In 2006, while giving a retreat for the bishops of Spain, in his introductory meditation on the Magnificat, he spoke of “feeling ourselves to be collaborators, not owners, humble servants like Our Lady, not princes.” Concluding the retreat, he said – in his meditation on the phrase “the Lord reforms us” – that, “the people desire a pastor, not a refined man who loses himself in the finer things which are in vogue.”2

This pastoral choice does not belong exclusively to bishops, but involves every “missionary disciple,” each in his own state and condition. In the apostolic exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium (EG),the pope states: “Clearly Jesus does not want us to be grandees who look down upon others, but men and women of the people. This is not an idea of the pope, or one pastoral option among others; they are injunctions contained in the word of God which are so clear, direct and convincing that they need no interpretations which might diminish their power to challenge us. Let us live them sine glossa, without commentaries.”3

The image “pastors, not princes” is not used pejoratively, although some in the media have interpreted it as a rebuke to bishops and priests. It is something that it is much more profound. It goes back to the discernment of an epochal shift and, even more significantly, it is an invitation to ensure that no bishop, no priest allows himself to be robbed of the joy of being a pastor:4 “By so doing we will know the missionary joy of sharing life with God’s faithful people as we strive to light a fire in the heart of the world” (EG 271).

Bishops who keep watch over their people

Expressed in the very title “bishop” – in Greek, episkopos – there is a specific charism on which the then Cardinal Bergoglio reflected in the Synod of 2001, dedicated to “The Bishop: Servant of the Gospel of Jesus Christ for the Hope of the World.” That charism, a particular mission of the bishop, consists in keeping watch.

It is worth reading his entire text: “The bishop is the one who keeps watch, he safeguards hope, keeping watch over his people (1 Pt 5:2). The spiritual attitude is the one that accents overseeing the flock with a view of the whole. The bishop is the one who takes care of all that keeps the flock together, a cohesive whole. Another spiritual attitude accents the need to be vigilant for dangers. Both attitudes have to do with the essential mission of the bishop and acquire the totality of their strength from the attitude I consider to be most essential, which consists in keeping watch.

“One of the most powerful images of this attitude is that found in the book of Exodus, in which we are told that Yahweh watched over his people on the night of the Passover, also known as “a night of vigil” (Ex 12:42). What I want to underline is the profound nature of keeping watch, in comparison to a watching over in a more general sense or in respect to a more pointed supervision. Overseeing refers more to the care for doctrine and customs, while keeping watch alludes more to making sure that there is salt and light in the hearts of the faithful. Being vigilant speaks of being at the ready before imminent dangers; keeping watch, instead, speaks of patiently sustaining the processes through which the Lord carries forward the salvation of his people. To be vigilant, it is sufficient to be awake, astute, quick. To keep watch requires meekness, patience and consistency of proven charity. Overseeing and being vigilant speak to us of a certain control. Instead, keeping watch speaks to us of hope, the hope of the merciful Father who keeps watch over the process of the hearts of his children. Keeping watch manifests and consolidates the parresia of the bishop, which shows Hope ‘without distorting the Cross of Christ.’

“Together with the image of Yahweh who keeps watch over the great exodus of the People of the Covenant, there is another image, more familiar, but equally powerful: that of Saint Joseph. It is he who keeps watch even in his dreams over the Child and his Mother. From this profound watching over of Saint Joseph is born that silent view of the whole capable of caring for his tiny flock with impoverished means; and from it sprouts the vigilant and astute gaze which was able to avoid all of the dangers which threatened the Child.”5  The sleeping Saint Joseph, to whom Pope Francis entrusts his “slips of paper” so that “he dreams of them” is the image of the bishop, the pastor who keeps watch over his people.

Bishops who lower themselves and include others

Downward and outward, toward all. With two simple movements of a pastor and not a prince, Francis, just after being elected pope, placed himself within the great tradition of the Church and of Vatican II, generating a new spiritual dynamism in the faithful People of God. 

