‘Wandering fire’
-A A +ASaturday, March 16, 2013
CONTRAST Rep. Tomas Osmena and the new Pope Francis,” this friend suggested urgently. What contrast, we asked. And why?
“Your congressman toddled all over Cebu in a bogus Cebu City police car,” he replied. But Pope Francis waved aside the papal Mercedes-Benz armor-plated limousine with an SCV1 number. Instead, he hitched a ride on the bus, with the cardinals to his temporary residence.”
Yes, that was a cynical scam.
However, the contrast reveals seemingly insignificant acts can signal deeper meanings. Former Argentinean cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, (pronounced Ber-GOAL-io) for instance, brushed aside ermine-lined cloaks that new popes don. Instead, he stepped forward in a plain white cassock.
"Let us not keep the people waiting," he gently told dignitaries, who clustered to greet him outside the “Room of Tears”: On the basilica balcony, he asked people to bless him before blessing them in return. “Good night, and have a good rest,” he concluded, in a grandfatherly tone.
As the 266th pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church, he is the first non-European pope in more than 1,200 years. He’s also the first Jesuit order to lead the church. His tasks will be somewhat more grueling than Tomas Osmeña's obsession to regain sede mayoris.
“In choosing Francis, the cardinal, 76, who had been the archbishop of Buenos Aires, sent a powerful message that the future of the church lies in the global south, home to the bulk of the world’s Catholics,” New York Times noted.
Curia reform, foreign policy and the church’s vision of Asia would be crucial to the new pope. “If Roman Catholicism was capable of learning Greek while it was speaking Aramaic, of learning Celtic while it was speaking Latin, now it either has to learn Chinese or ciao,” the Italian word for “goodbye,” says a Vatican reporter.
Pope Francis “stopped to pay his hotel bill a day after becoming pope. He wore simple black shoes and an ordinary wristwatch with a thick black band to his first Mass as pontiff.”
After blessing the faithful, the new pope “left to go back with us to Santa Marta residence,” Cardinal Ricard of France recalls.
“The staff moved us aside, because the pontiff descends alone in the elevator.” But this pope protested: “No no, no, no. We can all get in.”
Pope Francis came for his luggage himself, recalls Fr. Pawel Rytel-Andrianek. He wanted to thank the staff. "He greeted them one by one, the whole staff." Rytel-Andrianek said, “The pope knew everyone by name.”
"Never in these 20 years when he came to Rome for work did he ask for a (Vatican) car," he said. "Even when he went for the conclave with a priest from his diocese, he just walked out to the main road, flagged a taxi for the Sistine Chapel.”
The new pope models his work on that of Francis of Assisi: the North Umbrian gave away a vast inheritance to follow his Lord.
“Francis catalyzed the ‘Renaissance,’ which is older than many European states,” George Will wrote in “Memories of a Wandering Fire.” He saw that faith “is not made more credible by arranging its institutional furniture.”
The personality of this 43-year old friar sent thousands practicing evangelical poverty. He was a “wandering fire,” writer G.K.
Chesterton marveled. Can Tomas Osmeña look beyond rearranging institutional furniture in city hall? He, too, is challenged to become "wandering fire."
Published in the Sun.Star Cebu newspaper on March 17, 2013.
Opinion
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