When I
was a nine-year-old, my anti-television mother twice made sure that we turned
on the news. We watched the white smoke and the bells that signaled the
elections of first John Paul I and then John Paul II as pope. As with the first
time men walked on the moon—when I was all of two months old—she knew that this
was something I might want to be able to tell my own children that I was
watching. She was about as far from Roman Catholic as Americans operating in
the Protestant tradition get—raised as a Unitarian Universalist—but she
recognized the historical significance and potentially far reaching
consequences of papal elections.
So when
my first daughter Jane was almost a year old, I too made sure that the
television was on when the emeritus Pope Benedict was introduced. The
circumstances were a little different from what they were when I was a child,
as I had acquired a Catholic husband and had made a promise to him that we
would raise our children in both our faith traditions. This past week, as Pope
Francis made his debut on the balcony of St. Peter’s, my household consisted of
me (a Unitarian Universalist since my childhood), my Catholic husband Tom, and
our children, Jane and Thea, who are learning to be both Catholic and UU at the
same time.
Perhaps
because of my mother’s insistence that we watch the papal introductions in
1978, or perhaps because having Catholic children gives me an investment in the
future of the Roman church, I found myself intensely interested in this month’s
election of the new pope. I had not paid all that much attention to Pope
Benedict XVI, although if pressed I probably could have told you that he wasn’t
doing much to improve the church’s reputation, and that perhaps the scandals
associated with his papacy had significantly worsened the institution. I don’t
have high hopes for the Catholic church. Not only do I disagree with its stance
on the holy trinity of 21st century American gender liberalism—the ordination
of women, gay marriage, and reproductive rights—little in Catholic worship
works for me. The rituals of the mass do not speak to me; my theology is far
from Trinitarian theism; and, most disappointingly, American priests seem not
to have been adequately trained in delivery of moving sermons, so the one
potentially interesting part of the mass usually leaves me cold.
Yet on
Wednesday, when I tuned in the car radio and heard that Vatican City was
resounding with bells and white smoke, I rushed into the house as fast as I
could and opened up CNN’s Pope Cam to watch the proceedings. Along with crowds
in St. Peter’s Square, I heard the Latin introducing Pope Francis and found
myself astonishingly moved, for a Catholic skeptic, at his introductory
remarks. It was not his request for a prayer for him that struck me (this hit
me as a bit more self-aggrandizing than it probably should have). I can not even
properly explain why I was moved to tears. But I was.
To my surprise,
I find myself more interested in this new pope than anyone else in this
Catholic-dominated household. The children, naturally, are not really
positioned to appreciate the rarity or significance of a new pope. When Tom
came home later and I greeted him with “habes papam,” he didn’t realize what I
meant (perhaps I shouldn’t have pulled out my rusty Latin). When we sorted out
our miscommunication, I had trouble figuring out what was the most important
thing to tell him about Francis: that he is the first pope from the Americas;
that he is the first Francis; that he is a Jesuit (I think that last won out
for both of us). I have continued to read avidly about Francis I, and I like
much of what I have read.
Theologian Marcus Borg* distinguishes between religions focused on purity and religions focused on love. No denomination is all one or the other, but each person’s version of their religion tends toward the one or the other—focused on protecting the purity of the faith or on spreading God’s love. As a UU, a denomination with no fixed theology to debate, I definitely find myself leaning toward love (and the current UU PR/social justice campaign Standing on the Side of Love, resonates deeply with me). The Catholic church that I have (mostly casually) observed emanating from Rome in my lifetime has clearly been one of purity. Purity of theology, at least. The terrible effects of some priests’ sexual abuse of children demonstrate that the emphasis was not on love, which would have left children unharmed.
Everything that I have read about Francis’ early papacy suggests that his Catholicism is the Catholicism of love. Love of his brother cardinals, love of his parishioners, love of the poor. The ministry that we have seen so far illustrates his deep pastoral gifts. He keeps himself on the same level as the cardinals who tried to elevate him, disdains sartorial frills, tries to keep the doors open to the public when he goes to a chapel to pray (the Swiss Guard would not permit this), ducked out of the Vatican to greet passers-by in the streets (evading his guard this time), and even committed the faux pas of petting a reporter’s service dog out of a sense of connection and affection. He even had the audacity to take the name of a saint so revered for his devotion to animals and the poor that no other pope has dared to try it. It is possible that Francis’s theology, which I understand to be the traditional conservative European Catholicism that kept him averse to the influence of liberation theology, will be about purity.
*I haven’t read Borg, only heard
these ideas discussed in a sermon. If you can provide me a citation so I can
read more, I would be grateful.