5 RULES FOR READING FRANCIS
Tuesday, October 8, 2013
http://romans8v29.blogspot.com/2013/10/5-rules-for-reading-pope-francis-rule-1.html
Wednesday, October 02, 2013
5 Rules for Reading Pope Francis: Rule #1
It's all still so new: a Pope who calls people from his own cell phone; off-the-cuff interviews (during which he makes sure his guest has coffee--or water, as the case may be); the mad scramble afterwards to get to the heart of the message. After yesterday's marathon, I think we need to establish some ground rules.
Here's Rule #1: Get used to it.
Right now things feel a bit like that little pirogue I paddled off in one fine summer morning when I was a postulant home for a family visit. I pulled away from the shore to make my meditation in the gently rocking vessel. But by the time my meditation was complete, the lake was starting to roil, and I was not entirely confident that I could actually control the thing and get back to our campsite. That meditation time I enjoyed on the calm waters corresponds to the gentle pontificate of Pope Benedict. With Francis, instead, we have someone who plunges into the water yelling, "Cannonball!"
The interview published in yesterday's "La Repubblica" wasn't the first headline-generating papal interview (even Benedict pulled one of his own a few years back: remember the "condom" headlines?). It certainly won't be the last: Francis promised La Repubblica's Scalfari a follow-up conversation on women in the Church.
The waves are stirred; everyone takes notice. What are you going to do now? Smack the irrepressible pontiff upside the head with an oar so you can continue your quiet meditation, or accept the invitation to jump in with him?
I know what I'm going to do.
"CANNONBALL!!!!!!!!!"
Here's Rule #1: Get used to it.
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The interview published in yesterday's "La Repubblica" wasn't the first headline-generating papal interview (even Benedict pulled one of his own a few years back: remember the "condom" headlines?). It certainly won't be the last: Francis promised La Repubblica's Scalfari a follow-up conversation on women in the Church.
The waves are stirred; everyone takes notice. What are you going to do now? Smack the irrepressible pontiff upside the head with an oar so you can continue your quiet meditation, or accept the invitation to jump in with him?
I know what I'm going to do.
"CANNONBALL!!!!!!!!!"
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5 Rules for Reading Pope Francis: Rule #2
Since we can expect Pope Francis to continue reaching out to unbelievers, even when they control significant media channels (see Rule #1), it would be good for us day-to-day Catholics to acquire a kind of spiritual discipline when it comes to finding the Pope in the morning headlines.
Rule #2 might just be the hardest for us to swallow, but it may also be the most helpful: Accept that he isn't speaking to you.
No, he's not. Really. When the Pope is on his cell phone, or in his office meeting a journalist for an informal interview, he is speaking to the person he is with at the moment. You are listening in.
Pope Francis is a confessor to Pope Benedict's professor. Francis is a one-on-one communicator. Even when he is zipping through those incredible crowds in St. Peter's Square, he is making eye contact with people one at a time. All the more, then, when he is in a conversation and the tape recorder is rolling, we need to know who the Pope is with. Everything the Pope says is going to be for or in response to that individual. Know whom he's speaking with and you already have the most important interpretive key for everything else.
Rule #2 might just be the hardest for us to swallow, but it may also be the most helpful: Accept that he isn't speaking to you.
No, he's not. Really. When the Pope is on his cell phone, or in his office meeting a journalist for an informal interview, he is speaking to the person he is with at the moment. You are listening in.
Pope Francis is a confessor to Pope Benedict's professor. Francis is a one-on-one communicator. Even when he is zipping through those incredible crowds in St. Peter's Square, he is making eye contact with people one at a time. All the more, then, when he is in a conversation and the tape recorder is rolling, we need to know who the Pope is with. Everything the Pope says is going to be for or in response to that individual. Know whom he's speaking with and you already have the most important interpretive key for everything else.