The Council tells us that as Christ “who emptied himself” and was sent “to announce the good news to the poor,” so too the Church is called to follow the same path and, therefore, “encompasses with love all who are afflicted with human suffering and in the poor and afflicted sees the image of its poor and suffering Founder” (Lumen Gentium [LG], n.8).

When Pope Francis bowed his head to receive the blessing of his people, and every time he gets into the popemobile and rides around the entirety of Saint Peter’s Square, or when he chooses borderlands for his papal visits, his movements make us feel, and not just see, the image of how a bishop can be among his people. It is not an image which seeks to subvert other bishops or popes, but rather one that asks to be seen and received with an attitude of friendship and closeness, the attitude of one who knows how to discover “the harmony of the Spirit in the diversity of charisms,” just as Francis asked “his priests” – the cardinals – two days after his election.6

Not only his gestures, but also his doctrine expresses a lowering of self and an inclusivity that are the antithesis of a spiritual worldliness. These things are not “original statements” but rather they are what the Second Vatican Council asked for with simplicity: “Thus, the Church, although it needs human resources to carry out its mission, is not set up to seek earthly glory, but to proclaim, even by its own example, humility and self–sacrifice” (LG 8).

And even if it is true that public opinion and the media judge harshly when they see the attitude of a prince displayed by a prelate, it is also true that there is a great openness when they see any pastor – priest or bishop – who lowers himself and embraces all. The people of God senses that it is Christ who shepherds in her pastors. Saint Augustine stated as much: “Do not imagine that there will be no more good shepherds, or that we shall find them lacking, or that the Lord’s mercy will not produce and establish them. Certainly, if there are good sheep there are also good shepherds; good sheep give rise to good

shepherds. But all good shepherds are united in the one good shepherd; they form a unity. If only they feed the sheep, Christ is feeding the sheep. The friends of the bridegroom do not speak with their own voice, but they take great joy in listening to the bridegroom’s voice.”7

In concluding his speech to the Congregation for Bishops, in 2014, Pope Francis asked: “Where can we find such men [kerygmatic bishops, men of prayer, pastors]? It is not easy. Are there any? How should they be chosen? […] Of course there are such men because the Lord does not abandon his Church. Maybe it is we who do not go out enough into the fields to find them. Maybe the warning of Samuel is appropriate for us, as well: “We will not sit at table before he has come here” (cf 1 Sam 16:11). It is this holy anxiety that I wish this Congregation lived.”8

Bishops focused on the essential

What need to be the characteristics of the bishop that the pope proposes as the one whom the Lord uses to sanctify, instruct and pasture his people today? Francis reminded the bishops of the Italian Episcopal Conference (CEI) about them. The spirituality of the bishop is a return to the essential, to the personal relationship with Jesus Christ who says, “Follow me!” He makes us “pastors of a Church that is, above all else, the community of the Risen one.”9  The pope had said the same thing a few months earlier, at the meeting of the Congregation for Bishops: “There is a need to choose from among the followers of Christ witnesses to the Risen One. From here derives the essential criterion for sketching the face of the bishops we want to have.”10

Here then, are the two characteristics of the “bishop–witness” pointed out by the pope: one is that “he knows how to make everything that happened to Jesus relevant today”; and the other is that “[he is] not an isolated witness, but one together with the Church.”11  At the assembly of the CEI, the pope brings to the fore the aspect of “belonging to the Church” of “pastors of a Church that is the Body of the Lord.”12

To better understand these characteristics, we should fix our gaze on Francis. Not because all bishops must resemble the pope in his style. Just the opposite; he prefers the diversity of charisms: “There is no such thing as a standard model of pastor for all Churches. Christ knows the singularity of the pastor that each Church needs to respond to its needs and help it realize its potential. Our challenge is entering into Christ’s point of view, keeping sight of this singularity of the particular Churches.”13  Making the risen Christ relevant today requires that each one place himself in his unique and non–transferable situation and, staying himself, be faithful to the essential, harmonizing his vital witness with that of other witnesses.

