Churches of all denominations
are currently in the midst of an eight-day Week of Prayer for Christian
Unity. The octave was begun back in 1908 and since the end of Vatican II
(1962-1965) the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity has
teamed up with the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of
Churches to plan the annual observance. They’ve taken this year’s theme
from the Gospel story of the Samaritan woman at the well: “Jesus said to
her, ‘Give me to drink’ (John 4,7).” [Texts for daily meditations
can be found here .]
It’s said that the popes as far back as Pius X (1903-1914) were
favorable to the week of prayer, but until the Second Vatican Council
they held the policy that true ecumenism could only be based on the
simple principle that other Christians had to convert to Catholicism.
That view has changed more than a bit since Vatican II. Pope Francis is
the latest and, perhaps, most vocal of the post-conciliar popes to
support the notion that church unity does not mean uniformity, but can
(must) include much of the diversity that exists among the various
Christian communities. Though much attention is given to his efforts to
reform Vatican finances and the Roman Curia, ecumenism is really at the
heart of Francis’s reforms. Next Sunday he will continue the decades-old
custom of his predecessors and bring the Week of Prayer for Christian
Unity to a close with ecumenical Vespers at the Roman Basilica of St.
Paul’s Outside the Walls. It was in a meeting room next to the basilica
that Pope John XXIII, on the same day in 1959, surprised the world by
announcing plans to have the now-legendary council. Would anyone be
surprised if Pope Francis used this occasion to make his own important
announcement?
****
There was a moment during the pope’s recent pastoral visit to East
Asia that must have turned more than one person’s thoughts towards that
unknown future date when it will be time to elect his successor.
Standing side-by-side at one of the ceremonies in the Philippines were
two of the top candidates – Manila’s archbishop, Cardinal Luis Tagle,
and Francis’s Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin. The youthful
Filipino would be the
first pope ever from East Asia .
Although he will be only fifty-eight next June, he has already become
recognized as a wise and beloved pastor in the three short years he’s
headed the primary archdiocese of the region’s only predominantly
Catholic nation. Cardinal “Chito,” as he’s known at home, has the
advantage of speaking quasi-mother-tongue English. He also has an
exuberant personality and is an inspiring speaker.
Cardinal Parolin ,
who turned sixty during the papal visit, would be the first Italian
pope since 1978. Considered one of the best and brightest from the
Vatican’s meticulously prepared diplomatic corps, he’s known for taking a
decisively pastoral approach in a highly specialized line of work
usually associated more with its bureaucratic and political aspects. A
native from the same Veneto region in the north that produced the last
Italian to sit on the Throne of Peter, John Paul I, he’d likely carry
forward the program of the current pontificate, but in a gentler and
less tempestuous way. A third candidate was back in the Vatican during
the papal trip. He’s Cardinal George Pell. Unsuccessful as the would-be
“king maker” of Milan’s Angelo Scola at the last conclave, the
seventy-three-year-old Australian and head of the Secretariat for the
Economy could emerge as “king” this time, representing the
traditionalists in the college that are biding their time and hoping
that Francis’s pontificate will be a brief one.
****
Pope Francis would be the first to admit that English is not his
strong suit, but he showed amazing determination to use the language
during his whirlwind visit to Sri Lanka and the Philippines. The only
problem was that, as the trip wore on, so did his frustration with his
inability to do one of the things he does best – speak off the cuff and
from the heart. He sure tried, though. Perhaps the most humorous
occasion came during a Mass with Filipino clergy and religious. He began
his homily by saying: “Do you love me?” The assembly roared back,
“Yes!” With a look of surprise, the pope burst into laughter and said,
“Thank you very much!” As the delighted crowd applauded and also began
laughing, he said, “I was reading the words of Jesus!” But aside from a
few other attempts to speak freely and from the heart in English, the
Argentine pope eventually decided that speaking a foreign language was
too much of a straitjacket. So he decided to speak extemporaneously in
his native language, thrusting Mgr. Mark Miles, his English-speaking
aide from the Vatican’s Secretariat of State, into the high-profile role
of public translator. The forty-seven-year-old priest of Gibraltar was
at the pope’s elbow every minute of the trip, providing translation help
during more private conversations. But it was the first time I can
remember that a pope used an aide in such a way to allow him to
continuously speak so frequently off-the-cuff. Mgr. Miles entered the
Vatican’s prestigious finishing school for diplomats in 2000 and then
did postings abroad – Ecuador and Hungary – before returning to the
State Secretariat in 2009. The world is likely to see and hear a lot
more of him in the next several months – especially next autumn when the
pope makes his visit to the United States.
No comments:
Post a Comment