Friday, October 04, 2013
Rules for Reading Pope Francis: Rule #3
So the Pope is making headlines. In these days of 140-character posts, a headline may be all some people read. What about you, the ordinary, Mass-attending (right off the bat that makes you not exactly ordinary) Catholic? If you are going to read the next interview with Pope Francis, what rule do you need to keep in mind, aside from Rule #1 (Get Used to It) and Rule #2 (Accept that He's not Speaking to You)?
I give you, Rule #3: Don't stop at the headline.
In fact, don't even dwell on the headline. Headlines are interpretations even when they include a direct quote. Case in point: Last Tuesday's release of the Pope's conversation with Italian journalist Eugenio Scalfari. The Italian headline declared: "This is how I will change the Church" (the English translation was more modest: "The Church will change").
What was behind the headline? Did the Pope really express a detailed program for how he "will" change the Church? Not really. In speaking of the Roman Curia, the Vatican offices that are at the service of his worldwide ministry, the Pope remarked that too often the goal is "Vatican-centered" rather than "person-centered": "It sees and deal with the interests of the Vatican, which are still, for the most part temporal interests. This Vatican-centric view neglects the world around us. I do not share this view and I’ll do everything I can to change it.*" That "it" is a self-focused institutional vision that Francis sees at play in certain offices of the Vatican--not the Church herself.
But there is a kind of change the Holy Father alluded to (without using the word "change"): "The Church is or should go back to being a community of God’s people, and priests, pastors and bishops who have the care of souls are at the service of the people of God. That is the Church."
But who wants to read a headline like that?
*This amended translation comes from the blog "In Caelo."
I give you, Rule #3: Don't stop at the headline.
In fact, don't even dwell on the headline. Headlines are interpretations even when they include a direct quote. Case in point: Last Tuesday's release of the Pope's conversation with Italian journalist Eugenio Scalfari. The Italian headline declared: "This is how I will change the Church" (the English translation was more modest: "The Church will change").
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| Crest of Pope Paul V (St Peter's Basilica) |
But there is a kind of change the Holy Father alluded to (without using the word "change"): "The Church is or should go back to being a community of God’s people, and priests, pastors and bishops who have the care of souls are at the service of the people of God. That is the Church."
But who wants to read a headline like that?
*This amended translation comes from the blog "In Caelo."
Francis: the Saint and the Pope
"Francis, rebuild my Church." Words that changed the world.
Today's feast of St. Francis is especially significant, since Pope Francis has chosen to spend this first "Name Day" with his eight Cardinal-collaborators in Assisi (a city he has never visited before). "This," he said about his associates, "is the beginning of a Church with an organization that is not just top-down, but also horizontal."
With the upcoming [today? this weekend?] release of his encyclical on poverty and the interview published earlier this week, the Holy Father is, as it were, setting up a classroom. We might find the key to his lesson in his words to the unbelieving journalist, Eugenio Scalfari about his patron:
St. "Francis wanted a mendicant [dependent on alms] order and a traveling one. Missionaries who wanted to meet, listen, talk, help, to spread faith and love. Especially love. And he dreamed of a poor Church that would take care of others, which would receive material aid and use it to support others, with no concern for itself. 800 years have passed and times have changed a lot, but the ideal of a missionary, poor Church is still more than valid. That is still the Church that Jesus and his disciples preached about."
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| St Francis Detail of an altarpiece from the Walters Museum of Art (used under Creative Commons License). |
Today's feast of St. Francis is especially significant, since Pope Francis has chosen to spend this first "Name Day" with his eight Cardinal-collaborators in Assisi (a city he has never visited before). "This," he said about his associates, "is the beginning of a Church with an organization that is not just top-down, but also horizontal."
