Habemus papam. In these first few days of a new papacy many thoughts go through our minds, some guided by what we read in the press or see on television news commentary. But there are other thoughts, purely internal reflections. Just as we all had our own personal memories of the way the previous pope affected our thinking and our spiritual journeys, as Catholics, and we contributors to WPI wrote our reflections on Pope Francis after he was called to the Father’s house, I believe there is a place for sharing some early thoughts on what it means for us when a new pope comes into our spiritual and temporal lives.
The papal election of Robert Francis Prevost as Leo XIV was a global media event, quickly becoming a competition among the faithful of many geographical and social settings to say he belonged to them: “An American pope!”; “A citizen of Peru!”; “A native of Chicago!”; “A pope with creole roots in New Orleans!”; “A staunch man of the curia in Rome!”; “A representative of our Augustinian order!” Here in Spain where I live, we had wall-to-wall media coverage in the secular press, with every kind of interpretation of his choice of papal name, from “He’s a socialist, a man of the trade unions like Leo XIII” to “He’s an anti-socialist, standing up against modernism, like Leo XIII!” And inevitably, from the extremist fringes in the dark crazy places of the Internet, come the shrill voices of the terminally conspiratorial: “He’s another deep-church Marxist puppet!”[1]
When I put all this clamor aside to personally reflect on this important moment while watering the broad beans in the raised brick beds of my vegetable garden, my first thought was very simple. As I filled my watering can from the rainwater barrel in the soft evening sun and gently sprinkled the water onto the bean plants, which are just beginning to flower, I took care not to over-water them so they did not sag under the weight of the water. I glanced at my donkeys, who were looking eagerly at me because anything to do with the garden means a food possibility. And in this routine moment in fleeting time—while observing the animal and plant life—it occurred to me that for the first time in my Catholic life, I am older than the new pope!
Not much older. Just four years, but enough to provoke initial thoughts like: this might be the last pope I see elected in my lifetime! And, thoughts like, my spiritual guidance now comes to me from a younger authority! To whom I freely give my obedience. It was an odd realisation. I am retired now but when working I became gradually used to taking instructions from younger heads of department or school principals; and in the religious life, years back, I was accustomed to give obedience to my younger community leaders. You remember that thing your parents used to remark about, “The police officers seem younger every day!” Maybe it’s just that: a younger pope stands out as a kind of milestone. So that was my first thought about Pope Leo while watering my beans.
Then, after giving the evening feed to my donkeys (10% alfalfa for taste, mixed with 90% barley straw, as a low-protein diet for non-working equus asinus africanus), I sat down with a small glass of red wine in a little pergola filled with geraniums overlooking the donkeys, and my reflections turned once again to Pope Leo.
What does his arrival mean and what should I be asking at this stage in my Catholic pilgrimage on this earth? And the loud rhythmical grinding of the forage in the equine jaws below me mysteriously was replaced with the sound of the sea: waves breaking regularly upon a steep plunging shingle beach, where I sat above the waterline watching the waves fall and rake back the rounded grey and white pebbles on a beach below a white chalk cliff. It was a fragment of memory from fifteen years ago which came back to me for the first time—intuitively and quite unprompted—and it was a memory about thoughts of martyrdom in an age of declining Christian faith.
It was a time when I had recently returned to England from studying in Rome and I had taken a temporary job working for a teaching supply agency in Canterbury which sent me for a day’s work here, or a week’s work there, and on this particular day I had been sent to Saint Edmund’s Catholic school in Dover, the port city where you catch the ferry boat to cross the English Channel to France. I had been to this school once or twice before and I disliked going there because the students were ill-disciplined and their behavior became even worse when they were given a substitute teacher! My task for the day was to cover for a Religious Studies teacher who was absent with sickness. She had left very good written instructions for each class, mostly worksheets for the students to complete, with my help; but the students mostly didn’t want to complete the work, and certainly not with my help. It was a difficult morning and at break time I recovered in the staff room with a cup of coffee.
“How is your day going?” asked a young female teacher, giving me a knowing look, for she knew the school had a poor reputation. She looked slightly worn out herself. “Not feeling too much of a martyr?”
“I’ve been to worse places,” I replied. “I was in Saint Thomas of Canterbury school in Thanet yesterday and they were climbing up the walls and swearing at me. It’s the kind of place you need to pray to the saintly martyr himself in order to survive the day.”
I went back to the Religious Studies classroom and the next class were lined up in the corridor ready for the lesson. To my dismay they were the older kids, those who normally hate a substitute teacher the most. Martyrdom was guaranteed here, surely? But no: to my surprise they seemed in good humor and the girl nearest to the classroom door said, “We’re going to watch a film aren’t we?”
