The TIME is now!

TIME Magazine announced their eagerly awaited Person of the Year yesterday.  Not surprisingly, they picked the new Roman Catholic Pope Francis.  Francis made a very early statement about his own personal humility that endeared him to the Catholic faithful, and attracted the attention of the world media.  In citing the new Pontiff, TIME noted how that humility has done more than make him an interesting story, it has done something that no one thought possible....

It has changed the focus of the Catholic Church, something previously thought impossible.

Part of the key to Pope Francis' success comes from his use of established Church doctrine as the basis for his changes.  For a church that has spent millennia building wealth, in calling for a focus on the poor, Francis looks to the Gospels of the New Testament.  As the Catholic Church has focused increasingly on the "enforcement" of dogma and telling the faithful what they cannot do, Francis has looked to the words of Jesus and asked that we first love each other and focus on our own compassion.  Francis has not called for major changes in church law or dogma, but instead he asks that we look at all our actions through the lens of the church's core mission: service to the poor.

Word is that Francis will issue a statement on the Catholic Church's role in protecting the environment, but even without that, the pope has given us an excellent blueprint for how those of us in change advocacy can make rapid, substantial change in seemingly intractable systems.  I hear many taking about "the fight" for the environment, or about "defeating" those who seek to destroy our quality of life.  One thing Francis' work can teach us is that by focusing on those things that bind us, we can have greater impact and more effective dialogue.  Secondly, we can base our focus not on a "new and different future", but rather on the basic principles we all value: self-determination, equality of opportunity, and just treatment of our fellow people.  Instead of denigrating a fellow person and telling them they have to do something different in order to be "good", we can reach out to help identify who we may harm by a certain activity and cooperatively develop solutions that increase opportunity without creating divisions.

I admit that I have a personal bias for the new Pope.  Even among people who may normally have apathy toward the Catholic Church, I sense a palpable buzz about this one man.  It certainly helps that he holds one of the most recognized leadership positions in the world, but even relative to others in similar positions, he had stood out.  Francis shows that we can make a difference if we humbly and honestly focus on compassion to each other.  If he can take one of the oldest and most closed institutions in the history of civilization and refocus it in such a short time, we should all have hope for what we can accomplish.