By William Cash
After climbing up the 110 steep steps to the bell tower of the Basilica do Sagrado Coracao de Jesus in Lisbon, consecrated in 1789 after a promise from Queen Maria 1 of Portugal to build a magnificent Baroque church if she conceived an heir, you can stand on the roof and enjoy one of the most spectacular views of Lisbon.
As you look out across the skyline at the facades of the biggest churches in the city, you don’t need binoculars to notice they are draped with enormous green, white and yellow banners with huge images of Pope Francis, heralding his arrival in Portugal to mark World Youth Day Lisbon 2023.
Started by Pope St John Paul II in Rome in 1986, this pilgrimage of faith happens every two or three years in a major global city and is like the Olympics/Glastonbury of the Christian world for those aged 16-35. There is a heavily Catholic influence, though the event, strictly speaking, is non-denominational. It ends with the Pope celebrating mass for millions in an outdoor venue. The record is five million people attending the WYD in Manila, the Philippines, in 1995.
Francis arrives on Wednesday August 2 for a whirlwind visit that will also have another agenda: to cement what appears to be an enduring “special relationship” between Vatican and Portugal, a bond that could be key to shaping Francis’s legacy as well as heavily influencing the next Conclave.
The state-style five-day visit, his second to Portugal, includes an audience with the President of the Republic, a meeting with the Prime Minister at the Apostolic Nunciature, vespers with leading bishops and prelates at the Monastery of Jeronimos; a day of meetings and praying the Stations of the Cross with selected young people from around the world in the Parque Eduardo VII. The finale will be a giant outdoor Holy Mass at the Parque Tejo in Lisbon. Not bad for a man who is 86, the oldest living pope for 120 years, and is in declining health after various extended hospital scares.
Lisbon is now experiencing a form of “Francis Fever”. At the Cathedral de Se, armed police on motorbikes stand guard outside the stone fortress of a cathedral, unusually closed on Sunday morning as it was “preparing for the papal visit” said a police officer. Outside the 20ft locked doors, I meet a Portuguese family posing for a photo after being disappointed not to attend Sunday Mass. “We love Francis as he is more in touch with the people that other popes,” says the eldest daughter, a brunette in her 20s who will be attending the outdoor Mass on Sunday August 6.
Over 400,000 have already signed up, with several million youthful pilgrims descending on Lisbon in the next week or so, along with an army of media, church and lay leaders, politicians and religious diplomats. This vast religious circus will be from all backgrounds and countries, staying in a pilgrim hostels, campsites, people’s “open” homes, whilst VIP dignitaries, politicos and lay leaders head to the Lapa Palace Hotel, in the diplomatic quarter where King Charles III stayed on his last visit.
Some locals are taking an entrepreneurial approach to Francis’s visit. Amando, manager of an Italian pizzeria whose tables are set in the shade of eucalyptus trees growing beside the cathedral walls – the oldest church in Lisbon – is creating a special new Papa Francis pizza for the occasion. “It’s part mozzarella and part steak to mark his Italian-Argentine heritage. I am hoping he will try it,” he says.
There is certainly some strong spiritual magnetism that Pope Francis seems to like about Portugal, as indicated by the recent announcement that at the consistory on September 30 the Holy Father is creating another two cardinals, adding to the four existing already. That now makes six Portuguese cardinals, including, aged just 49, one of the youngest in living memory, Americo Aguiar, who also happens to be the prelate in charge of Lisbon’s World Youth Day.
Walking into the basilica for Sunday Mass at 10 am, the front page of the leading Lisbon church newspaper, Voz da Verdade, was splashed with a photo of Bishop Aguiar, Auxiliary Bishop of Lisbon since 2019, posing for a selfie with a member of staff of Lisbon’s JMJ Foundation of which he is president. Like Francis, he understands the world of press and is a media professional. He has a master’s degree in Communication Sciences from the Catholic University and is Director of the Communication Department of the Patriarchate of Lisbon.
After hearing news of his elevation, Aguiar, from Leça do Balio, described his appointment as “a tribute to Portuguese youth”. Some might say the role was given as a savvy political thank-you which will ensure Portuguese influence remains strong in the College of Cardinals for another 30 years.
So why is Pope Francis making Lisbon/Vatican such an important new spiritual axis of his progressive reformist agenda? Of the six cardinals, four (as aged under 80) will be voting in the next Conclave that will decide Francis’s successor.
After speaking with various church insiders in Lisbon over the weekend, the feeling is that what Francis especially seems to like about Lisbon is that it is an unusual country, with a deep religious history, including a strong Jesuit missionary influence, that was neutral in the Second World War (albeit crawling with spies) and its church leaders today are well placed, albeit liberal leaning, to act as “a form of global liaison” between the warring Conservative and progressive factions of the church.
Another element, of course, is the Fatima factor, with the Pope recently beatifying the last peasant child visionary, Sister Lucia dos Santos, the eldest of the three children who saw the 1917 visions of Mary. After flying by helicopter from Lisbon to Fatima on Saturday August 5, he will lead a recitation of the Holy Rosary at Fatima’s Chapel of the Apparitions attended by the disabled.
I was there at the Sanctuary on Monday and the Information Office was saying they expected record numbers in the vast futuristic, sloping modern pilgrimage shrine stadium piazza (one of the largest in the world) with an outdoor altar that sits under the wedding cake-style Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary. It is through such religious theatre that Pope Francis thrives. Making the eldest child a saint will be a hugely popular move and also “good for business”, as the owner of a local café told me.
