It has been a year since the election of Pope Francisco. This time has been more than enough to see the Holy Father become an indisputable social reference for both members of the Church and to the world, and one of the agents of the media public life. Throughout his journey, he has gain sympathy and some (probably less) enemies. Many have wanted to encrypt his charisma in his Argentinian origin, with an anachronistic weakness and without lacking ingenuity of romantic thought known as volksgeist or spirit of the nation. Others, especially those who attribute him with a revolution of the Church, think it is his Jesuit training. Then there are those who have proclaimed their communist ideology (or at least those who are "left-wing" or "progressive"), or those who have acclaimed him as an opponent to its predecessors.

In most cases, these are just speculations because it is difficult and not very intelligent in trying to prove the indemonstrable, in expecting to isolate the quality of peculiarity and finding the source of magnetism that is applied by the actual successor of Peter. Aristotle said it is absurd to require a rhetorician to make demonstrations (such as those made in the natural sciences). However, it is precisely the rhetorical perspective that can help us understand the rarity and/or the brilliance of things presented by  the actual head of the Church.

The colloquial language

Recently, in an interesting (and very successful) article by a professor at the University of Chile, the Pope was defined as a man of gestures. It is well known, at least a while from now, that we do not just communicate with words. If we refer to the word "discourse" we understand it as a big mass of ideas formed by using verbal language, but also with the strong significance of acts and gestures without forgetting what cannot be said, what is understood, what is suggested and interpreted. At the moment it would result out of proportion and grotesque, at least in this context, to attempt to analyze everything that Francis has given us during his brief papacy. What I suggest here as a humble, but essential goal is to reflect on the purely linguistic discourse of the Pope.

In the past century (closer than what the term actually implies), research on linguistic took a major turn in its study. The dual difference between significant and significance and the conception of language put into a code that is encoded or broken have been left behind. Technological advances and the attempts to develop artificial intelligence have consistently run into the wall of common sense with the difficulty of interpretation. This has given a great importance to the main characters of communication, the interpreters (both speakers and listeners); not just speakers and receivers, simple encoders and decoders.

However, as it usually happens, discovering something is actually visiting the past, a new way of looking at what has always been there. The first rhetoricians (like Aristotle) ​​emphasized on the importance of creating a discourse which was well-adapted to the public, for example, to the speakers and the background of each language statement. And this is perhaps one of the reasons why the Pope's language captures the public's attention. Not surprisingly, charisma is a gift from the Holy Spirit, transcendentally speaking, as well as those languages used on the apostles. From the Pope's language it has been said that it is straightforward and simple. In some cases he has been criticized having a childish attitude which is improper with the solemnity of his position. These observations have been made regarding his oral statements (including homilies or discourses), not his writings (a distinction which is irrelevant); and this is precisely why he has become great acquainted with the media. Therefore, we are going analyze them.

Perhaps the most striking feature of the Pope's language seen in his direct, simple and close style is probably the tendency to using the colloquial and the intimate tone in his conversation. In fact, an example of this oral language is the conversation between friends, implying a colloquial tone. The Pope's speech, often (obviously) prepared (planned and therefore not spontaneous), is ranked much closer to this end of the scale between the oral and the written discourse. Francis himself gave us the key to this analysis when he explained to a leading class in a meeting held in Brazil that his advice was always the same: "dialogue, dialogue, dialogue." It is seen more clearly in response to the gradual main differences between the oral and the written discourse.

The oral discourse is a spontaneous discourse (apparently) and a clear sign of this spontaneity are the jokes that Francisco has sometimes surprised his conversational partners with, such as when he addressed the President of Venezuela with these words: "Pray for me But ... pray in favor, not against, ok?" or when he talked about one of his recent lectures, a book written by one of the Cardinals, and stated: "But don't think that I advertise books written by my Cardinals, ok?" In both cases, as in many others, the direct questioning to the listener is observed through the word "ok" or through the use of the verbal form second person singular ("Sometimes I'm angry with you,... but ... forget it, forget it, and if they ask you for a favor, do it") or the Argentine word vos ("of course they are going to do 'macana', you know"). These questions are just another distinctive feature of the spoken language, which is often reflected in the presence of what we as linguists call "legal regulators", as the mentioned interjection. Also the unnecessary repetition of words and some expressions like "really" seen in the following example, fulfill the task of ensuring that in this type of intervention the message is received and accepted by the listener: "At the Curia there are holy people, really there are holy people," he once said. Perhaps the main cause of getting involved in this type of conversation and being an outstanding feature is the closeness between conversational partners, a conventional symmetry without hierarchy between a speaker and listener as it has been shown all along.

