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.