“Yes, that’s right,” I replied. I’d seen the plan for this double lesson and it was to watch a film and they were to take notes on the photocopied questionnaire the regular teacher had provided. “It’s a film about Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador.”[2]
The students were following an exam syllabus for Religious Studies and they had already been given introductory material about the life and murder of Archbishop Romero as he was at the altar saying Mass. All I had to do was put the video in the CD player and sit down with them to watch the film. Then they had to write an essay for homework. It was the last lesson before lunch. After the film everyone left in silence. We were all emotionally affected. I could hardly find the words to bring the lesson to its end with their homework task and dismiss the class.
They all went to the school lunch break. I was not needed back until the last lesson of the day, so I walked to Dover beach nearby, with my sandwiches and a drink. As I sat there on the beach watching the waves pulling back the pebbles, all I could think about was the witness and the martyrdom of Archbishop Romero. In the classroom, I had struggled fairly unsuccessfully to hide my tears at the end of the film. Maybe that was good. The students would have seen that the impact of the film was visible on my face as it clearly was on theirs. Now, on Dover beach, I was left alone with my own thoughts on a modern Latin American martyr I had heard about but had never spent any time discovering. I had found the most instructive part of the story to be the way Archbishop Romero’s apparent conservatism as a Catholic figure did not prevent him making common cause with those more inclined towards liberation theology, in all standing up together to be counted and proclaiming the Gospel in a land ruled by death squads and a savage dictatorship: a regime in which the sea of Christian faith had withdrawn. How far away that reality of Latin America seemed, while sitting here on Dover beach!
And then it hit me. It was the same reality. Two elements were merging together and they were teaching me a lesson. I who had come here to Dover to deliver lessons was now struggling to learn a lesson. A verse of Matthew Arnold started going through my head, but I could not remember the exact words of the poem. I finished my sandwiches and looked up the text with the aid of my smartphone.
The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar.
In his poem Dover Beach[3] Arnold used the metaphor of the “long withdrawing roar of the sea of faith” to voice his concern that the withdrawal of Christian faith which kept society cemented together would lead to social incoherence. It quickly became a popular metaphor in both Anglican and Catholic circles at that time. (G.K. Chesterton was a great promoter of Arnold’s thought.)
So, that day fifteen years ago, sitting on Dover beach, I was struck—simply by geographical place—with the juxtaposition of two themes: the martyrdom of Archbishop Oscar Romero in El Salvador, which had profoundly affected me after watching the film; and Arnold’s poem Dover Beach, in which the simple metaphor of the withdrawing waves I saw before me—on the very beach that inspired him—stood for a world deprived of Christian faith. This led to my realization, in a deeply felt way, that Christian martyrdom was a sign of such greater faith when witnessed in a world where faith was scarce or visibly withdrawing. The martyrs are killed in hatred of the faith.
Finally, I returned from my impromptu reverie to the present and the arrival of Robert Francis Prevost, Pope Leo XIV. Many people in the media this week have connected with a pope of the late 19th century and what the name Leo might mean for us. Dover Beach was written in 1867, just a decade before the pontificate of Pope Leo XIII. It was a time when the ‘long withdrawing roar of the sea of faith’ had been noted. Today the tide is perhaps further out in the developed countries of the northern hemisphere. My thoughts are not fully formed but they are in response to hearing the words of Pope Leo XIV. You, Holy Father, are a missionary pope in an age where the sea of faith has withdrawn from much of our land. Please tell us, what is our mission? May Saint Oscar Romero and all those martyrs of the lands in which so many missionaries have served, like you Holy Father in Latin America, pray for us and show us what should be our work in bringing Catholic mission back to the countries of the developed world which in the past sent out the Word of Christ across the sea of faith.
Notes:
[1] A short survey will show that the usual suspects will not come back into line, even now their arch foe Francis is now in his tomb, so the work of WPI will be needed for a long while yet!
[2] Saint Oscar Romero was canonized in 2018 during the papacy of Pope Francis. See further details here: https://cafod.org.uk/news/international-news/about-oscar-romero. Pope Leo XIV, as Cardinal Prevost in 2024, praised Saint Oscar Romero during the Dia de Hispanoamérica as an example of priestly vocation and martyrdom and a man who loved his people. https://newsweekespanol.com/elsalvador/2025/05/09/asi-reacciono-el-salvador-ante-el-nombramiento-de-leon-xiv-cual-es-la-relacion-del-nuevo-papa-con-este-pais/
[3] Matthew Arnold (1822—1888) was a school inspector as well as a poet, but best known for his 1869 work of social criticism, Culture and Anarchy. He toured the USA and Canada giving lectures on education, culture and democracy. The full poem Dover Beach can be read following this link: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43588/dover-beach
Image: Dover beach
Gareth Thomas lives a solitary life in the mountains in Spain with his donkeys. A former aircraft engineer, Franciscan friar and geography teacher, he is a veteran of the pilgrim routes to Compostela.
Popular Posts