GOD’S FOOL
An op-ed in a recent NY Times comments on Pope Francis:
“Whether he’s cleaning the feet of the homeless, dialing up
strangers for late-night chats or convincing a self-described
atheist like Raul Castro to give a second look at the Catholic
Church, the pope who took the name of a nature-loving pauper is a
transformative gust.”
A gust? No, rather a gentle whirlwind of the Spirit, bent on
renewing, not only the Roman Catholic Church, but the face of the
earth as well. Why does this man exert such a strange
attractiveness? Why this undeniable magnetism when truth and folly
stand together? Is it because Pope Francis seems to change all the
rules, because he looks in different directions for joy, because he
finds love in the most unsuspected places?
Yes, but something more. He is neither left nor right, conservative
nor liberal. He is radical! He consistently demonstrates how we
can only see things correctly from a disestablished position. He
sees as Jesus did….from the bottom. Away with pomp and ceremony.
Enough with telling others what they should or should not be doing.
While so many people wait for him to reverse the directives of his
predecessor or to disregard the church’s traditions, Francis
embraces the poor and exhorts everyone to embrace one another in
forgiveness and compassion.
Pope Francis repeatedly exhorts us to get out of our well-appointed
offices and comfortable homes and get into the streets to discover
the hurts and share the joys of the common folk. It is there we
will discover that our own hearts are hurting and our minds are
overburdened with too many worries and not enough joy. It is that
much needed joy that Pope Francis shows us as he mingles with the
crowds, hugs the little ones, embraces the poor and marginalized by
society. He simply cannot leave anyone or anything outside the
parameters of his love. His serenity and his “deprecating lightness
of being” seem inexorably to attract the whole world.
……except climate science deniers probably best represented by the
Koch Brothers funded Heartland Institute whose members recently
accused Pope Francis of being “fooled” by so-called experts at the
United Nations. Heartland representatives hurriedly flew to the
Vatican in an attempt to infiltrate a press conference during an
international summit on climate change at which Ban Ki Moon made a
dynamic appeal for a global agreement to address the crisis by the
end of the year. One of the Heartland reps scolded the Pope saying
“while he may have great moral authority, he is not an authority on
climate science”.
Nonetheless this radiant, joyful and powerful moral authority will
soon release a major encyclical in which he will declare that
preventing a climate crisis is a moral imperative, and that standing
idly by while God’s magnificent creation is being destroyed is
immoral. This encyclical will challenge the world to choose between
the fossil fuel donors and the gift of God’s love for this world.
Like his chosen patron, St. Francis of Assisi, Pope Francis knows
there is power in being a somebody, but there is truth in being a
nobody. He opts for the truth because he is certain from the
example of Jesus crucified that the Lord would eventually create
power out of truth. So he chooses weakness instead of strength,
vulnerability instead of righteousness, truth instead of
practicality, honesty instead of influence. And all the while he
smiles! What an amazing contrast to our present-day business
oriented world which measures success only in terms of profit, power
and prestige.
Pope Francis has a lot of reasons to be discouraged. He sees
corruption in the church and in the world. He calls for reform by
his style of life, but his view from the bottom certainly does not
become fashionable. Yet he is a man of deep and abiding joy. He
continues to lift up peoples’ hearts and give them reasons for
spiritual joy. He smiles as he asks all of us to become fools for
God!
By Fr. Bert Ebben,
OP