To speak of the essential, it is important to consider the first time Francis spoke of the bishop. In his first Urbi et Orbi blessing, he mentioned “bishop” four times: referring to the conclave, he said that the duty of the conclave was to “give a bishop to Rome.” Thanking the “diocesan community of Rome” for the welcome given to him, he said that it “had its bishop.” He asked that the community “say a prayer for our bishop emeritus, Benedict XVI.” He delineated his own mission in terms of a journey: “And now, we begin this journey: bishop and people” and he asked “the prayer of the people, asking a blessing for your bishop.”14

The pope also mentioned the figure of the bishop in the homily of the Mass with the cardinals, describing all pastors as “disciples of Christ crucified”: “When we walk without the Cross, when we build without the Cross and when we confess Christ without the Cross, we are not disciples of the Lord: we are mundane, we are bishops, priests, cardinals, and popes, but not disciples of the Lord.”15 As stated in Lumen Gentium: “the Church ‘presses forward amid the persecutions of the world and the consolations of God,’ announcing the cross and death of the Lord until He comes” (cf. 1 Cor 11:26)” (LG 8; cf. LG 3; 5; 42).

Equally significant is the manner in which, in his audience with the cardinals, Pope Francis described the figure of Benedict XVI: “The petrine ministry, lived with total dedication, had in him a wise and humble interpreter, with his gaze fixed always on Christ, Risen, present and alive in the Eucharist.”16

Lower oneself, include others and be centered: three movements around the crucified and risen Lord with which the pope invites bishops to design their own image and to see themselves as pastors of the People of God.

A bishop of Vatican II: anointed to anoint

In his first Chrism Mass as bishop of Rome, Francis considered pastors in the fundamental tension that constitutes them: ones anointed in order to anoint the faithful people of God they serve. The Council states, “that duty, which the Lord committed to the shepherds of His people, is a true service, which in sacred literature is significantly called ‘diakonia’ or ministry” (LG 24). “The good priest can be recognized by how his people is anointed; this is clear proof.”17 The spirit of the Second Vatican Council is concentrated in this being “for” the people, the spirit of which the pope does not say that “he should live it” but that “he is living it,” together with all the bishops, priests and laity who rejoice, as missionary disciples, in going out in mission together with him.18

The relational character and dynamic of anointing animate the simple phrases of the first discourses of Pope Francis. Bishop and people take a journey together in which “the entire body of the faithful, anointed as they are by the Holy One, (cf Jn 2:20, 27) cannot err in matters of belief. They manifest this special property by means of the whole people’s supernatural discernment in matters of faith when ‘from the Bishops down to the last of the lay faithful’ they show universal agreement in matters of faith and morals” (LG 12).

This journey made together is “synod” and in that word breathes the synodal spirit of Vatican II: “From the very first centuries of the Church, bishops…pooled their abilities and their wills for the common good and for the welfare of the individual Churches. Thus came into being synods, provincial councils and plenary councils… This sacred ecumenical Council earnestly desires that the venerable institution of synods and councils flourish with fresh vigor” (CD 36).

Regarding the continuity between Pope Francis and Pope Benedict XVI, here is an example in the words that Benedict spoke to the Argentine bishops in 2009, when he spoke of the “holy oil of priestly anointing,” that makes the pastor like Christ “in the midst of the People.” On that occasion, Pope Benedict reminded the bishops and the priests that each of them must “always behave among his faithful as one who serves (cf. LG 27)” without seeking honor, caring for the “People of God” with “tenderness and mercy.”19 This same image of the bishop that Pope Benedict presented to the Argentine bishops, Pope Francis is proposing to all bishops, in order that they live it fully, in this moment in history. 

The pastoral image of the bishop

It is possible to focus the image of the bishop according to Pope Francis in a totally pastoral milieu, that of the “pastor with the smell of his sheep.” But we should not take this just as some original way of speaking but rather as an image capable of unifying in itself all of the other images the pope proposes. The image of the pastor with the smell of his sheep on him and with the smile of a father20  attracts and draws together other images into a constellation, as if it were one great “star–pastor.”

