I was deeply impressed by an article I just read that describes the new Roman Catholic Pope, Jorge Mario Bergoglio (Pope Francis). This impression was all the more forceful given its context in the media – most of the news articles I read leading up to the Pope’s election focused largely on negative issues surrounding the Roman Catholic church.
Unfortunately, this isn’t at all surprising - there’s been a long history of antagonism towards Catholicism in general, and the Pope in particular. Here’s an example from a Reformation-era pamphlet:
It wasn’t just through the use of cartoon-like monsters that the image of the Catholic church and the Pope were disrespected; this attitude was perpetuated through the publication of several religious texts that served as foundations of “faith” for thousands.(1)
Now, while accusations of the Pope being the Antichrist aren’t as common nowadays, this same sort of negative sentiment has remained in the public square, in part because of occasional scandals. These are terrible, to be sure, but the actions of a few individuals often obscure the abundance of faithful, humble, and beautiful lives that Roman Catholics lead throughout the world.
It seems as though Pope Francis is just what the public needs to renew its trust and – dare I say – faith in the Catholic church, an organization that has done an incredible amount of good for the world. According to the article I mentioned above, “[Pope Francis] loves the poor and not in an abstract way. He gave the cardinal's palace in Buenos Aires to a missionary order with no money. He lives in an apartment, cooks his own food, rides the bus. He rejects pomposity. He does not feel superior. He is a fellow soul.”
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| The archbishop of Buenos Aires, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, washes the feet of an unidentified woman on Holy Thursday at the Buenos Aires' Sarda maternity hospital on March 24, 2005. |
My first exposure to the new Pope’s namesake – St. Francis of Assisi – was in my grandparent’s garden, where his statue stood among overgrown plants and thriving weeds. The statue itself had been stained by nature and was covered in small craters (the result of repeated target practice). As a child, I wondered how something that was supposed to be holy could be left to ruin. Answer: the statue was neglected, and apathy allowed for abuse.
This became all the more heartbreaking to me when I started learning about St. Francis and what he stood for. One of the best-known statements attributed to St. Francis is the following prayer (this particular version was delivered by Mother Theresa before the United Nations in 1985):
Make us worthy Lord to serve our fellow men throughout the world,
who live and die in poverty and hunger.
Give them through our hands, this day, their daily bread
and by our understanding love, give peace and joy.
Lord, make me a channel of thy peace,
That where there is hatred I may bring love,
That where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness,
That where there is discord, I may bring harmony,
That where there is error I may bring truth,
That where there is doubt I may bring faith,
That where there is despair I may bring hope,
That where there are shadows I may bring light,
That where there is sadness I may bring joy.
Lord, grant that I may seek rather to comfort than to be comforted,
To understand than to be understood,
To love than to be loved.
For it is by forgetting self that one finds.
It is by forgiving that one is forgiven,
It is by dying that one awakens to eternal life.
Amen.
Even if this prayer was not written by St. Francis, it certainly represents his ideals. He wanted to be a creative force in the face of destruction – to edify that which had been torn down. Again, from the article I mentioned above:
One of the most famous moments in St. Francis's life is the day he was passing by the church of St. Damiano. It was old and near collapse. From St. Bonaventure's “Life of Francis of Assisi”: “Inspired by the Spirit, he went inside to pray. Kneeling before an image of the Crucified, he was filled with great fervor and consolation. . . . While his tear-filled eyes were gazing at the Lord's cross, he heard with his bodily ears a voice coming from the cross, telling him three times: ‘Francis, go and repair my house which, as you see, is falling into ruin.’” Francis was amazed “at the sound of this astonishing voice, since he was alone in the church.” He set himself to obeying the command.
Like St. Francis, Jorge Mario Bergoglio – now Pope Francis – is in a unique position to rebuild and repair the image of the Roman Catholic church. A life forged in service and tempered by modesty has created a weapon of peace – the only possible way to counteract the effects of hate and destruction. Noticing this remarkable characteristic of humility in Pope Francis, one observer noted:
That is more than strength…This is not cynical humanity. This is showing there is another way to be.
This man is living proof that we don’t need to inherit the idea that strength, power, and prestige means influence and importance. We can choose to build up, create, and give life to people, ideas, and movements. We can repair the world.
May we all choose this “other way.”
Read this inspiring article in its entirety here.
Footnotes:
1) Case in point – Protestant Reformation figurehead John Calvin’s Institutes contains the following passage: “Shall we recognise the Apostolic See where we see nothing but horrible apostacy? Shall he be the vicar of Christ who, by his furious efforts in persecuting the Gospel, plainly declares himself to be Antichrist? Shall he be the successor of Peter who goes about with fire and sword demolishing everything that Peter built?. Shall he be the Head of the Church who, after dissevering the Church from Christ, her only true Head, tears and lacerates her members? Rome, indeed, was once the mother of all the churches, but since she began to be the seat of Antichrist she ceased to be what she was” (Institutes IV, 7:24).
