Pope Francis has surprisingly proclaimed a Joseph Year with special indulgences. He places the foster father of Jesus at the centre as a special role model. Father Ansgar Wucherpfennig SJ has summarised what Pope Francis wants to achieve with this year and what thematic priorities he wants to set with it. His habilitation is about that very Joseph.

"The world needs fathers, but rejects despots, i.e. those who are possessive in order to fill their own emptiness," writes Pope Francis. On 8 December he proclaimed a Year of St Joseph, and his new apostolic exhortation "With Fatherly Hearts" is to accompany this year. It is typical of Pope Francis that he also speaks personally in this letter. He has let flow into the keys what his "heart is full of". Even though he often writes "we", he writes of his veneration for Joseph of Nazareth, and of the fact that the world needs father figures like this Joseph.

A new 'normality' in which no one is excluded

With the Joseph Year, the Pope commends the world and the Church to the intercession of this saint. Catholic Christians can also be granted reconciliation in the sacraments of confession and communion this year, as regulated by a Roman decree. Pope Francis, however, gives this year another meaning. To this end, he takes up the "new normality", which has become common parlance, and gives it a different accent from the usual one: the Year of St Joseph can establish "a new 'normality' in which no one is excluded". This is his suggestion for the coming Joseph Year: It can become the year of a new justice, in politics but not least also in the Catholic Church. He reminds us of many who, in the pandemic, are suddenly publicly "writing a significant page in our history": "nurses and carers, supermarket workers, cleaning staff", etc. And he thinks of unemployment, which affects many: Musicians, artists and other cultural workers, many people in the catering and tourism industries.

Spiritually, the Pope moves in his letter close to the Gospels in the New Testament. He writes clearly that Jesus is called there "the son of Joseph", and only later and only once in the 15 pages does he use the time-honoured but somewhat dusty ecclesiastical terms for Joseph as "Mary's bridegroom" and "Jesus' foster father".

Joseph went through a learning process

Joseph is the first person to be called "righteous" in the New Testament, even before his son Jesus. The evangelist Matthew tells how Joseph thereby comes into conflict with the Torah, because Mary, his betrothed wife, publicly visibly carries a child in her womb that is not his. He is determined to separate from her secretly and thus not expose her publicly. In doing so, he would have followed a path that is quite widely trodden by the Catholic Church: namely, to publicly proclaim the rules of the law, but to grant mercy in silence - "in camera caritatis". But Matthew tells how Joseph goes through a learning process, relying on his dreams and on the messenger of God who speaks to him. He publicly accepts Mary as his wife, and thus becomes the father of the strange child with whom she becomes pregnant. Joseph decides that simple faithfulness to the law is the wrong way to go. There is a principle of justice that is superior to the letter and has the common good in mind. Biblical wisdom knows this justice, and contrasts it with the behaviour of evildoers, who often enough invoke the enacted law with their behaviour: "The righteous rejoices when justice is done, but the evildoer" - such as the despot Herod - "is terrified" (Prov. 21:15); "the righteous has understanding for the legal dispute of the poor" (Prov. 29:7). Joseph learns that justice means more than following written laws.

A father in obedience

Pope Francis therefore calls Joseph a father in obedience, reasoning: "Today Joseph presents himself to this world, where psychological, verbal and physical violence against women is evident, as the figure of a respectful and sensitive man who, although not in possession of all the information, decides in favour of Mary's good name, dignity and life."

The beginning of the New Testament thus tells of Joseph of Nazareth as the Pope describes him, not possessive, but giving space: space for love, for justice, space to live. It will be exciting to see where God will lead the Church and society through the intercession of this saint in the coming year.