What pope francis and keir starmer have in common | thearticle

What do Pope Francis and Keir Starmer have in common? Not a lot, might be the obvious answer. Atheist Labour Party leader and politically highly engaged but determinedly non-aligned Pope.

But delve deeper and we see two men who are trying to turn round metaphorical super-tanker institutions: both institutions having been holed below the waterline before they took office. In

the UK, Starmer became leader after Labour, under the leadership of his predecessor Jeremy Corbyn, had suffered its worst election defeat since 1935 in the 2019 general election. Not only

did Labour lose seats it had never lost before, the question “what is the point of the Labour Party?” posed an existential threat. Across the world, the revulsion of ordinary Catholics at

the exposure of widespread sexual abuse by Catholic clergy brought the virtual collapse of some national churches, such as Ireland’s, and a similar existential threat seemed to have been

posed as Francis acceded to the papacy. Both men face determined opposition from within their institutions from forces resistant to the change that both knew was desperately needed. Starmer

is the more recent arrival in his role, having been elected leader less than two years ago. While the resignation of a Labour leader after defeat in a general election is normally expected,

the transfer of power to Starmer was far from normal — just as Corbyn’s leadership had been far from normal. Corbyn’s predecessor, Ed Miliband, had changed the system of electing the leader

to one member, one vote and also allowed non-members to participate for a nominal fee. This new electorate wanted to see someone like them rise to the forefront of the Labour Party — a

campaigner, a firebrand, a champion of radical (if sometimes, lost) causes, a peoples’ candidate — and Corbyn fitted the bill. When he crashed to catastrophic defeat, it was not just he and

his political philosophy that went down in flames, it was their political philosophy too. Some drifted off but many hunkered down and formed an internal opposition centred around Momentum,

the organisation set up to secure Corbyn’s election and to campaign on his behalf. Unlike the situation after any other leadership transition, Starmer started his leadership facing an

implacable grouping in his party loyal to his defeated predecessor. If he was going to regain the public’s trust in his party, it would be despite those many diehards, not because of them.

The circumstances of the Argentinian Jesuit Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s election as Pope in 2013 were very different. His predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, then approaching his 86th birthday, had

defied the convention of continuing in office until death and became the first Pope since 1413 to resign. Like his predecessor, John Paul II, Benedict had been a traditionalist, espousing

all the conservatism that had long typified the Holy See. From the outset, Bergoglio marked himself out as different. Not only was he the first pope since Gregory III in the 8th century from

outside Europe, he was the first Pope to adopt the name Francis, after St Francis of Assisi. And it was clear from the outset Francis planned to emulate his namesake, of whom he had

previously said: “He [Francis of Assisi] brought to Christianity an idea of poverty against the luxury, pride, vanity of the civil and ecclesiastical powers of the time.” Almost his first

action set the tone. Rejecting the palatial apartments available to him, Francis resolved to continue staying in the modest and rudimentary hostel available to visitors to the Vatican where

he had always stayed on his earlier (pre-papal) visits. But the change in style that Francis brought to the papacy went far beyond the place where he laid his head. His views on abortion,

clerical celibacy and the ordination of women are traditional enough, but beyond that he was quickly marked out as a radical. He has actively advocated the increased involvement of women in

the life of the Curia and reached out to the LGBT community; of gays he asked “Who am I to judge?” The extent of the departure in the emphasis of his papacy was seen in what was effectively

his first encyclical _Laudato si_ (his actual first encyclical _Lumen fidei_ was largely the work of his predecessor). It had the subtitle “On the Care of our Common Home” and decried

consumerism and unrestricted development and called for action on climate change. (Alamy) His advocacy of the plight of refugees took a typically practical form when in 2015, at the height

of the Syrian refugee crisis, he called upon every European diocese to take in a refugee family. Many ordinary Catholics were galvanised into action. But it has been his position on

religious matters that has generated the most trenchant hostility of conservatives. His advocacy of Ecumenism — bringing together different Christian denominations — ruffled feathers, but he

went further in 2019 and signed a Document on Human Fraternity with a leading Muslim cleric which argued that the diversity of religions was willed by God, hardly an emphasis on the

supremacy of the Christian faith. But it was his refusal to adhere to traditional certainties on matters of doctrine that provoked the most outspoken condemnation from conservatives in the

church. The publication of _Amoris laetitia_ (The Joy of Love), his encyclical about marriage and family life, was interpreted by some as allowing communion to divorced and civilly remarried

Catholics which had, hitherto, technically been denied them. Demands for clarification went unanswered. Where he has taken a more doctrinaire line on, for example, the Tridentine or

traditional Latin Mass — effectively outlawed by the Second Vatican Council — it has been to the consternation of conservatives. The resistance to Francis’ papacy has been described as

