The Radical Vision of Jesus: How Pope Francis Lives His First Encyclical

By Bishop John Wester

One of the numerous surprising moments of Pope Francis' young pontificate was the announcement that on Holy Thursday, March 28, he would celebrate the Mass of the Lord's Supper at Rome's Casa Del Marmo Youth Detention Centre. There, in an unforgettable moment, he washed the feet of 12 young inmates. In anticipation of the pope's visit, one of them said, "At last I shall get to meet someone who says he is my father!"

This observation captures the power of the pope's gesture. "True power is service," Pope Francis said in his inaugural homily and later on Twitter. And the power of this particular act of service is that it cast a light where there was darkness, a light that allowed a young person the world had forgotten to experience a father's love for the first time.

In Pope Francis' first encyclical, Lumen Fidei (Light of Faith), published July 5, the pope says that faith is a light that comes directly from an encounter with God. "The light of faith is unique," the pope writes, "since it is capable of illuminating every aspect of human existence."

This includes the past and all the people who have walked the path of faith before us, but also the promises for the future that God makes and keeps because he is faithful. And of course it includes Jesus, the embodiment of God's fulfilled promises.

"Faith does not merely gaze at Jesus, but sees things as Jesus himself sees them, with his own eyes," Pope Francis writes. Christ's way of seeing the world "enables us to grasp reality's deepest meaning" and constantly guides us toward God. It is through this experience of Christ that our lives become "radically open to a love that precedes us, and love that transforms us from within, acting in us and through us in radical, often surprising ways."

It's not a stretch to think that Pope Francis washed the feet of the young inmates because he sees the world with the radical vision of Jesus, who sees that God loves these inmates as much as he love any other person. It also reflects the call of Jesus to serve those at the margins.

Like a light shining forth, faith makes a person go forth into the world. A person of faith must be ready "to come out of himself and find the God of perpetual surprises," Pope Francis writes. Even the Ten Commandments, he writes, aren't about rule keeping so much as "concrete directions for emerging from the desert of the selfish and self-enclosed ego in order to enter into dialogue with God, to be embraced by his mercy and then to bring that mercy to others."

Those who believe in the light of faith, he says, come to see themselves as members of a body, in an essential relationship with others. This relationship goes beyond powerful symbolic gestures like washing feet and applies the same love to big-picture issues like just economic systems, care for creation and forgiving one another. But little gestures are vital, because they allow the light of faith to spread, even reaching places it hasn't been for a long time or maybe has never been before.

Whether it's his Holy Thursday Mass in prison or the July 8 Mass for migrants on Lamedusa Island, how many people have responded to the gestures of Pope Francis with surprise, followed by an enthusiasm for faith and even an openness to Christ and his Church that wasn't there before? What a perfect example for the Church during the Year of Faith. The light of faith is powerful enough to help the whole world to see like Jesus.

Bishop Wester is bishop of the Diocese of Salt Lake City and chairman of the Communications Committee of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

(CNS Photo/L'Osservatore Romano via Reuters)

Here comes everybody: divorced, gays, sinners, a couple saints

It amazes me when basic church teaching is received as if it were something brand new. This morning's New York Times brought the latest example with the headline: "Dolan Says the Catholic Church Should Be More Welcoming to Gay People." A glance at other media outlets finds similar news accounts. From the NBC website: "Cardinal Dolan: Church Must Embrace Gays, Lesbians." Then from the NY Daily News: "'Jesus died on the cross for them as much as He did for me’: Cardinal Dolan says church should not push away gays."

Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York created this media storm with basic pastoral comments on ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" and CBS's "Face the Nation" with Bob Schieffer. Cardinal Dolan said the church is there for everyone.

I have two reactions.

1. The word "catholic" means all-encompassing, so how can people get the impression that the church is exclusionary? No one is carded at a Catholic Church. Shunning is not the Catholic tradition. Other news reports this week give homey examples of the church's inclusionary nature. Ann Rodgers, a reporter from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, was selected to carry olive branches in a Palm Sunday procession at the Vatican. Ann said she wasn't Catholic, but that wasn't a problem for organizers at the Holy See. A few days afterwards, a Muslim girl in a Rome youth detention facility had her feet washed by Pope Francis at the Holy Thursday Mass of the Lord's Supper. Her standing outside the fold was no problem for the papal advance men. To reiterate Cardinal Dolan's point: Gays ae welcome in the church. So are divorced people. Heck, even in the rare instances that people are excommunicated, they're still expected at Sunday Mass. Although some sects ban you from the property for violating their rules, the Catholic Church still wants you in the pew.