Regarding these examples another feature of colloquial language is defined: the vocabulary of an informal register, less specific because they are topics which are treated daily and have an intimate tone. There are many examples that we have found among the most popular Pope's statements like "make trouble", "they will make ‘macaná'", "do not twist the reality", "let's listen to the young people" or metaphors with an intimate tone (which we will see later) such as "God is our Father", "Jesus is our defense attorney," "the Church can't be the "nanny" of the Christian or "thirsty pastors with ‘sheep smell'". A clear example is the metaphors related to soccer that he used during his visit to Brazil: "move forward" or "Jesus offers us something bigger than the World Cup."

Do not confuse this oral impression with a childish or empty message. Nor with a politically correct language which is often confusing and indirect. We must accept that it is difficult to convince non-Catholics (and a good number of Catholics) to read the doctrine of the Church, the latest papal encyclical, a manual of Canon Law or simply the Catechism. Being away from the Church is more comfortable than being close to it and their discourses are too specific, sometimes too secretive (which are very useful for those who have the desire to learn more about them) which result in non-convincing claim. The truth must be for all not only for a few privileged people and it is not enough with not hiding anything because the intellectual distances (or even a learned social rejection) are sometimes the strongest combinations. Naturally, we must gain more knowledge, but to offer it to others (and not just the rich). We must simplify the message, but without losing its essential significance in order to reach a specific audience ("Faith is a whole, it does not melt"). Jesus did not speak to specialists, he did not only preach to the teachers of the law. He was surrounded by simple people, poorly educated, but this doesn't mean that his messages were childish or simple.

We live in an immediacy society where we look for immediate answers and even better if they can be easy to understand. The Pope's message is from a good rhetorician or a good publicist (advertising is not inherently bad or misleading) who trusts in how good his product is and knows that it isn't necessary to explain in detail its functioning (the product already comes with an instruction book to read quietly at home when needed and a great team who is in charge of giving sales advice), because if the "client" trys it he will not be disappointed. In the classical world it was called the captatio benevolentiae which means to obtain a positive interest. The Pope himself summed it up by saying that a Christian message should focus "in what is essential which is the most beautiful, the greatest, the most attractive and also the most necessary. The proposal is simplified without losing depth and truth, and so it becomes more convincing and brilliant."

Speaking with images

Today's society is characterized mainly by a visual culture. The sight is undoubtedly the most prestigious sense and if you want to reach a wide audience, it is helpful to turn to a figurative language capable of transmitting an image or a concept in the mind of the receiver without much explanation. We have already seen that the Pope has often used this kind of language with the most immediate and known references from his listeners such as family environment, slang used by young people ("Are you willing to enter into this wave of revolution of faith?"), soccer or any other aspect of daily life ("there is an orange smoothie, an apple smoothie, a banana smoothie, but please do not take a smoothie of Faith"). However, there is a type of metaphorical language (very visual) that has dominated the Pope's discourse, in particular, related to spatial and movement: "Let ourselves out to go to the periphery," "Moving forward," "I want you to go out. I want the Church, parishes and schools to take to the streets," "We must be open-minded," "Please, do not shut down yourselves." [ ... ] The Church must be itself. To where? Towards the existential peripheries," "A gentrification heart paralyzes us," "Do not twist reality" or "It is important to learn how to accept." All these sayings are in the same path and have an excellent compatibility using a colloquial language as described above: the Church must take (bring) its message to others not keep it to itself, substitute a belligerent language with a more friendly language. Again it can be seen that the Pope has not invented anything new, anything radically different from the message of the Church since its inception. Jesus also spoke with images and the parable was one of its most common forms of education.

The astonishment before the daily routine

So, if there is nothing new, we might ask ourselves, why does the Pope's language get all the attention? In literature, known scholars like the Russian formalists used the concept ‘desautomatización' to explain the difference between the literary languages from the everyday language. We often notice that reality is always present for so long it becomes invisible. We stop paying attention to our surroundings and forget about it. We automatically do many things without being fully aware of them. In the art world, the cutting-edge artists realized this and insisted on the need to rediscover the reality, to look at new surroundings with new eyes like with foreign eyes in order to become aware of its dimensions and its beauty. The Church is very old and perhaps its message has been automated, certain routines have been incorporated and in many cases enthusiasm, simplicity and clarity of its origins have been lost. It is necessary to rediscover and rethink what is essential in the Church. This is the Pope's message. We need to remove the Church from its environment, to show it again and to look at it with new eyes, with simplicity, which is also a form of poverty (the name Francisco was a great choice), to get rid of the superficial and decorate it.