Pope Francis caused quite a
storm last week by suggesting that a “great majority of sacramental
marriages are null” because people of today’s generation really “don’t
know what they are saying” when they make the life-long vow that is
considered an essential part of Catholic marriage.
The comment—which the Vatican quickly changed to “a part” of such
marriages are null—came during a question-and-answer period that
followed an address the pope gave on June 16 to open the Diocese of
Rome’s recent pastoral convention.
One commentator at Fox News
in the United States called for Francis to resign, saying this was
merely the latest in a long series of his gaffes and theologically
dubious statements that have caused confusion among the faithful.
Unfortunately, most people who reported on the pope’s remarks did not
bother to read the entire address (much of which was also ad-libbed) or
the Q&A.
“Please don’t be shocked,” he said at the end of the session, which stretched on for more than an hour.
“I don’t know if I have answered your questions, but I speak to you from my experience as a pastor,” he said.
Not as a theologian or philosopher. Not as a university professor or an enforcer of correct doctrine or pure ideals.
Pope Francis has been shaped by the experience of being a minister to
the poor, the weak, the imperfect, and those who are or feel
marginalized. And this experience was evident in his moving address
that, while it may have scandalized some folks, certainly brought hope
to many others.
He evoked the biblical image of the Pharisee who prays, “O God, I
thank you because I am not like others—thieves, evildoers, adulterers;
and not like this tax collector” (Luke 18:11).
He said the Pharisee’s prayer illustrates a constant temptation to
embrace a “separatist attitude,” thinking that “we strengthen our
identity and security when we differentiate or isolate ourselves from
others, especially those who in live in a different situation.”
But the pope said identity is forged by inclusion and belonging. “My
belonging to the Lord, this is my identity. Not cutting myself off from
others so they don’t ‘contaminate’ me,” he stressed
He said we must recognize that each one of us is in need of
conversion and mercy because none of us is perfect. And he added that
this recognition was essential for looking at the reality of situations
in life, as they are, not how we think they ought to be.
“But nothing is comparable to evangelical realism, which does not
stop at describing situations or problems—even less sin—, but always
looks beyond and is able to see that behind every face, every story, and
every situation there is an opportunity and a possibility,” the pope
said.
“Evangelical realism is concerned with the other—with others—and does
not make ideals and ‘the way things ought to be’ an obstacle for
encountering others in the situations in which they find themselves,” he
added.
Francis said this do not mean jettisoning the “Gospel ideal” or
fudging doctrine; rather, it means “avoiding judgments and attitudes
that do not consider the complexities of life.”
“Evangelical realism dirties its hands because it knows that ‘wheat
and weeds’ grow together. And the best wheat—in this life—will always
be mixed with some weeds,” he continued.
“Jesus dirtied his hands more than anyone. He wasn’t one of ‘the
clean,’ but went to the people and among the people and took them as
they were, not as they ought to be,” the pope said.
Then he rephrased the prayer of the self-righteous Pharisee, saying:
“I thank you, Lord, because I belong to Catholic Action, or to this
association, or to Caritas, or this or that group… and I am not like
those in my neighborhood who are thieves and delinquents.”
Such an attitude, he concluded, “does not help our pastoral work!”
**********
The 79-year-old pope heads to Armenia on Friday for a three-day pastoral visit to the world’s first Christian nation.
It will be his fourteenth foreign journey and, as someone pointed
out, half of all the destinations have been in Asia. That includes the
Holy Land countries of Jordan, Palestine and Israel, as well as nations
further east: Korea, Sri Lanka, and the Philippines. In all these places
except for the latter, Catholics are a minority. It’s another sign of
Francis’s desire to go to the peripheries.
During this weekend’s trip the pope will visit Tzitsernakaberd, a
monument to those Armenians who were massacred in 1915 by the Turks.
Though the site is officially called the “Genocide Memorial and
Museum,” the Vatican program for the visit calls it “a memorial of the
massacres.” The changed wording was meant to avoid antagonizing Turkey,
which rejects the label of “genocide.”
That will be tricky since the papal visit is seen as important for
further strengthening relations with the Armenian Apostolic Church, an
Orthodox community not in full union with Rome.
The visit will also be one of the last major events before the Roman
curia begins what used to be a slower-paced summer period starting on
June 30. However, Francis has kept things humming despite this
time-honored custom.
Next Tuesday he will invite Benedict XVI to the Clementine Hall
inside the papal palace for a special celebration to mark the former
pope’s sixty-fifth anniversary of priestly ordination.
Then the next day—Solemnity of Saints Peter & Paul, founders of
the Church in Rome—he will celebrate a Mass during which he’ll bless the
palliums, the small woolen bands that will then be conferred locally on
the metropolitan archbishops appointed in the past year.
On Wednesday of this week Pope Francis held his last weekly general
audience before the summer break. And he did something neither he nor
any of his predecessors has ever done. He invited a dozen African
refugees to join him on the stage, where they sat around him as he
delivered his catechesis and greetings for the some 1500 or more people
in St. Peter’s Square.
**********
Rome is easily one of the world’s most beautiful and historically
important cities. But over the last decade or so, and especially in the
past couple of years, it has come to look more and more like a broken
down garbage heap.
Signs of decline and dysfunction appear immediately the moment one
lands at Fiumicino Airport, where travelers often are forced to wait a
half hour or more before their checked luggage emerges. Next come the
non-functioning escalators and “out of service” self-ticket machines for
trains to the city.
First-time visitors usually shrug off these initial minor
inconveniences, still gushing with excitement to be in the Eternal City.
But once they arrive at the main rail station, Stazione Termini, they
must fend off the legendary pick-pocketing gypsy kids while being
careful not to stumble on one of the many cracks or holes that mar the
sidewalks.
Then there’s garbage. It is everywhere. In the streets, on the walkways, and piling up around overflowing trash bins.
Graffiti is just as abundant as the rubbish, plastered on buildings
and traffic signs, as well as on the buses that are part of Rome’s
notoriously unpredictable (and unreliable) public transport
system. Let’s not even talk about the traffic, the only major city in
Europe that allows so many cars in the historic heart of town.
“This has become a Third World city, but with First World prices,” groans a long time resident and friend from North America.
Well, we just elected a new mayor this past Sunday and she has vowed
to cure the city of all these other ills, including widespread
corruption.
Virginia Raggi is the first woman ever to be Rome's mayor. She won
the vote in a run-off election on the very day she celebrated her
thirty-eighth birthday. Her victory is a triumph for the populist Five
Star Movement (M5S) to which she belongs, an anti-establishment party
founded by a comedian-turned-politician named Beppe Grillo.
Ms Raggi is a lawyer and local councilor. She is married and the
mother of a young boy. A self-described non-practicing Catholic, she
said during the mayoral campaign she would explore how to make the
Vatican and other Catholic organization pay back-taxes on their
commercial properties. The figure is often cited as somewhere between
€250 and €400 million.
The last mayor, Ignazio Marino, promised to do many of the same
things that are on Ms Raggi’s agenda. But he was run out of town after
being caught using public funds for private meals and travel. It was a
minor offense, but enough to bring down a surgeon-turned-senator who was
too weak and unexperienced to take on the various clans that have an
iron grip on the city.
It’s hard to see how the new mayor, with even less experience, will
be able to do better. But Rome desperately needs her to succeed.
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