2. More people have been excommunicated by their Aunt Minnie than by the church. Much of the media, and many Catholics, miss the fact that the Catholic Church is a church of mercy and forgiveness, and most of all, communion. It is so encompassing that writer James Joyce defined Catholicsm as "here comes everybody." The church looks for ways to make things better for people. We have seven sacraments -- and three, Baptism, the Sacrament of Reconciliation and the Sacrament of the Sick, are geared to bringing people into or back into the fold, sinner or no. It's pratically impossible to get out of the Catholic Church where if you leave we call you an ex-Catholic rather than a Protestant, atheist or the latest term, a "none" (the last in deference to pollsters who force you to check some box when asked about your religious practice).

Gay marriage is the issue de jour for media. So when Caridnal Dolan on Easter spoke kindly of the gays and lesbians, media feigned shock. In reality, the Catholic Church challenges all its members -- in different ways over different issues.

But know this: The Catholic Church will battle hard to maintain the sacredness of marriage as between a man and a woman. It also offers counseling to help people avoid divorce. It patiently insists that frenetic couples entering into marriage go through pre-marital counseling, no matter how busy they are with wedding planners and caterers. For the Catholic Church marriage is worth it all, even sadly, a trip to the U.S. Supreme Court.

And know even more: God's love for his children is boundless. A disagreement on the definition of marriage is a serious disagreement. It is not, however, separation from the love of God.

Holy Thursday Holiday

By Sister Mary Ann Walsh

We're off work Thursday and Friday at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, USCCB president, gave us Thursday off in honor of the election of Pope Francis.  Good Friday always has been a holiday here. I hope giving us Holy Thursday as a day off continues. It is not a holy day of obligation, nor is Good Friday for that matter, but Holy Thursday is special to me. It celebrates the institution of the Eucharist, which lies at the heart of our Catholic faith. Maybe my warm feelings for the day go back to when I was a kid taking part in Holy Thursday processions and later as a teenager visiting churches to pray at beautifully decorated altars of repose.

A few years ago a young adult who wasn't a churchgoer asked if she could go to Mass with me on Holy Thursday. I said sure, but wondered why the sudden fervor. Come to find out that Holy Thursday was a big day when she was in college because students involved with campus ministry at  her school followed the Mass of the Lord's Supper with a pizza party. I am sure there was some connection to the meal in the Upper Room with the disciples, a shared supper among close friends. My young friend couldn't articulate it, but she knew the day was special, even if Sunday Mass was not at that point in her life.

Pope Francis will continue the custom of leading the Stations of the Cross at Rome's Colosseum on Good Friday. The Vatican has released the prayers he will say at http://www.vatican.va/news_services/liturgy/2013/documents/ns_lit_doc_20130329_via-crucis_en.html. The Vatican selects different groups of people annually to write the prayers. This year young people from Lebanon wrote them.

We're still debriefing after the papal transition. We've asked communications direrctors who were with us in Rome to come here in May for a post-up. It's not hard to get people to come to Washington in the spring. We're looking ahead too -- to the Catholic Media Convocation in Denver in June and World Youth Day with Pope Francis in Rio de Janeiro in July. Working to spread the Gospel can be fun.

Have a blessed Triduum and a happy Easter.

Staying at the Domus

By Sister Mary Ann Walsh

Well, I'll be dining out on the fact that like Pope Francis, I too have stayed at the Domus Sanctae Marthae, the guest house at the Vatican that the pope has opted for over the papal apartments. He'll get a two-room suite. I had a single room when I stayed there about a year ago while at meetings in Rome.

The Domus means still more simple living for Pope Francis, who is making simplicity the hallmark of the start of his papacy. (I just called a colleague who is slated to be at the Domus in the spring to alert her to the fact that the diner in all white at the next table [or maybe hers] will likely be the pope.)