With the upcoming [today? this weekend?] release of his encyclical on poverty and the interview published earlier this week, the Holy Father is, as it were, setting up a classroom. We might find the key to his lesson in his words to the unbelieving journalist, Eugenio Scalfari about his patron:
St. "Francis wanted a mendicant [dependent on alms] order and a traveling one. Missionaries who wanted to meet, listen, talk, help, to spread faith and love. Especially love. And he dreamed of a poor Church that would take care of others, which would receive material aid and use it to support others, with no concern for itself. 800 years have passed and times have changed a lot, but the ideal of a missionary, poor Church is still more than valid. That is still the Church that Jesus and his disciples preached about."
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http://romans8v29.blogspot.com/2013/10/rules-for-reading-pope-francis-rule-4.html
Saturday, October 05, 2013
Rules for Reading Pope Francis: Rule #4
Following Pope Francis when he goes "off message" or puts aside his prepared notes for a homily or talk reminds me a bit of getting into one of those "Moonwalk Bounce Houses" that people rent for kids parties. UP is still up and DOWN is still down, but they feel different. As a grown-up (and one with a problem back, at that!), I don't find that fun at all. I find it kind of scary.
And that leads me to the 4th "rule" for reading Pope Francis: Don't be afraid. Pope Francis is asking us for more faith--not less.
The Pope may not always use the formulae I'm familiar with, and he may apply the key teachings of the Church in ways that I haven't always thought of, but I'm catching on that what he is saying is more, not less, than what I'm more used to hearing.
Remember what he said to Eugenio Scalfari in the "La Repubblica" interview last week? "There is no 'Catholic god'... there is God." That made some Catholics bounce-house nervous. "Did we miss an important memo? What about the Trinity? Is he 'leveling' the real differences between Catholic understanding and all other religions?"
Far from leveling Catholicism, Francis is giving us a glimpse of what our faith really means: he is heightening the expression of our faith!
This God we believe in as Catholics is not a "Catholic god": There is only One: "He is the LORD and there is no other" and "he rules from end to end and orders all things mightily" while not even a sparrow falls to the ground, or a hair gets brushed off your head that he isn't aware of. This one, holy, infinite God who "delights in the children of men" and "who understands all they do"; "who searches hearts"; who "welcomes sinners and eats with them," is not bound by the means he has given us for meeting him, St Thomas says, not even when those means are the Church and the sacraments.
God is bending over backwards to reach people even beyond the explicit (and, in the case of the Eucharist, unsurpassable) "usual means" he has given us for meeting him. The Shepherd will do whatever it takes to draw the stray sheep closer to home.
Doesn't that vast vision, hinted at so simply in Francis' words, challenge your faith? It does mine! God doesn't issue a "report card" for good attendance at Mass; He gives us himself. The horizons are so big, I am reminded of what a tin, fragile frame I am using to keep my vision of God in. I'm invited to a new level of faith. And the first step (so it seems throughout the Bible) is "do not be afraid!"
On a related note, here's a great Pope Francis quote found by Suzanne at The Catholic Breadbox: "Relativism is, oddly, absolutist and totalitarian. It does not allow anyone to stray from its own relativism. Basically, it means ‘shut up’ or ‘don't meddle.’"
And that leads me to the 4th "rule" for reading Pope Francis: Don't be afraid. Pope Francis is asking us for more faith--not less.
The Pope may not always use the formulae I'm familiar with, and he may apply the key teachings of the Church in ways that I haven't always thought of, but I'm catching on that what he is saying is more, not less, than what I'm more used to hearing.
Remember what he said to Eugenio Scalfari in the "La Repubblica" interview last week? "There is no 'Catholic god'... there is God." That made some Catholics bounce-house nervous. "Did we miss an important memo? What about the Trinity? Is he 'leveling' the real differences between Catholic understanding and all other religions?"
Far from leveling Catholicism, Francis is giving us a glimpse of what our faith really means: he is heightening the expression of our faith!
