The Pope of Surprises Fr. J. Loiola Pereira loiol...@gmail.com
Pope Francis has surprised us all... and this is only the beginning! The first non-European, the first Jesuit, the first to choose the name of Francis.... And here's another list of firsts (or suprises), which I compiled, as they came hitting me, from the moment I saw him on the famous loggia of St. Peter's Basilica. For all I know, he was the first Pope to turn his maiden speech into a warm heart-to-heart chat, beginning with a simple "good evening" and ending with "good night, sleep well." There was an instant, electric connect between the man and the millions who were watching him, both from the square and from all over the globe. We are at the dawn of the Pope Francis wave! Before imparting his first blessing to the people, he asked them to bless him, in a way, and to pray to God for him. "The prayer of the people for their bishop," he said. And he bowed profoundly. One could hear a pin drop in the square. I wonder if any other Pope in history did that! The Cardinal harbinger had announced, Habemus Papam -- "We have a Pope!" But the Pope, who followed him on the balcony, did not utter that word even once. He referred to himself as the "Bishop" (of Rome). He even spoke of Benedict XVI as the "Bishop Emeritus." Contrast this with the sentences we have often heard our Popes use in recent times: "The pope loves you!" "The pope shares in your pain!" It looks like Francis is trying to make a very significant statement, which will make us look at papacy with new eyes. We all read about his antecedents: how he gave up his archbishop's palace and his limousine and lived in a small apartment, cooking his own meals and taking public transport and visiting crime-ridden slums often -- he, the Cardinal-Archbishop of the largest city in South America! We saw how he refused to sit on the cathedra on that first day, in order to receive the obeisance of the cardinals, which, according to time-worn tradition, they are supposed to pay kneeling before the Pope. Instead, he chose to stand by the side of the throne and embraced each cardinal warmly. We also came to know that, on the next day of his election, the Pope 'sneaked out' of the Vatican, not in the papal limousine, but in a Vatican gendarmerie vehicle, to go to pray to the Madonna in the Basilica dedicated to Her (the Santa Maria Maggiore), and that, on his way back, he went personally to pick up his bags from the Priests' Residence where he was lodging before he entered the Conclave. And how he insisted on paying the bill! On his first Sunday as Pope, he celebrated Mass in the Parish Church of the Vatican. For the first time I saw a pope leave his seat and walk briskly to the lectern, to deliver an impromptu homily, which lasted... five minutes! (Usually popes -- and, sometimes, bishops -- sit and preach, to symbolize their teaching authority). Simple language, profound teaching and great eye-contact! He brought to my mind Pope John Paul I, the pope who, in his very brief ministry in the year 1978, had conquered the world with his flashy smile and strikingly down-to-earth teachings. Later that day, at his first Angelus address from the papal window, Pope Francis was cheered lustily by his three hundred thousand listeners down below when he ended with "buon pranzo", the greeting one hears ten times a day in Italy -- "Have a good lunch!" He seems to have effectively departed from the age-long tradition of the pontiff preaching from the chair. Both during the very official Mass of the inauguration of his Ministry, on March 18, and during the solemn Palm Sunday liturgy, he chose to stand and preach. Like any other priest. And that is another very significant statement! A little known fact is that, on the inauguration day, a wide-eyed garbage scavenger from Buenos Aires, Sergio Sanchez, stood with the Pope as he addressed the VIPs. In the words of Sanchez, "We walked behind him and entered a large hall; there were the presidents, the kings, but we were there... like his family." Sanchez was among the few Argentinian hoi polloi, personally known to the Pope, who had been invited to the occasion. Three days later, Sanchez was back in Buenos Aires, sifting through the city's garbage. In the year he was created cardinal (2001), Bergoglio is known to have celebrated his Holy Thursday Mass in a hospice and washed and kissed the feet of AIDS patients who had been abandoned by their families. In 2008 he did the same to drug addicts at a rehabilitation centre in Buenos Aires. Coming to the Vatican hasn't changed him. Today he becomes the first Pope to celebrate the Holy Thursday Mass, not in St. Peter's Square, but at a juvenile detention centre in Rome. The Pope is going to kiss the feet of young delinquents, bringing to them the warmth of the love of Jesus. We surely have a new kind of papacy here! And the last big surprise... so far: he decided not to live in the official residence of the Pope, the Apostolic Palace, about which he is rumoured to have said: "Three hundred people could live in here!" Instead, he has planned to stay in Room No. 201 of Domus Sanctae Marthae, a Residence for the Clergy and other Vatican personnel. He will take common meals with the other residents. And who knows? He may surprise them all with a Filleto al Bergogliano some day! He took the name of Francis, after Francis of Assisi, who was a lover of poverty and of peace and who brothered the whole of creation, thus giving us a shining example of how to take care of the persons and the gifts entrusted to us by God. Eight centuries ago, Francis of Assisi heard God tell him, "Repair my Church." This Francis too faces the same challenge. A huge, very huge challenge indeed. But just you wait: ours is a Pope of surprises! All in all, we seem to be in front of something strikingly new, evocative of Isaiah 43, 19: "Behold, I am doing something new. Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?" Perhaps the white smoke on 13th March -- which, incidentally, billowed out of the papal chimney in sheer abundance, almost polluting the air -- actually signified a fresh, regenerating breeze. ###