Fr. Hugo Tagle. Room 201: This is the room number for Pope Francis in the Saint Martha House. Perhaps we have become accustomed to his preference for an austere lifestyle in the guesthouse. But his bright ideas, his deviating from protocol, and his sharp-as-a knife phrases surprise us and positively bewilder us daily. With Pope Francis began, undoubtedly, an ecclesial path of no return. Since his election as Successor to Peter, the Church and her relationship with the world will never be the same.
His high levels of popularity and affection remain prominent, and that is something difficult to maintain in the complex world of communication. He is far from seeking it or of measuring himself with surveys. This is a sign that his style meets a need; it fills a void that alienated the faithful from the Church in gigantic steps. Pope Francis has done nothing more than what he likes to do and should do: to serve the Church, to be that “pastor with the odor of the sheep” of which he has spoken on many occasions; to embody what is preached to the people. The Pope is nourished from the light of Christ, and on the way, he places the bar high for those who pretend to give public service, not only within ecclesiastical circles.
The Pope sowed the year with notable happenings with deep human significance beginning with his pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and his meeting with Patriarch Bartholomew I, where they signed a joint declaration for the unity of the two Churches almost ten centuries after the schism between the East and West. Or his intimate embrace with a rabbi and a Muslim leader after ending his prayer at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, thus establishing a new milestone in the conduct between the three monotheistic religions. His trip to Turkey, where he invited us along with the Muslim world to approach the same God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob with the awareness that those who make God the center of their lives cannot fight among themselves nor use HIM as an excuse to kill. “Religions should be sources of peace and not discord,” he said.
The Synod on the Family marked another great milestone opening a shared reflection in the challenge that means including so many who feel alienated and hurt by the Church. A guided reflection “by the Holy Spirit and the firm hand of the Successor of Peter,” as the Holy Father himself said, to thus avoid bad intended mistrust and suspicion.
Pope Francis has made his call to go out to the “existing outskirts/peripheries” of life a reality by going out and meeting the abandoned, the wounded, the marginalized and those who are discouraged.
His experience in seeking to reestablish diplomatic relations between the USA and Cuba, before the end of the year, is a sample of his prudence, wisdom and valor and distinguished gift of leadership. Francis has dedicated himself to what pertains to him: to be the pastor of the Church, to welcome, to understand, to motivate and to heal. His word has exceeded with interest the ecclesiastical boundaries to be assumed and appreciated by distant and skeptical secular sectors. Pope Francis has been the right man, at the right moment and place.
His discourse accompanied by eloquent signs of closeness and warmth confirms a great truth: “Rigidity is a sign of weakness,” as he himself, said. It is not from the enclosure of an ivory tower judging the world unilaterally in defense of not only some moral aspects that man is served. All of this ultimately reveals a lack of faith, simple vanity, malevolent tactics, which raise curtains of smoke and omit or silence other great topics that cry to Heaven, such as extreme poverty, injustice, human rights’ abuse, corruption, labor abuses, abuse of minors and of women, damage to the environment, situations of injustice suffered by so many men, women and children in the world.
As was highlighted by a journalist from a European newspaper a few weeks ago, a good example of his art for capturing the attention of public opinion was experienced recently in his visit to the European Parliament in Strasbourg: “The intense discourse was constantly interrupted by the applause of the European Parliament members. But not by all at the same time. When he attacked the world economic system, the privileges and the power castes, one sector applauded furiously, and the other was silent or applauded with timidity. But when he spoke in favor of respect for human life from the moment of conception, the applause was reversed.”
The danger is not found in the Pope. It is found in the audience that would seem to want to listen only to what is convenient and not to what would be uncomfortable to them.
Two texts do not fit in Pope Bergoglio. He has demonstrated being an upright man, consistent and congruous. He has cited the broad and rich span of ecclesiastical topics in his genuine extension, thus recalling that to the Church “nothing human is alien to it” (GS 1); that the Christian message embraces the integral man, the entire man and all men.
Source: http://phugotagle.blogspot.com/2014/12/habitacion-201-sobre-el-papa-francisco.html
With permission from the author
Original Spanish: Translation: Carlos Cantú, Schoenstatt Family Federation, La Feria, Texas USA 01062014