This God we believe in as Catholics is not a "Catholic god": There is only One: "He is the LORD and there is no other" and "he rules from end to end and orders all things mightily" while not even a sparrow falls to the ground, or a hair gets brushed off your head that he isn't aware of. This one, holy, infinite God who "delights in the children of men" and "who understands all they do"; "who searches hearts"; who "welcomes sinners and eats with them," is not bound by the means he has given us for meeting him, St Thomas says, not even when those means are the Church and the sacraments.
God is bending over backwards to reach people even beyond the explicit (and, in the case of the Eucharist, unsurpassable) "usual means" he has given us for meeting him. The Shepherd will do whatever it takes to draw the stray sheep closer to home.
Doesn't that vast vision, hinted at so simply in Francis' words, challenge your faith? It does mine! God doesn't issue a "report card" for good attendance at Mass; He gives us himself. The horizons are so big, I am reminded of what a tin, fragile frame I am using to keep my vision of God in. I'm invited to a new level of faith. And the first step (so it seems throughout the Bible) is "do not be afraid!"
On a related note, here's a great Pope Francis quote found by Suzanne at The Catholic Breadbox: "Relativism is, oddly, absolutist and totalitarian. It does not allow anyone to stray from its own relativism. Basically, it means ‘shut up’ or ‘don't meddle.’"
Rules for Reading Pope Francis: Rule #5
Reading (and rereading!) the recent interviews Pope Francis gave (one to a fellow Jesuit; another to an atheist journalist), I have had to come up with a set of guidelines to make sure I "get" what the Pope is saying, without letting my own presuppositions (or the way I would say things) distract me. First, I have to get used to the fact that the Pope is going to be speaking off the cuff (Rule #1); that he isn't necessarily speaking to me (Rule #2); that the newspaper headlines are interpretations and fail to communicate the whole point (Rule #3); and that the Pope's message is, far from diluting the content of the faith, challenging my puny faith to acknowledge how much greater the Truth is than I usually give it credit for (Rule #4).
But is there a rule for putting it all together?
Sure there is, and it is the one your mother taught you: Always say "Thank you."
Until the media get tired of Francis (or disillusioned with him) his comments will create openings for the ordinary Catholic to speak about the faith, or about Catholic life, in settings where that would never have been possible without my "forcing the matter." If you have been shy about one on one evangelization, Pope Francis has gotten people interested enough that anyone known to be Catholic is assumed to be a reliable fount of information. If he speaks about the saints, you can mention them now and again, too. If he mentions the need for Catholics to be involved in politics, you have a ready answer to those who would reproach me for bringing your religious convictions into the voting booth (or being active in the political process).
Francis is leading the way, not as a classroom teacher, but as a shepherd who "walks ahead of his sheep, and the sheep follow him." I get the feeling he is deliberately acting "non-pontifical," not to diminish his office as Successor of Peter, but to carry it out in such a way that we, too, carry out our role of being leaven in society. Jesus did the same: "I have given you an example, that as I have done, you also must do."
So what do you say?
Thank you.
But is there a rule for putting it all together?
Sure there is, and it is the one your mother taught you: Always say "Thank you."
Until the media get tired of Francis (or disillusioned with him) his comments will create openings for the ordinary Catholic to speak about the faith, or about Catholic life, in settings where that would never have been possible without my "forcing the matter." If you have been shy about one on one evangelization, Pope Francis has gotten people interested enough that anyone known to be Catholic is assumed to be a reliable fount of information. If he speaks about the saints, you can mention them now and again, too. If he mentions the need for Catholics to be involved in politics, you have a ready answer to those who would reproach me for bringing your religious convictions into the voting booth (or being active in the political process).
Francis is leading the way, not as a classroom teacher, but as a shepherd who "walks ahead of his sheep, and the sheep follow him." I get the feeling he is deliberately acting "non-pontifical," not to diminish his office as Successor of Peter, but to carry it out in such a way that we, too, carry out our role of being leaven in society. Jesus did the same: "I have given you an example, that as I have done, you also must do."
So what do you say?
Thank you.
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