In what sense is this pastoral prospective the key to the figure of the bishop? Bergoglio said in 2009: “In the language of the Council and Aparecida, ‘pastoral’ is not opposed to ‘doctrinal’ but rather, includes it. The pastoral is not a mere ‘practical, contingent application of theology.’ Quite the opposite, Revelation itself, and all of theology, is pastoral, in the sense that it is the Word of salvation, the Word of God for the life of the world. As Crispino Valenziano said, ‘It is not the case that one needs to adapt the pastoral to doctrine but that it is necessary to not rip away the original and constitutive pastoral seal from doctrine. The ‘anthropological route’ that is followed in theology without doubt or perplexity is that which runs parallel to a ‘pastoral’ doctrine: we men receive revelation and salvation perceiving the knowledge that God has of our nature and his lowering of himself as pastor toward each of his sheep.”21

Bergoglio continues: “This integrated conception of doctrine and pastoral (that led the documents with permanent doctrine to be called ‘Constitution’ – not only the dogmatic Lumen Gentium, but also the pastoral Gaudium et Spes) is clearly reflected in the Decree on priestly formation. The Decree insists on the importance of forming pastors of souls, shepherds who, united to the one Good and Beautiful Shepherd (beautiful in as much as he leads by attraction and not by imposition), ‘feeds his sheep’ (Cf. Jn 21:15–17).”22  In fact, “the image of the Good Shepherd is the analogatum princeps of all formation. When they speak of the pastoral end as the ultimate end, both Vatican II and Aparecida intend ‘pastoral’ in the inclusive sense: not in as much as it is distinguished from other aspects of formation but in that it includes them all. It includes them in the love of the Good Shepherd, given that love ‘is the form of all virtues,’ as Saint Thomas Aquinas says, following Saint Ambrose.”23

When Pope Francis speaks of the triple mission of the Church and of the bishops, he picks up the thought of Benedict XVI, who presented the triple munus of the pastor in new accents: “The Church’s deepest nature is expressed in her three–fold responsibility: of proclaiming the word of God (kerygma–martyria), celebrating the sacraments (leitourgia), and exercising the ministry of charity (diakonia). These duties presuppose each other and are inseparable.”24  Note that when he speaks of teaching, Benedict XVI uses the expression kerygma–martyria, the same that Francis uses when he wishes for kerygmatic bishops and witness of the Risen One.

When he speaks of the mission of guiding, Benedict uses the term diakonia, service in love, that Francis also puts first.25  This aspect of diakonia is no less essential than the other two components. Benedict writes: “For the Church, charity is not a kind of welfare activity which could equally well be left to others, but is a part of her nature, an indispensable expression of her very being.”26 The discernment of Benedict XVI in writing his encyclicals consisted in comprehending that the world needed to be spoken to of love. And love has “the smell of the sheep.”

Pastors with the smell of their sheep and the smile of a father

Pope Francis has no difficulty speaking about the “sins of pastors” – including his own and those of the Curia – to a world like ours in which the “sense of sin” is diminished.27  Nevertheless, his most emblematic phrase regarding pastors, the one which has touched everyone’s heart, does not regard the restrictive ethical, but the irresistibly attractive aesthetical. The famous phrase is: I want “pastors with the smell of sheep on them” and “the smile of a father,” as he added last Holy Thursday. This is the image of the bishop that Francis holds in his heart. It is the same for priests, for cardinals and for the pope himself; shepherds who do not want to merely dress themselves in sheep’s wool but who are passionate about serving them.28

We can note here that, more than the image of a bishop, we are speaking about an odor. An odor that, like all strong odors, clearly evokes many images. But the principal one is that which is to be read sine glossa,29  that which is to be smelled, it is that of shepherds who care for their sheep and not for themselves.

Together with the image of the “pastor with the smell of his sheep,” the parable of the Good Shepherd, so often heard but so infrequently lived out, imposes itself with the strength of a fresh breeze that wakes us from ideological daydreams and our routine, putting us back on our journey with evangelical passion. The shepherd saturates himself with the smell of his sheep when he is among his people. It is not possible to create this smell in a laboratory. And the pastor does not become infected with it when he is around his people, grazing: it is his own odor of himself as a sheep, and it reminds him that the people he shepherds are the people he himself was called from.

