Bulletins

October 6, 2013

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As tempting as it is to carve out a corner in the weekly bulletin for a new regular feature called "What the Pope Really Said" I shall refrain… for the time being.

At the end of the summer a lengthy interview with the Holy Father was conducted and published by several Jesuit journals, including America magazine. That is still worth reading (americamagazine.org/pope-interview), especially if you have only read about it.

At the beginning of this month another interview but of more modest length was published by the Italian newspaper La Repubblica. The interview followed upon a letter addressed to the Pope in July on the pages of the same newspaper in response to the Pontiff's first encyclical "Lumen Fidei" dated 29 June 2013, Pope Francis having replied to the July editorial with his own letter, also published by La Repubblica in September.

One question and answer from the October interview concerned politics and occupy this week's "State of the Commonwealth" section.

The former Catholic and prominent atheist who conducted the interview, La Repubblica co-founder Eugenio Scalfari, asked the Pope about a variety of topics, beginning with the Holy Father's conviction that "the most serious of the evils that afflict the world these days are youth unemployment and the loneliness of the old", the Pope's approach to faith and his attitude toward non-believers, his concern about the Vatican-centric focus of the Roman Curia and the narcissism of many Church leaders.

If we read into his comments a desire to change the Faith we would be mistaken, provided that the newspaper published an accurate account of the conversation. Only slight differences can be noticed between it and the Vatican Radio report on the interview. If we perceive in the Holy Father a spirit similar to that of St. Francis of Assisi and Mother Teresa we might be reading him correctly. Remember that Pope Francis just announced in linguam latinam that he will canonize Pope John XXIII and Pope John Paul II next year on April 27, the day on which we will celebrate the Second Sunday of Easter and Divine Mercy. The reform rooted in Sacred Tradition which was undertaken by these two Roman Pontiffs did not succeed in overcoming the inertia of their bureaucracies. They were loved by people who neither understood them nor believed the Faith…. and by us too. As misunderstood as Pope Francis is by many, he is loved and he is making the Catholic Church a topic of daily conversation. Let's pray that the Holy Spirit enlighten everyone listening to him.

God bless you.

Fr. Christopher J. Pollard