Pope's
first full day in US
(Vatican
Radio) Pope Francis has completed the first full day of his Apostolic
visit to the United States, in the
nation’s capital, Washington, DC. The schedule of the Holy Father’s
public engagements for Wednesday
included the official welcome ceremony on the south lawn of the White House, a
meeting with the Catholic
bishops of the United States in St. Matthew’s cathedral, and Mass at
the Basilica of the National
Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, on the campus of the Catholic University
of America.
Three
different occasions, with three very different audiences, and three vastly
different central points of
focus: how did Pope Francis manage to tie them all together and stay “on
message” while doing justice to the particular nature and peculiar scope of
each? The short answer to
that very complex and multifaceted question is that he remembered his training
in Jesuit religious life
and drew on the great Catholic tradition of communication, which speaks at once
to those inside the Church
(ad intra), and those outside the Church’s visible boundaries (ad extra).
If,
in his address to the bishops, he warned that, “Harsh and divisive language
does not befit the tongue of
a Pastor,” he also proved in his own body
and with his own tongue – the body and the tongue of the universal Pastor of the
Universal Church – and ‘harsh and divisive’ is not synonymous with, ‘frank and fearless’,
especially when, at the White House, he reiterated his intention, “[T]o
celebrate and support the
institutions of marriage and the family at this, a critical moment in the
history of our civilization,” and made his own, the US bishops’
clarion call to rally in defense of religious freedom. “[A]ll
are called to be vigilant,”
he said, “precisely as good citizens, to preserve and defend that freedom
from everything that would
threaten or compromise it,” for religious freedom, “remains
one of America’s most precious possessions.”
At
the same time, “American Catholics are committed to building a society which is
truly tolerant and inclusive,
to safeguarding the rights of individuals and communities, and to rejecting
every form of unjust discrimination,”
and our legitimate concern in this regard cannot keep us from working
concretely toward adequate
and equitable solutions to real problems that press upon us with increasing
urgency – problems like
those created by years and decades of failure to care for the created order
over which God has set us as
stewards.
We
have said since before this visit began, that Pope Francis’ purpose in coming
is to engage and encourage,
to listen and to challenge – and yes – in both the
etymological and the colloquial sense, to provoke everyone. What we saw on Wednesday
in Washington, DC, was a Pastor at work – and the work he was
about was the work of exploding
the binary thought patterns that dominate our contemporary culture: he captures
and commands our careful
attention and at the same time he unleashes our pent-up moral imagination; this son of Ignatius
shows us that, in order to seek God in all things, we must be prepared to let
God reveal Himself to us.
The
example he held up for us and for the whole Church and all the world, was that
of an 18th century Franciscan
priest, who was both brilliant scholar and missionary adventurer: Junipero
Serra, OFM, who founded the first nine
of the great chain of 21 missions in California, from San Diego to San
Francisco. “Father
Serra had a motto which inspired his life and work,”
recalled Pope Francis in his homily, “a saying by which helived his
life: siempre adelante! Keep moving forward!” Pope Francis went on to
say, “For [St. Junipero Serra], this
was the way to continue experiencing the joy of the Gospel, to keep his heart
from growing numb, from being
anesthetized. He kept moving forward, because the Lord was
waiting. He kept
going, because his brothers and sisters were waiting.
He kept going forward to the end of his life. Today, like him, may we
be able to say: Forward! Let’s keep moving forward!”
This forward progress is toward a definite goal, the achievement of which is
assured to the Church, and it is
a progress in continuity with the unbroken way that has been cut and forged by
God’s holy ones throughout
all time and into eternity. “We are indebted to a tradition,”
said Pope Francis, “[to] a chain of witnesses who have made it possible for the good
news of the Gospel to be, in every generation, both ‘good’
and ‘news’.”
Pope
Francis has been shaking things up, as they say: so much so, that a leading
English-language journal recently
wondered with cheeky frankness, “Is the Pope Catholic?”
On Wednesday, in Washington, DC, the public thinking, advocacy and witness that
Pope Francis conducted bore the mark of Catholicity in both its capital and
lower-case acceptions.
What
to expect on Thursday, when the Holy Father will again make history when he
addresses a joint meeting
of the US Congress before going on to bless the St. Patrick’s parish soup
kitchen and meet with the
needy who find refuge and sustenance there? More of the same: yesterday, today,
and ever. Do not expect
it to get old.
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