Abstract

BORGHESI, Massimo. The Polarity Model: The Influences of Gaston Fessard and Romano Guardini on Jorge Mario Bergoglio. Rev. filos.open insight [online]. 2020, vol.11, n.22, pp.12-40.  Epub June 26, 2023. ISSN 2395-8936.  https://doi.org/10.23924/oi.v11i22.413.

This article investigates the presence of Gaston Fessard’s thinking and his readings about Hegel, on the one hand, and Guardini and his polar thinking, on the other, in the intellectual formation of the young Bergoglio. In first place, it is intended to present two intellectual figures that shaped the thought of the future Pope. Secondly, we want to shed light on the relationships that exist between Fessard’s dialectical thinking and the way Bergoglio conceived the Company and his own Christian life during his years as a provincial in Argentina. Finally, it is verified that the Ignatian discernment and Guardini’s Philosophy of the Opposites lead us to understand the Church as a complexio oppositorum, where unity does not relegate plurality. Thus, it is shown that Bergoglio’s thinking is intellectually nourished by two important philosophical doctrines of the last century, and whose originality lies, among other things, in being a more concrete and practical version of both.

Keywords : Complexio Oppositorum; Dialectics; Polar Philosophy; Latinoamerican Philosophy; Theology of the People.