“unique in its visibility” in an institution built on absolute obedience to its head. The reaction of some within their movements to the fact that Keir Starmer is simply not Jeremy Corbyn

and to Francis’ departures from comfortable conventions has ranged from grumbling obduracy to outright revolt. Momentum is unequivocal in its position, stating that “the new leadership of

the Labour Party [Starmer] does not represent its values like the old”. It seeks to place its supporters in positions of power in the party and organises a festival, The World Transformed,

each year alongside the Labour Party conference — flagrantly a rival event. Its opposition to Starmer’s leadership takes on many forms. Take one. It is the practice of the Labour Party for

its conference to endorse a newly appointed general secretary, usually a mere formality. Despite David Evans’s appointment to the role by Starmer over a year earlier, at last year’s

conference Momentum portrayed Evans as behind a crackdown on malcontents, forced a contested vote and almost half the constituency delegates voted against his appointment in what was very

far from a routine coronation. The opposition to Pope Francis is equally vociferous. One “prominent” but anonymous English priest told a journalist: “We’re all waiting for him to die.”

Francis’ view on allowing communion to the remarried is, in fact, no more than what is a de facto practice in many parts of the world, but his more liberal stance has meant that he has faced

accusations of heresy, a sin punishable by excommunication. Again, the opposition to him takes on many forms. One has come from the conservative and wealthy US Conference of Catholic

Bishops. When Joe Biden was elected in 2019 as only the second Catholic US President, they began a deliberative process to decide how to respond to a Catholic who becomes the leader of a

country in which abortion is legal. Pope Francis gave the sort of hint that should have stopped the process dead in its tracks when he described the regular Mass-attending Biden as a “good

Catholic” who should continue to receive communion. Instead, they chose confrontation, issuing a document that gave individual clergy the right to refuse communion in “situations that

involve public actions at variance with the visible communion of the Church”. This is open defiance of a man considered by the Church to be (on some matters of faith and doctrine at least)

infallible. The response of both men to their opponents has followed a similar pattern: first an open-armed offer of inclusion in their “big tent” and, after a spurning of the olive branch,

a hardening of attitude and marginalisation, repudiation and rejection of opponents. A flag-bearer of Corbynism, Rebecca Long-Bailey MP, had stood against Starmer in the leadership contest

but was given a major job in Starmer’s first Shadow Cabinet. She lasted less than three months, sacked for refusing to delete tweets that were considered anti-Semitic by the leader. (Alamy)

The broader Labour movement had been shocked and appalled when the Equality and Human Rights Commission had found that the Party under Corbyn’s leadership “at best, did not do enough to

prevent anti-Semitism and, at worst, could be seen to accept it”. But it fell to Starmer to make clear the unacceptability of this situation and to take robust action. The coincidence that

most of those accused of the taint of anti-Semitism were his internal opponents meant that their thorough-going rooting out also rid him of internal voices of dissent. Viewed by some as a

purge, others as a cleansing, the process of suspension and expulsion of members at all levels of the party accused of anti-Semitism was accelerated by the proscription of a number of

organisations inimical to Starmer’s leadership. A mere expression of support for one of them could result in suspension. The Labour Party’s traditional easy-going tolerance of the “awkward

squad” was at an end. In an acknowledgement that changes in the way the leader is elected were partly responsible for Corbyn securing the leadership, rule changes at last year’s conference

sought to ensure that Starmer’s legacy would be safe in the hands of his successor. Francis began with a similarly “big tent” approach, early on appointing conservative Cardinals such as the

Ghanaian Robert Sarah and Australian George Pell to prominent positions, but he has recently shown distinct signs of losing patience with those who stand in his way. He has said that those

who oppose the reforming Second Vatican Council “do not stand with the church” and is reported to have described attacks on him by the conservative Catholic media network EWTN as the “work

of the devil”. But the biggest earthquake he has detonated came as part of his efforts to bring probity to the notoriously unaccountable Vatican financial institutions. In 2020 reports began

to circulate of some highly irregular dealings involving Cardinal Angelo Becciu, the Vatican’s deputy Secretary of State. The stories could not have been more lurid: funds earmarked for

humanitarian relief being cabled to a Slovenian-based consultancy run by a woman dubbed “The Cardinal’s Lady”, who is alleged to have used them to pay for luxury goods. Then the Cardinal

became embroiled in the scandal of a loss-making deal in the high-end London property market. Francis brought the papacy’s version of “easy-going tolerance” to a sudden and abrupt end.

Becciu was sacked and Francis took the unprecedented step of ordering a criminal prosecution. Last year Becciu and nine others appeared in a Vatican court charged with embezzlement, abuse of

office and offering money to a witness to induce a false testimony. Francis also has an eye on his legacy. His successor will be elected by a College of Cardinals appointed by the Pope, 60%

of whom have already been appointed by Francis and it has been suggested that in future only those in close accord with his approach will receive a Cardinals hat. Both men have some years

ahead of them to see if they can “turn their super-tankers around” and only time will tell if they succeed. People of goodwill everywhere should wish them well in their endeavours. A MESSAGE

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