“The smell of the sheep” unites the Bergoglian themes of anointing,30  of keeping watch and of keeping safe, of discernment, ready to feed the flock with sound doctrine and to defend it from enemies, that is from wolves who, though dressed as sheep, cannot hide their “smell of wolves.” In this way, the spiritual sense of smell allows the bishop to uncover and reject the temptation to a spiritual worldliness, with its sophisticated perfumes, giving him an “olfactive” criterion for discernment, so that he remains within the flock from which he was drawn and is recognized by the sheep, in a way so as not to lose them.

Bishops who pray with their people

In the thought of Pope Francis, the personal prayer and liturgical prayer of the pastor, like his anointing, are not something destined to perfume his own person; rather, they should “spread out and reach the periphery,” like the oil that drips from Aaron’s beard, down to the fringes of his garments.31

Therefore, the prayer of the pastor, to which the pope makes reference, is always filled with faces; and “our exhaustion” is “like incense that rises silently to heaven […] going directly to the heart of the Father”32 and, picking up again the image used by Francis in the most recent Chrism Mass, feels like God’s caress to priests.

The image of the bishop who prays can be sketched by looking at how he is centered in Christ, spending himself in the service of his people.33  This gives shape to his openness to God, his holiness, his personal prayer: “he ought to have the same hypomone and parresia in his prayer, which he has to exercise in preaching the Word.”34

This is the spirituality that unleashes the concrete pastoral action that John Paul II twelve years previously urged pastors to have in the exhortation, Pastores dabo vobis.35  He had already traced it out in his homily on “The spirituality of the diocesan priest today.” He reminded priests of “their pastoral reason for being”: “A priest (and even more so a bishop) who is not inserted into some kind of ecclesial community could certainly not present himself as a valid model of ministerial life, since this is essentially inserted in the concrete context of the interpersonal relationships of the same community.”36

In Pastores dabo vobis, John Paul II presents as an exemplary figure the bishop Saint Charles Borromeo, who loved the spirituality of the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius. The Exercises propose to pastors the need to unite the contemplative and the active in the manner in which Saint Peter Favre intended: “The one who seeks God spiritually in good works will better find him in prayer, than if he had abstained from those good works.”37 To people of the active life, the saint made this recommendation: “It will be better, all in all, that you order your prayers toward the treasure of good works rather than the opposite.”38 That is to say, one needs to look at what needs to be done and at the people with whom one must relate, and then pray asking for the grace necessary to do one’s tasks as the Lord wills.

Saint Charles Borromeo wrote: “My brothers, do not forget that there is nothing so necessary to all churchmen than the meditation which precedes, accompanies and follows all our actions: I will sing, says the prophet, and I will meditate (cf. Ps. 100:1). If you administer the sacraments, my brother, meditate upon what you are doing. If you celebrate Mass, meditate on what you are offering. If you recite the psalms in choir, meditate to whom and of what you are speaking. If you are guiding souls, meditate in whose blood they have been cleansed. And let all be done among you in charity (1 Cor. 16:14).”39

Therefore, the transcendence of which Pope Francis constantly speaks is double: toward God and his saints, in prayer; toward the neighbor, toward the people of God. As he said to the Mexican bishops: “do not forget prayer. It is a bishop’s “negotiation” with God on behalf of his people. Do not forget it! And the second transcendence is closeness to one’s people.”40

So, the odor of the sheep is not only the smell of the earthly sheep, but also of those who are already in the heavenly pastures: it is the pleasant aroma of the saintly sheep, that can be acquired by frequenting them in prayer and in the reading of their lives. In the image of the bishop that the pope has in mind, the example of the saints – and in particular those who were great evangelizers of peoples – is essential. The saints that the pope is canonizing with the so–called “equivalent methodology” are figures that have realized a “great evangelization and are in harmony with the spirituality and the theology of Evangelii Gaudium. For this reason, I have chosen these examples.”41

They are women and men, evangelizers loved by their people who inculturated themselves in order to inculturate the Gospel.

