In the widely published interview with Fr. Antonio Spadaro, SJ, five months into his papacy, Pope Francis identified “the holy, faithful people of God” as the definition of the church that he likes and often uses. Then, explaining what he means exactly by to “think with the church,” Pope Francis referred to the essential role of the sensus fidelium: “All the faithful, considered as a whole, are infallible in matters of belief, and the people display this infallibilitas in credendo, this infallibility in believing, through a supernatural sense of the faith of all the people walking together.” Months later in his theme-setting apostolic letter Evangelium Gaudium, he explained the effect of the Holy Spirit's sanctifying power impelling the faithful to evangelization: “The people of God is holy thanks to this anointing, which makes it infallible in credendo,” and added, “This means that it does not err in faith, even though it may not find words to explain that faith” (119). For Pope Francis, the church being foremost the people advancing toward God, “is certainly a mystery rooted in the Trinity, yet she exists concretely in history as a people of pilgrims and evangelizers, transcending any institutional expression, however necessary” (EG 111). Moved as we were by these passages in 2013, few at the time knew their full significance in the context in which Jorge Bergoglio developed his sense of the theology of the people.
Juan Carlos Scannone, SJ, five years senior to Jorge Mario Bergoglio and one who taught him Greek as a seminarian, supplies the theological and pastoral roots of the current pope's understanding of the church for us in a collection of essays entitled Theology of the People. Four chapters were published previously in La Civiltà Cattolica, where Scannone began serving soon after the election of Pope Francis. An earlier version of chapter 7, “The Unfinished Agenda of Vatican II: Gaudium et Spes and Pope Francis,” was Scannone's keynote address for a similarly titled conference at Georgetown University on November 12, 2015. All eleven chapters are collected under three subdivisions: “Historical Approach,” “Toward an Inculturated Theology,” and “Theological-Pastoral Approaches of Pope Francis.”
Scannone demonstrates how the concept of “people,” close to that of nation in the sense of the cultural and historical sharing among those serving the same common good, is rooted in Argentinian popular experience that combined a communitarian sense with a deep perception of the living structure of the church. In addition, the contribution of liberation theology's preferential treatment of the poor and its critique of societal injustices are essential to the concept as well. Scannone traces developments from the work of two Argentinian priests, Lucio Gera and Rafael Tello, in forming a generation of theologians, philosophers, and clergy in the theology of the people. To live the faith as the poor live it and to understand the gospel as those thirsting for justice see it are essential to grasping what Pope Francis means by popular piety and popular wisdom comprising a locus theologicus.
The essays take the reader through developments with the new theology preceding Vatican II, through the council and through subsequent magisterium to Lumen Gentium, Ad Gentes, and Gaudium et Spes developed by Paul VI and through various assemblies of CELAM (El Consejo Episcopal Latinoamericano y Caribeño) and the work of its Episcopal Commission for Pastoral Work (COEPAL). One is introduced to the work of a host of Latin American theologians and motivators, working among themselves and in response to major European and North American thinkers.
I highly recommend this volume to those who teach ecclesiology and missiology, to all who wish to comprehend the theological teachings of Pope Francis, and to those who want to understand the turn that may well be the enduring theological legacy of his papacy. It is not an easy book to read because Scannone is a profound thinker and makes implicit references within the Latin American context. At times, the translation seems to falter in providing a clear meaning. Ecumenical implications are undeveloped, and there is barely any interreligious significance, even with the important category “mestizaje.” A book like this one needs an index. These comments aside, this is an important book for Christian theologians to read.
