National Catholic Reporter
Ken Briggs | Dec. 4, 2013 NCR Today
POPE FRANCIS: UNTYING THE KNOTS
By Paul Vallely
Published by Bloomsbury Continuum, $20.95
Well into Paul Vallely’s absorbing portrait of the show-stopping new pope, we see Jorge Bergoglio as archbishop of Buenos Aires, Argentina, presumably offering Communion to any and all takers in his born-again mission to the city’s poorest neighborhoods.
“When you’re working in a shanty town 90 percent of your congregation are single or divorced,” says Fr. Augosto Zampini, a diocesan priest who serves as one of Vallely’s key sources. “You have to learn to deal with that. Communion for the divorced and remarried is not an issue there. Everyone takes Communion.”
Vallely doesn’t explicitly place Zampini at the scene — nor is it clear how well he knew the archbishop — but the implication is clear. Faced with a choice of inviting the few or the many to partake, Bergoglio allowed pastoral needs to trump church rules.
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