As a cardinal half-dozen pack, they will be a formidable contingent partly because they are dynamic, clever, socially media savvy and well liked both in Portugal and elsewhere. Several of the youngest are also being fast-tracked to influential positions at the very heart of the Curia (fittingly the scripture reference chosen by Francis for 2023 WYD is “Mary arose and went with haste” – Luke 1: 39). And make no mistake, when the next Conclave comes, it will be nothing short of a Vatican version of Succession.
Whilst in Fatima, I met Archbishop George Frendo of Tirana-Durres in Albania, who was leading a pilgrimage from Malta and who smiled when I asked how the appointments of the two new Portuguese cardinals would be received in cities like Milan and Paris, which have none. “The Holy Father is very non-conformist. He doesn’t always follow – he prefers to choose people from the outskirts and remote countries,” the archbishop said as we talked by the basilica.
The other Portuguese cardinals are mostly political allies of Francis: Manuel Clemente, cardinal-patriarch of Lisbon (traditionally a role that comes with a cardinal’s hat although Francis has been ripping up the rule book in this area); António Marto, Bishop emeritus of Leiria-Fátima whose connection with Fatima makes him a natural Francis ally; José Tolentino Mendonça, a political ally who attends spiritual retreats with him; Manuel Monteiro de Castro, who was a friend of Pope Benedict who made him a cardinal in 2012, after being a nuncio in the Caribbean, Central America and Spain; becoming Secretary of the College of Cardinals in 2009; and José Saraiva Martins who the prefect emeritus of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints from 1998 to 2008 (he s now 91 so cannot vote).
Portuguese prelates seem to be being actively promoted and fast-tracked within the Curia. Indeed some Vatican watchers are asking why Francis is embracing the Lisbon axis to the point of favouritism, at the expense of other important Catholic countries, including Poland, France, Italy and America where Los Angeles, a Catholic melting pot of millions, is yet to have a Cardinal; let alone Cardinal member of the Curia.
Last September Pope Francis appointed Cardinal Mendonça, 56, to be the prefect in charge of the newly created Dicastery for Culture and Education. He previously worked as the Vatican’s head archivist and librarian. This is an important new role, with an emphasis on setting the cultural agenda as well as social teaching. José Saraiva Martins is also important,
Clearly the Vatican/Lisbon relationship is not as murky or politically driven as the Sino-Vatican relationship, under serious strain right now after the Vatican, last November, issued a statement sating that China had violated the terms of the agreement, something that has now been repeated with Bishop Shen Bin. But it is worth noting that whilst is now Francis is so pro-Portuguese, he continues to ignore (and upset) church leaders in important European cities which (to the point of being a deliberate snub) have no red hats at all. There are no cardinals of voting age in Ireland.
The rise of Portugal’s stock in the Vatican has not gone unnoticed by Vatican watchers. The Herald’s Special Vatican Correspondent, John Allen Jr told me: “It’s striking that Portugal, with a Catholic population of only seven million, currently has six cardinals total. By way of contrast, Mexico, with a Catholic population of 97.8 million, has just two cardinal-electors. Do the math: That means Mexico would get one vote for the next pope for every 48.9 million Catholics, while Portugal would get one for every 1.75 million.”
In fact, as Allen notes, it’s not just with Portuguese nationals that Francis has packed the electoral college but also Portuguese speakers. There are no fewer than 12 Portuguese-speaking cardinal-electors, including six from Brazil and one each from Cape Verde and East Timor,
When I ask what Francis’s agenda is in creating this new Portuguese axis in the Vatican, Allen replies: “In part, it may be the reputation of Portuguese-speaking Catholicism for being less stuffy and clerical than its Spanish-language counterpart. Perhaps, too, it’s an Argentine pope not wanting to be see as sticking it to Argentina’s traditional South American nemesis in Brazil.
“The sight of Francis in Lisbon next month, where there will be two residential cardinals plus one in tow from the Vatican, while many European population centres have none, certainly will put an exclamation point on this Spanish-speaking pope’s penchant for Portuguese.”
It’s also worth noting the Jesuit missionary and evangelical tradition of Portuguese Catholicism, dating back to 17th century, inexorably linked to the country’s maritime and trade heritage. Maritime commerce was also a way of spreading the gospel through missionaries (often Jesuit) heading off to Asia, Africa and India (much like Francis himself, whose cardinal picks have favoured more marginal countries than the traditional European cities).
Pope Francis is meeting privately in Lisbon at 6pm on August 5 with fellow Jesuits on at the Colegio de S. Joao de Brito. The centre is named after the Portuguese Jesuit martyr responsible for opening up both spiritual and cultural dialogue and trade with India, Manuel da Nobrega, and the Jesuit evangelist of Brazil Father Antonio Vierira, another famous missionary of the Indians Brazil. Francis speaks Portuguese and these Portuguese role models, evangelising around the world, fit well with Francis’s world vision.
For today, the “recent Magisterium” of Pope Francis is part of that Jesuit tradition of reaching out to far flung and not especially well represented Catholic pockets of the world. So in a sense, Portugal is becoming a new spiritual centre for Francis’s New World radical mission – at expense of cities like Milan, Paris, LA, Naples and Rome – as Lisbon perfectly fits the outward facing populist progressive mission of Francis.
In short, Francis, the Jesuit, seems to see Lisbon a soft political axis he can perhaps more mould than say Italy, Germany or America. It is a religious port that faces out towards the New World in the tradition of Vasco de Gama, the late 15th century Portuguese Catholic explorer who first discovered India and made the first European link with Asia. Likewise, Francis is keen to pack the College of Cardinals with new faces (such as South Sudan’s Stephen Ameyu Martin Mulla, Archbishop of Juba) from what he regards as the new frontier of the Catholic Church.
