12 years. What a ride it has been.
Pope Francis has been an earthquake in the Church. Trusting in the Holy Spirit, he has boldly led the People of God on a path towards necessary conversion, reform, and repentance.
He’s far from perfect, and has met with great resistance, but there is no stepping back from the course he has set.
Elected at the age of 76, the length of Francis’s papacy has surpassed that of over 200 of his 265 predecessors. (I’ll leave figuring out the exact number to others.)
I am grateful that he is still with us. I am grateful for everything he has done to help me and so many others grow in faith. What a blessing he has been.
This is a Jubilee year and this pope still has much to teach us.
Two veteran journalists working in the Vatican, Andrea Tornielli of the Communications Dicastery and Gianni Valente of Agenzia Fides have both written in recent days about an emerging theme of Pope Francis’s papacy: fragility.
Tornielli:
Twelve years ago, the then Cardinal Bergoglio addressed the General Congregations, quoting Henri De Lubac’s opinion that “the worst evil” the Church can incur is “spiritual worldliness”: The danger of a Church that “believes she has light of its own”, that counts on her own strength, her own strategies, her own efficiency, and thus ceases to be the “mysterium lunae”, that is, no longer reflecting the light of Another, no longer living and acting only by the grace of the One who said: “Without me you can do nothing”.
Remembering those words once again, today, we look with affection and hope at the windows of the tenth floor of Gemelli Hospital. We thank Pope Francis for this magisterium of fragility, for that still feeble voice of his that has joined the Rosary in St Peter’s Square in recent days—a fragile voice that continues to implore peace and not war, dialogue and not oppression, compassion and not indifference.
Valente:
Embracing his fragility and weaknesses, with his body exhausted and never shying away from the work to which his vocation and ministry have called him, Pope Francis repeats without needing to use words what he has always proclaimed: the Church cannot be saved by a poor man, but by the grace of Christ, who guides, heals, and sustains her with His grace and His Spirit.
The human frailties of the Bishops of Rome do not disfigure the face of the Church; on the contrary, they reveal the mystery that keeps her alive and makes her journey in history.
Christ’s salvation embraces men and women just as they are, wounded by original sin, exposed to illness and falls, and this applies to everyone, beginning with the Successors of Peter. From Saint Peter to today, human frailty has never endangered the Church.
Later in his piece, Valente reminds us that Pope Francis has never hidden his fragility and his humanity. Nathan Turowsky wrote a piece on that subject all the way back in 2020. Perhaps in this social media era it would be impossible to do otherwise.
Exposing our vulnerability, imperfections, and fragility seems counterintuitive in a society where bravado and toxic masculinity are treated like survival skills. Certainly virtues like humility and meekness are not the first things in most of our minds when we hear about violence and injustice. I must admit that expressions like “Revolution of Tenderness” are grating to my red-blooded American ears, at least initially.
Yet Pope Francis called for a Revolution of Tenderness in a 2017 TED Talk:
And what is tenderness? It is the love that comes close and becomes real. It is a movement that starts from our heart and reaches the eyes, the ears and the hands. Tenderness means to use our eyes to see the other, our ears to hear the other, to listen to the children, the poor, those who are afraid of the future.To listen also to the silent cry of our common home, of our sick and polluted earth. Tenderness means to use our hands and our heart to comfort the other, to take care of those in need.
Tenderness is the language of the young children, of those who need the other. A child’s love for mom and dad grows through their touch, their gaze, their voice, their tenderness. I like when I hear parents talk to their babies, adapting to the little child, sharing the same level of communication. This is tenderness: being on the same level as the other. God himself descended into Jesus to be on our level. This is the same path the Good Samaritan took. This is the path that Jesus himself took. He lowered himself, he lived his entire human existence practicing the real, concrete language of love.
Yes, tenderness is the path of choice for the strongest, most courageous men and women. Tenderness is not weakness; it is fortitude. It is the path of solidarity, the path of humility. Please, allow me to say it loud and clear: the more powerful you are, the more your actions will have an impact on people, the more responsible you are to act humbly. If you don’t, your power will ruin you, and you will ruin the other.
The message of the Gospel is one of mercy and forgiveness. We are all sinners. Life is more fragile than we think. Blessed are the peacemakers. Blessed are those who show tenderness.
I don’t think there’s a single Catholic who has not been challenged in some way by Pope Francis’s teaching.
I look forward to what he has to teach us in the next chapter of his papacy.
Image: Vatican Media.
Mike Lewis is the founding managing editor of Where Peter Is. He and Jeannie Gaffigan co-host Field Hospital, a U.S. Catholic podcast.
Popular Posts