On the Passing of Three Paulines...

This year's Feast of Blessed James Alberione (today!) is particularly poignant for the Pauline Family in the United States. In Canfield, OH, our Society of St Paul brothers are gathered with other Paulines (especially the many local members of the Holy Family Institute) and family for a double funeral. Father Jeffrey Mickler and Brother Paschal Duesman died within hours of each other last week; Father Jeffrey in a sudden fall that resulted in a death-dealing blow to the head, and Brother Paschal

of a cancer that was only discovered this year. And this afternoon in Boston we will begin the vigil for our Sister Domenica Sabia, who died Saturday night after complications set in from a hip fracture (she, too, suffered a fall just two weeks earlier, but her death at 87 was less of a shock than the sturdy Father Jeffrey's at 72).

Our morning prayer offered a perfect thought from the Founder for a day like this, taken from a sermon he gave in 1938 to the then newly-founded Sisters of Jesus the Good Shepherd (nicknamed "Pastorelle" Sisters): "Our offering must be total: not a fiber of our being, not a beat of our heart, if not for the Lord. Thus shall we consume our energies only for his love up to the point of possessing him in eternal life, in paradise, with all the saints."

Daily we pray for new Pauline vocations, and in our "Pauline Offertory" we ask for an increase in the number of Catholics dedicated to media evangelization and the efficacy of their works. This past week saw not a numerical increase of earthly media evangelizers, but a net decrease (at least among Paulines), so please join us in praying for a threefold (or more!) increase in Pauline vocations as the Lord's "recompense" for calling these three from us (in the words of a prayer by Blessed Alberione from 1946; hence the dated language):

Mary, Queen of Apostles,
Grant your motherly protection to all those who dedicate themselves to this urgent apostolate of the press.
Make their words, their sacrifices and their footsteps bear fruit.
Obtain for their efforts the sweet reward of seeing a wider diffusion of those writings that unhesitatingly promote Jesus Christ.
O Mary,
Obtain for us at the end of our life the crown promised to those who have fought the good fight and kept the faith intact.
Amen.

5 (more) Keys to Understanding Pope Francis #5

Continuing the theme from my 2014 e-book (now out of...print?), on understanding the Church's first Latin American Pope and his ministry, I present you with key #5:

5. Pope Francis is the Pope.

Every five years or so, the heads of the dioceses go to Rome to report on the situation of their local Church with visits to the various dicasteries in the Vatican (for example, the Dicastery for Communications, for Human Development; the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors) and to meet personally with the Holy Father. Right now the US Bishops are making their “Ad limina” visits to the Holy Father (the Bishops of New England went first!).

In the Philippines (photo by Michael Makri, SDB)

It takes about seven years for the Pope to meet all the diocesan “Ordinaries” of the world. He gives them a chance to talk about their biggest concerns for their people, and he take the opportunity to share his own chief concerns with them. Now that Pope Francis has been on the Chair of Peter for six and a half years, and made personal visits as Pope to (so far) 48 nations, Francis knows the Church and the world like nobody else. This puts him in a unique position.

When he speaks, it can be hard to know whom he is addressing, because he has so many people and situations before his eyes. It could be any of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics, most of whom are poor, and a huge percentage of whom are in life-threatening situations from corrupt political systems or lack of education, environmental degradation or dangerous working conditions (so many times, all three go together). Or he may be addressing other Christians (another 1.1 billion), who are open to his leadership because he is clearly not seeking his own advancement. Sometimes we see him reach out to people of other faiths, as when he and key Orthodox Christian leaders met at the Vatican this past October 28 with Jewish and Muslim leaders to reaffirm shared values in end-of-life care, and restate their opposition to euthanasia and “physician-assisted suicide.”

He has his hand on the pulse of the whole world, and our corner of it may be very, very small. Indeed, we may well be lacking the tools to even interpret what the Pope is saying (or doing) because our own experience of Catholicism itself, or of the Catholic world, is too limited. (I have certainly had that experience as a member of an international religious congregation!)

How many times is the Pope acting “in persona Christi”—but not in the classic sense that lifetime Catholics may expect? He may be taking us back to the Upper Room where the Master offered a deliberately provocative act of charity to break through his disciples' conventional thinking and tell them, “I have given you an example” (Jn 13:15).

This is not to say that no one can disagree with the Pope's practical judgments, any more than Paul hesitated to differ with Peter's personal decision to resume a kosher diet while in Antioch (see Gal 2:11-13). But in a media age, where criticism has an exponential capacity (and a peculiar credibility), it is unwise to draw increased attention to what one may find disagreeable. It was always Bl. James Alberione's publishing policy (and he lived during Italy's difficult Fascist period) in the case of Church leaders, to respond to actions that seemed out of place, badly timed, or outright disedifying by affirming in a positive way the principles that one found compromised.