This desire to inculturate the Gospel exercised a strong influence on the prayer of the bishop evangelizer and pastor. Bergoglio has always been a bishop who prayed to the saints together with his people, having been inclined to popular piety since his youth, thanks to his grandmother Rosa, who “told him the stories of the saints” and “accompanied him to processions.”42

The image of the transcendence toward God in prayer, that the pope proposes to bishops, has much in common with the mode of praying and adoring God proper to his faithful people. The pope wants bishops who pray with their people, bishops whose prayer is perfumed with spiritualty and with popular mysticism.

Bishops with “Christological odor”

The image of the pastor with the smell of the sheep is an emblematic one. It is one of those images that Guardini describes as “primordial” or of great evocative power.43 Even if it has been cited and utilized to the point of becoming a stereotype, it can still provide the starting point for a brief theoretical reflection. This is only a draft, an invitation to enter into the theological, anthropological and ontologically dense language of Pope Francis.

First of all, it is necessary to give the proper weight to the metaphor used by the pontiff. There are some people who do not understand this language: it seems to them to be rough, not fit for a pope and even without theological content. This fact is truly singular and gives rise to this thought: the people “understand him,” while the intellectuals “don’t appreciate him.” Some think that this desire of touching the hearts of the people is nothing more than popularism. Is it? Not at all. Well illumined faith is not only for the educated. It is an illumination that comes from the anointing of the Holy Spirit and it is that which is given to the humble making them wiser than the wise of our culture (cf. Mt 11:25–27; 1 Jn 2:26–27).

The pope’s metaphors should be appreciated for what they are: images that in the sea of words of today’s world act like the shepherd’s whistle. His sheep know it well and let themselves be guided by it. The language of Pope Francis is not only “original” – the language of a Latin American – but, being clear, it is also true and does the heart good. As Aristotle said, being capable of using metaphors is a sign of a higher intelligence.44

If we contemplate the image of the pastor with the odor of his sheep from a Trinitarian perspective and we liberally follow the custom of the Church Fathers, who like Saint Augustine, attributed a quality to one of the Divine Persons, we could say that the odor of the sheep is proper to the Person of Christ. It is a Christological odor, the odor of the incarnation and of the passion, of bandages and blood. It is the sweat of the one who walks with his disciples and who sees around him the crowds; it is the odor of the washing of the feet and the odor of the bandages of a stinking Lazarus; it is also a feminine perfume, like that of Mary, that fills the home; the aroma of lilies of the field and of wind and water toward which Christ commands Peter to row.

John Paul II affirmed: “The Christological dimension of the pastoral ministry, considered in depth, leads to an understanding of the Trinitarian foundation of ministry itself. Christ’s life is Trinitarian. He is the eternal and only–begotten Son of the Father and the anointed of the Holy Spirit, sent into the world; it is he who, together with the Father, pours out the Spirit upon the Church. This Trinitarian dimension, manifested in every aspect of Christ’s life and activity, also shapes the life and activity of the bishop. Rightly, then, the Synod Fathers chose explicitly to describe the life and ministry of the bishop in the light of the Trinitarian ecclesiology contained in the teaching of the Second Vatican Council.”45

This Christological odor illumines the anthropology of Pope Francis and it makes us think of his choice to take as his starting point the beautiful, before the true and the good. It is a discernment of his which the ears of the sheep need to hear today, saturated as we are by discussions of dogmatic definitions and impractical moral advice.

With the beautiful, the pulchrum, the good also enters, and then each one sincerely desires the truth. This is the pedagogy of the pastor. If it is thought about in philosophical terms, the odor of the sheep has to do with the pulchrum, a clearly Christological pulchrum, in that beauty and glory manifest themselves under a different form, without exaggerating, given that for the pastor the odor of his sheep is not unpleasant.

And if we look at things from a political perspective, keeping in mind the four principles of Francis, we can say that the olfactive image of the odor of the sheep corresponds to the highest principle: the odor of the sheep is “the odor of anointing,” that indicates the totality of the faithful people of God, “holy and infallible in credendo” (EG 119). If anything is typical of a strong odor it is that it is pungent and provokes either a total rejection, like when food has rotted, or a strong attraction, like a pleasant perfume.

