see pubmed.org ratner ej and article in Oggi by Gino Gullace sp? about Ratner's work.
See also The Lancet p.106 Jan. 14, 1978
Francis’ Humility and Emphasis on the Poor Strike a New Tone at the Vatican
By RACHEL DONADIO
Published: May 25, 2013
VATICAN CITY — He has criticized the “cult of money” and greed he sees
driving the world financial system, reflecting his affinity for
liberation theology. He has left Vatican officials struggling to keep up
with his off-the-cuff remarks and impromptu forays into the crowds of
tens of thousands that fill St. Peter’s Square during his audiences. He
has delighted souvenir vendors near the Vatican by increasing tourist
traffic.
Tony Gentile/Reuters
Francis, who has been pope for two months, greeted bishops on Thursday in St. Peter’s Basilica.
Pope Francis, the former Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Buenos Aires, has been in office
for only two months, but already he has changed the tone of the papacy,
lifting morale and bringing a new sense of enthusiasm to the Roman
Catholic Church and to the Vatican itself, Vatican officials and the
faithful say.
“It’s very positive. There’s a change of air, a sense of energy,” said
one Vatican official, speaking with traditional anonymity. “Some people
would use the term honeymoon, but there’s no indication that it will let
up.”
Beyond appointing eight cardinals
as outside advisers, Francis has not yet begun making concrete changes
or set forth an ambitious policy agenda in a Vatican hierarchy that was
gripped by scandal during the papacy of his predecessor, Pope Benedict
XVI. Benedict, who resigned on Feb. 28, is now living in a monastery inside the Vatican.
But Francis’ emphasis on attention to the poor, and a style that is more
akin to that of a parish priest, albeit one with one billion
parishioners, is already transforming perceptions. He has chosen to live
not in the papal apartments but rather in the Casa Santa Marta
residence inside the Vatican, where he eats dinner in the company of
lower-ranking priests and visitors.
“There are differences, but differences of style, not content,” said
Giovanni Maria Vian, editor in chief of the Vatican newspaper,
L’Osservatore Romano, comparing Francis with Benedict.
In his speeches, “his style is simple and direct. It’s not elaborately
constructed and complex,” said the Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico
Lombardi.
He has repeatedly returned to the euro crisis and the suffering it has
caused in Greece and the Catholic countries of Southern Europe.
“If investments in the banks fail, ‘Oh, it’s a tragedy,’ ” he said, speaking extemporaneously
for more than 40 minutes at a Pentecost vigil last weekend, after a
private audience with the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, the
architect of Europe’s austerity policies. “But if people die of hunger
or don’t have food or health, nothing happens. This is our crisis
today.”
In a recent speech to diplomats accredited to the Holy See, Francis also spoke of the need for more ethics in finance.
“The financial crisis which we are experiencing makes us forget that its
ultimate origin is to be found in a profound human crisis,” he said,
adding: “We have created new idols. The worship of the golden calf of
old has found a new and heartless image in the cult of money and the
dictatorship of an economy which is faceless and lacking any truly
humane goal.”
Father Lombardi said that the pope had called him before that speech.
“He said, ‘Pay attention, this is important. I want people to understand
it’s important,’ ” he said.
Francis’ speeches clearly draw on the themes of liberation theology, a
movement that seeks to use the teachings of the Gospel to help free
people from poverty and that has been particularly strong in his native
Latin America. In the 1980s, Benedict, as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the
head of the Vatican’s doctrinal office, led a campaign to rein in the
movement, which he saw as too closely tied to some Marxist political
elements.
Francis studied with an Argentine Jesuit priest who was a proponent of
liberation theology, and Father Lombardi acknowledged the echoes. “But
what is clear is that he was always against the strains of liberation
theology that had an ideological Marxist element,” he said.
While Benedict generally delivered only carefully prepared speeches and
rarely used the first person, Francis has a more conversational tone,
with frequent mentions of his own personal and family history. In his
Pentecost remarks last weekend, he cited biblical verses, but he also
said with a smile that he sometimes dozed off while praying and recalled
how he had been inspired to enter the priesthood by the simple faith of
his mother and grandmother.
Francis improvises so often that Vatican communications officials have
trouble keeping up with him. “We’re all learning,” Father Lombardi said.
Vatican Radio often rushes to provide transcripts, including of the
homilies the pope delivers at Mass each morning in a chapel frequented
by employees of Vatican City State. He arrives early and prays with the
parishioners before putting on his vestments. Afterward, “he greets
everyone personally,” Father Lombardi said.
The faithful love it. “I feel like I am a new Catholic since he became
pope,” said Attilio Cortiga, 59, a public employee from the southern
Italian region of Campania, who got up at 1 a.m. to travel to Francis’
weekly audience on Wednesday. “I came because I feel he is very close to
us ordinary people. His words touch anybody’s heart.”
Vatican watchers say that Francis has been drawing above-average crowds, even for the early months of a new papacy.
“The economy has picked up again here,” said Marco Mesceni, 60, a
third-generation vendor of papal memorabilia outside St. Peter’s Square.
“It was so hard to sell anything under Benedict. This pope attracts
huge crowds, and they all want to bring back home something with his
smiling face on it.”
Francis has also been enjoying far better press than Benedict ever did.
“He does not suffer from the prejudices that unfortunately Benedict
immediately had against him,” said Mr. Vian, the newspaper editor. He
argued that many of Benedict’s missteps, with other faiths and more
progressive Catholics, and the scandals that plagued his papacy, came as
much from perceptions of the pope as from reality.
The new pope has done things that might well have caused more
controversy on his predecessor’s watch. On May 12, Francis celebrated a
Mass at St. Peter’s to canonize two Latin Americans and 800 people who were killed in Otranto,
in the southern Italian region of Puglia, in 1480 after they refused to
convert to Islam at the hands of Ottoman Turkish invaders. The 800 were
sainted as Christian martyrs, which does not require evidence of two
miracles.
“If Benedict had done that, maybe the polemics would have mounted,” Mr.
Vian said, alluding to the previous pope’s strained rapport with the
Muslim world. It was, in fact, Benedict who ordered the canonization of
the 800, but the announcement drew little attention — it came in the
same speech when he shocked the world by saying he would retire.
The previous pope, a theologian, often warned of the “risks” facing the
church, and reminded Catholics of the ways “that we’re on the wrong
path,” Father Lombardi said. That was important, he said, but sometimes a
change of emphasis is good. “To be told repeatedly about how God’s love
and mercy can transform the hearts of people, there was a need for
that,” he added.
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