Vatican reports say the pope chose the Domus for community -- he can share meals with Vatican staff who live there and with visitors, for example. It has a nice size chapel and also is walking distance to his church, St. Peter's Basilica. The phones work well, which may be no small matter for the man who continues to call old friends and aquaintances despite his recent promotion. Security used to be tight at the Domus because of its location inside the Vatican. It will be tighter now, for sure.

The pope's plans for Holy Thursday will be simple too. Father Federico Lombardi, SJ, Vatican spokesman, said the Mass of the Lord's Supper that the pope will celebrate at a penitential institute for minors will have but two concelebrants, the institute's chaplain and Cardinal Agostino Vallini, vicar general for the diocese of Rome. Around 10 girl and 40 boys will take part in the Mass and the pope will wash the feet of 12 of them. About 150 people in all are expected to attend. The youth will give the pope a wooden crucifix and kneeler they made in a workshop, and the pope will bring them Easter eggs and a traditional Italian Easter cake shaped like a dove.

Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco stopped by the USCCB today for an interview with Catholic News Service. He was in town to speak at a march on the U.S. Suprerme Court, which today heard arguments on Proposition 8, the California law that said marriage was defined as between a man and a woman. Tomorrow the Court hears arguments on the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), the law which states that for federal government purposes, marriage is defined as between a man and a woman. We can expect decisions on these cases in June, at the end of the term.

Met with media relations staff to discuss what's on the agenda for after Easter and it's immigration, with an audio press conference slated for April 3, featuring Archbishop José Gomez of Los Angeles and Bishop John Wester of Salt Lake City. Archbishop Gomez chairs the bishops' Committee on Migration and Bishop Wester, the Committee on Communications.

Holy Thursday, Dolores Hart and the Mystery of Love

HBO explores the mystery of love April 5, when the network airs “God Is the Bigger Elvis.” It is the story of Dolores Hart, a young starlet of the fifties and sixties who became a cloistered nun. The little more than half-hour documentary, which was nominated for an Academy Award in 2012, reflects the mystery of God in the actress’s life and the power of two loves.

Dolores Hart is now the prioress of Regina Laudis Abbey in Bethlehem, Connecticut. The story reveals the film and Broadway star’s enduring commitments to her one-time fiancé Don Robinson and to God. In 1963, Dolores Hart left Robinson, an architect, for life in the cloister. The stage lights yielded to chapel candles, and curtain call to the convent bell that announce the hours of the Divine Office. Their deep friendship remained, however; so too, her commitment to God.

“God Is the Bigger Elvis” celebrates lasting love. Don, who never married, visited Mother Dolores annually and helped support the rural 400-acre monastery with its working farm. He died last November. Mother Dolores, meanwhile, now celebrates almost 50 years as a Benedictine nun.

The actress, who gave Elvis Presley his first on-screen kiss in “Loving You” and starred on Broadway in “The Pleasure of His Company,” knew romance-full Hollywood. Yet she chose the most romantic life of all when she entered the monastery. What can be more romantic that giving your life to the unseen God and responding to a stirring of the heart evoked by Someone who offers no sweet nothings?

In the documentary, Mother Dolores does not explain the call that has sustained her half a century. But who of us really can explain love, even the spark that launches a couple's decades-long friendship, even marriage? “It was her smile,” some say. “His laugh.” “His eyes.” “The way she walked into a room.” “He was so much fun.” “She was so pretty.”

Even harder to explain is the love that a nun has for a church and a religious community through its human and, sometimes, inhumane moments. Who can explain her steadfast love for an itinerant preacher who walked in Galilee 2,000 years ago?

HBO will air the program on Holy Thursday, the commemoration of another love story, that of the Man Who gave up His life for His friends. It is the story of the ultimate sacrifice that underlies the faith of Christians around the world. Like other loves, it holds an element of mystery, and we accept it, without complete understanding.

Speaking to NBC-TV last January, Mother Dolores said that when she broke off her engagement, she told Don Robinson, “Every love doesn’t have to end at the altar.” On the Hollywood level, theirs did not. His obit said they were “close, close friends.” Yet, on the level of abiding friendship, perhaps it did.

For great loves do lead to an altar, the altar of sacrifice that is celebrated especially every Holy Week. It is a solemn love, intangible, yet real; more passionate than even swivel-hipped Elvis, and powerful enough to hold us to Him, never seen yet felt within our very souls.