This odor is experienced “in the closeness of the Pastor”: close to all, but in a special way to the sick, to the poorest and those who are far away, the excluded and the marginalized. There are two principles that are established only in closeness: that of unity, which is superior to conflict (because the very nature of conflict is to separate and contrast) and that of reality, which is superior to the ideal, because it is experienced only emerging in oneself in reality, touching open wounds and allowing oneself to become involved with one’s neighbors.

If we consider the sweat of the shepherd who walks with his sheep, the image of a Church going out, that is “the paradigm of every work of the Church” (EG 15; 17; 20), then what comes to mind is the principle that time is superior to space, because the road is traced and walked upon without allowing oneself to be blocked by contrasts and without taking over spaces. As Evangelii Gaudium says, “Giving priority to time means being concerned about initiating processes rather than possessing spaces” (EG 223).

Men of communion and not “bishop–pilots”

The pontiff does not give lessons as to how a bishop ought to be: when he speaks of pastors, we note that he has one ear that is attentive to the Gospel and the other to the faithful (cf. EG 154). Through his words, his pauses, his examples, his smiles and his gestures, we are able to form a strong, united image of what a pastor is: centered in the love of Jesus and uniting his people, he is a man of communion.

This was the central theme of the speech to the Italian bishops in May, 2014. On that occasion, Francis made a significant gesture: he gifted the bishops the words Paul VI had spoken to the same Conference on April 14, 1964, calling for “a strong and renewed spirit of unity” that provokes a “unifying animation in spirit and in works.”46  This union is the key that the world might believe and so that they can be “Pastors of a Church […] anticipation and promise of the Kingdom,” that goes out toward the world with “the eloquence of gestures” of “truth and mercy.”47

This image of “men of communion” giving hope to the world is the last that we will indicate as the image of the bishop that is presented to us by him who today is the bishop of Rome, the Church which “presides in charity over all of the Churches.”48

As the pontiff said to the Italian bishops on May 18, 2015, being men of communion requires a special “ecclesial sensitivity.” Union is the work of the Spirit who acts thanks to bishop–pastors, not bishop–pilots. They reinforce “the indispensable role of the laity disposed to take on the responsibilities that are properly theirs.” Their ecclesial sensitivity “is revealed concretely in collegiality and in the communion between bishops and their priests: in the communion among bishops: between dioceses materially and vocationally rich, and those in difficulty; between the peripheries and the center; between bishops’ conferences and bishops with the successor of Peter.”49

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1.Pope Francis, Discourse to the 68th General Assembly of the Italian Episcopal Conference, May 18, 2015.

2.Papa Francesco/J. M. Bergoglio, In Lui solo la speranza. Esercizi spirituali ai vescovi spagnoli (January 15–22, 2006), Milan, Jaca Book, 2013, 14; 82.

3.Pope Francis, Apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, 271.2

4.From “pastoral sloth”: cf. EG 83.

5.J. M. Bergoglio, “Sorvegliare la coesione del gregge”. Intervention at the Synod on “The Bishop: Servant of the Gospel of Jesus Christ for the Hope of the World”, in Oss. Rom., October 4, 2001, 10. Cfr Papa Francesco/J. M. Bergoglio, In Lui solo la speranza…, cit., 35.

6.Cfr Pope Francis, Audience with the Cardinals, March 15, 2013.

7.Saint Augustine , Sermon 46, XXX, in Id., Sul sacerdozio, Rome–Milan, La Civiltà Cattolica – Corriere della Sera, 2014, 168.

8.Pope Francis, Speech at the meeting with the Congregation for Bishops, February 27, 2014, in www.vatican.va.

9.Id., Speech to the 66th General Assembly of the CEI, April 14, 2014.

10.Id., Speech to the Congregation for Bishops, cit. n. 4.

11.Ivi.

12.Id., Speech to the 66th General Assembly of the CEI, cit.

13.Id., Speech to the Congregation for Bishops, cit. n.1.

14.Id., First Apostolic Blessing Urbi et Orbi, March 13, 2013.

15.Id., Homily at the Mass “Pro Ecclesia”, March 14, 2013.

