SILERE NON POSSUM HELPS ME TO KNOW WHY POPE FRANCIS’ AGITATION IS SO MUCH DIFFERENT THAN POPE LEO’S RESTLESSNESS AND EVERY POPE IN MY LIFETIME

 Silere non Possum gave me a true insight into my discomfort with Pope Francis and from the first moment, and I mean the first moment, of His Holiness’ papacy. Their article gave me insight into my own psychology concerning Pope Francis although their article gives an insight into the animating force within Pope Francis (a negative one) and the one in Pope Leo (a positive Augustinian one). 

At it concerns me, it was agitation that can describe my feelings toward Pope Francis. He did not bring me or many of the Faithful I have counseled the type of “restlessness” that is of the Augustinian type, meaning we are restless until we rest in the Lord. Pope Leo points me to the Lord and resting in him. Pope Francis, on the other hand, seem to always lead me to the agitation that he promoted and being agitated in his agitations. 

When I hear, read and see Pope Leo, I have the comfort of resting in the Lord. I am not agitated. Pope Francis agitated me and quite a few of the faithful and that was not a grace. 

This is an “edited” version of Silere non Possum’s article: 

The word “restlessness” carries a precise theological and spiritual weight. St. Augustine, in the Confessions, writes: “Inquietum est cor nostrum donec requiescat in Te.” Restlessness, then, is that inner movement born of the awareness of human limitation and of the insatiable desire for God. It is a wound that burns, but does not destroy: a longing for the Other, a nostalgia for a rest that cannot be found in earthly things.

Those who observe Leo XIV, in his sober gestures and his unshouted words, perceive precisely this kind of restlessness. He is a man who does not settle, who constantly seeks to bring the Church back to the heart of the Gospel, with the awareness of never fully possessing the answer. His is not agitation, but thirst. It is a restlessness that generates silence, listening, searching, vigilance.

Different, however, is what Francis demonstrated in twelve years of pontificate. What animated him was not the same Augustinian restlessness, but rather a form of agitation (unquietness). The difference is substantial. Agitation is the constant movement that prevents one from stopping, the difficulty of finding stability, the need to constantly produce novelties so as not to fall into immobility. It is a nervous rather than spiritual motion: an activity that risks confusing evangelical dynamism with mere human activism.

If restlessness is rooted in the depth of the soul, agitation often remains on the surface. The first leads to prayer, contemplation, trusting expectation; the second rather to agitation, the search for approval, and a continuous acceleration that leaves no room for silence.

(The) comparison between Leo XIV and Francis, from this perspective, (gives us many insights). The former lives that healthy restlessness which springs from the awareness of one’s own smallness before God, and which paradoxically becomes spiritual strength. The latter, instead, often showed an agitation which, though pastorally motivated, turned into a constant frenzy of gestures and words.

Perhaps it is precisely in this difference that the current perception of the two pontificates is at stake: Leo XIV appears as a man who, even in turmoil, knows how to remain silent before the Mystery; Francis, as a man who, though eager for closeness, could not resist the need to appear, to make himself talked about, and to speak incessantly.

True restlessness, Augustine reminds us, is a gift: it does not leave us at peace, but leads us to God. Agitation, on the other hand, often scatters us.

d.T.A.
Silere non possum