Jesuit missionary recalls Father Bergoglio’s leadership

October 28, 2013

In an interview with L’Osservatore Romano, Father Cristian Martini Grimaldi, an Argentine Jesuit who has served for decades as a missionary in Japan, recalled the future Pope Francis’s leadership as a Jesuit provincial.

Father Grimaldi, who was sent to Japan by the future Pope, now directs the martyrs’ museum in Nagasaki.

Father Grimaldi recalled how Father Jorge Mario Bergoglio would emphasize that the Jesuits under his care must take responsibility for their actions.

In Argentine Catholic culture at the time, Father Grimaldi recounted, priests would wait for the lay faithful to come to parishes before interacting with them. Father Bergoglio, he said, instituted “a Copernican revolution”: he instructed Jesuit novices to go out and teach the catechism in poor neighborhoods and invite the poor to church.

 

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Further information:

• Quando padre Bergoglio mi disse: Vai (L’Osservatore Romano)