16.Id., Audience with the Cardinals, cit.

17.Id., Homily at the Mass of Chrism, March 28, 2013. Cf. Second Ecumenical Vatican Council, Decree Christus Dominus (CD), nn. 12; 15; 16.

18.“Moreover, the care of souls should always be infused with a missionary spirit so that it reaches out as it should to everyone living within the parish boundaries” (CD 30).

19.Benedict XVI, Address to the bishops of the Argentine Episcopal Conference during their “ad limina” visit, April 30, 2009, n. 2.

20.Pope Francis, Homily during the Chrism Mass, April 2, 2015. Pope John Paul II used a similar expression: “I think of the reassuring smile of Pope Luciani, that in the brief span of a month conquered the world” (John Paul II, s. Homily of September 27, 2003).

21.C. Valenziano, Vegliando sul gregge, Magnano (Bi), Qiqajon, 1994, 16, cited in J. M. Bergoglio, Significado e importancia de la formacion academica. Reunion Plenaria de la Pontificia Comision para America Latina, February 18, 2009.

22.Ivi.

23.Ivi. The text of Thomas cited in the original is, “Ambrosius dicit, quod caritas est forma et mater virtutum’ (Aquinas, s., De virtutibus, 2, 3, sed contra).

24.Benedict XVI, Encyclical Deus Caritas est (December 25, 2005), n. 25. Cf, CD 11 and 30; LG 7.

25.“By her very nature the Church is missionary; she abounds in effective charity and a compassion which understands, assists and promotes” (EG, 179).

26.Benedict XVI, Encyclical Deus Caritas est, cit., n. 25.

27.Pope Francis, Homily, January 31, 2014.

28.Cf. D. Fares, “Pasci il mio gregge”, in Agostino, s., Sul sacerdozio, cit.,VI.

29.EG 271.

30.Cfr. Pope Francis, Homily during the Chrism Mass, March 28, 2013.

31.“Priests who perform their duties sincerely and indefatigably in the Spirit of Christ arrive at holiness by this very fact” (Vatican II, Decree Presbyterorum Ordinis, 13).

32.Pope Francis, Homily during the Chrism Mass, April 2, 2015. Cf. CD 27.

33.“Only if centered on God can one go to the peripheries of the world!” (Pope Francis, Homily in the Church of the Gesu, January 3, 2014. In this homily the Pope used the example of St. Peter Favre, and his desire to “let Christ occupy the center of the heart” (Cf. P. Favre, Memorie spirituali, Roma–Milano, La Civilta Cattolica – Corriera della Sera, 2014, 68).

34.Pope Francis, Speech to the Congregation for Bishops, cit. n. 7.

35.John Paul II s., Apostolic Exhortation Pastores dabo vobis, March 25, 1992.

36.Id., Homily of November 4, 1980.

37.Cf. P. Favre, Memorie spirituali, cit. nn.126–127.

38.Ivi.

39.John Paul II, s., Pastores dabo vobis, cit. n. 72. Cf Charles Borromeo, s., Acta Ecclesiae Mediolanensis, Milan, 1559, 1178.

40.Pope Francis, Speech to the bishops of the Mexican Episcopal Conference on their ‘ad limina’ visit, May 19, 2014.

41.Pope Francis, Encounter with journalists on the flight to Manila, January 15, 2015.

42.“Since early childhood I participated in popular piety” (J. Camara – S. PFaffen, Aquel Francisco, Cordoba, Raiz de Dos, 2014, 31 f).

43.R. Guardini, L’opera d’arte, Brescia, Morcelliana, 1998, 21.

44.Aristotle , Poetica, 1459a 5f. Aristotle affirmed that creating metaphors is an “incommunicable gift” and yet all can appreciate them.

45.John Paul II, s., Apostolic Exhortation Pastores gregis, (October 16, 2003), n.7.

46.Pope Francis, Speech to the 66th General Assembly of the Italian Bishops’ Conference, cit.

47.Ivi.

48.Id., First Apostolic blessing, Urbi et orbi, cit.

49. Id., Speech to the 68th General Assembly of the Italian Bishops’ Conference, cit.