This would be sound advice for Catholics in social media today, too. It  keeps honest disagreement from devolving into personal disparagement or an animosity bordering on contempt. (There are some posts I have seen on social media which are so vile that I am afraid that the Catholics posting them avoid mortal sin only because of their ignorance of the gravity of what they are doing.)

There are thousands of voices pleading for attention (Nunblogger is one of them!); thousands who believe they have something of value to offer. Only one teacher on this planet was given an assurance of divine support. Only one man was given the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven.

He, and no one else, is the visible sign of unity for the Church. We really have nothing to fear if we stick by him.

I think I'll cover some media issues related to Pope Francis in a future post. In the meantime, here are all the 5 (More) Keys to Understanding Pope Francis posts:

Key #1 (Pope Francis is Latin American)
Key #2 (Pope Francis is not afraid of chaos)
Key #3 (Pope Francis Trusts in the Holy Spirit)
Key #4 (Pope Francis is Catholic)
Key #5 (Pope Francis is the Pope)

5 (more) Keys to Understanding Pope Francis, #4 (updated)

Continuing the theme from my 2014 e-book (now out of...print?), on understanding the Church's first Latin American Pope and his ministry, I present you with key #4: 

4. Pope Francis is Catholic.

I remember that back in the late 70's and through the 80's there were certain pious Catholics who, it seemed, could never refer to the Pope without using a string of titles: "Our Most Holy Father, the Vicar of Christ on Earth, His Holiness, Pope (name)." Since this was invariably done in Catholic settings, it really was overkill. It drove me nuts. (Today I suppose we would call this "virtue signaling.") Granted, there were plenty of people in the Church who were doing crazy thing in the name of "the Spirit of Vatican II," it really wasn't necessary to affirm the status of the Bishop of Rome at every mention. Especially for daily Mass in a convent.

Not only as the Vicar of Christ on Earth, Successor of Peter, Servant of the Servants of God, and Bishop of Rome, but simply as a fellow member of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis has a right to presume that what he says (even informally) about faith and right living will be interpreted in continuity with the whole trajectory of Church Teaching. In other words, it is not necessary to restate each and every time what definitions are to be used for ordinary theological terms and concepts, any more than it was necessary for those pious Catholics in the 80's to clarify exactly what the Pope's job description was every time they mentioned his name. This is not only a precept of charity, as St Ignatius reminded us over 400 years ago in the very trying years of the Protestant Reformation (while the Inquisition was actively involved in investigating any theological discrepancies that came its way); it is also an obligation of prudence, which does not leave everything open to question, debate, or challenge.

People can and may disagree with the practical conclusions or priorities they find in Papal documents; they may believe that other vital concerns are being neglected or sidelined; they may not like where things appear to be going. But it is unwise,  unfaithful and ultimately anti-Catholic to run Pope Francis' official teachings through any kind of "orthodoxy filter." It is especially unjust to interpret the Pope's words and official teachings through a lens of unbiblical, anti-christian or political philosophies, or theories that are plainly opposed to Catholic Tradition (that Tradition itself being understood in the broad sense, and not judged by one's own experience or by an appeal to limited cultural expressions). In other words, the only legitimate interpretive key for understanding Church documents (or papal remarks) is...Church teaching.

This can be a challenge in the case of a pastor like Francis who is willing to speak directly to the person he is with, off script and without regard for the way an expression can be taken out of context (even from good will or an excess of enthusiasm) and take on a life of its own. Most of us know how to "hear" what our friends or our trusted advisors mean even when they misspeak. A relationship wouldn't last long if one party was continually scrutinizing the other's every move with a prosecutorial ear,  presenting him or her with a tabulated list of faults or near-misses at the end of each encounter. And yet there are Catholics who presume to do this with the Most Holy Father, the Vicar of Christ on Earth, and Visible Head of the Church, especially if they have found a Cardinal or two whose manner or clarity of style they find more congenial.

The gates of hell ultimately will not prevail over the Church, but in the meantime, our battle is not against flesh and blood, and certainly not against our fellow believers (much less the man entrusted with shepherding the Lord's flock!). No, "our struggle is against principalities and powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness" (Eph 6:12) who will do anything to scatter the sheep or separate them from the one whom Jesus established precisely to be the visible center of unity for his followers.

Let us pray:

Lord,
Cover with your protection
our Holy Father,  Pope Francis.
Be his light,  his strength,  his consolation.
Amen.

Here are all the "5 (More) Keys" posts:
Key #1 (Pope Francis is Latin American)
Key #2 (Pope Francis is not afraid of chaos)
Key #3 (Pope Francis Trusts in the Holy Spirit)
Key #4 (Pope Francis is Catholic)
Key #5 (Pope Francis is the Pope)