I was reading David Brooks’ “The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life,” when Pope Francis died. This paragraph, pulled from Brooks’ conclusion, struck me as almost the definition of the pope’s ministry to the Western world:
Modern society needs a moral ecology that rejects the reigning hyper-individualism of the moment. We need to articulate a creed that puts relation, not the individual, at the center, and which articulates, in clear form, the truths we all know: that we are formed by relationship, we are nourished by relationship, and we long for relationship. Life is not a solitary journey. It is building a home together. It is a process of being formed by attachments and then forming attachments in turn. It is a great chain of generations passing down gifts to one another. (300)
Since the pope’s death on April 21, commentators have been pouring out their thoughts on his pontificate. This is where writers and journalists start shaping him into history, and the tug-of-war over his legacy begins. But I want to step back from the scrutiny of his motivations and methods and look at Pope Francis more holistically, because I believe that’s how he saw the world.
Even when he was preaching in a purely Catholic context, Pope Francis was always speaking to everyone – in his “field hospital after battle” analogy, our role as a church is to throw open the doors and admit those wounded by the lack of God in their lives. Then, as the metaphor implies, our mission is to doctor and nurse them back to spiritual health – but to focus on the major damage initially, not to get too caught up in the details. Here is the full quote, from “A Big Heart Open to God,” an interview by Antonio Spadaro, S.J., for the Sept. 30, 2013, issue of “America” magazine:
The thing the church needs most today is the ability to heal wounds and to warm the hearts of the faithful; it needs nearness, proximity. I see the church as a field hospital after battle. It is useless to ask a seriously injured person if he has high cholesterol and about the level of his blood sugars! You have to heal his wounds. Then we can talk about everything else. Heal the wounds, heal the wounds. … And you have to start from the ground up.
Starting “from the ground up” requires reaching and teaching beyond church walls. In 2017, Pope Francis became the first pope to give a TED talk. TED, an acronym for technology, entertainment and design, is a sort of international public forum – experts from many disciplines are invited to give conference talks, and the videos and transcripts can be viewed online at ted.com. Of all the pope’s many writings, homilies and encyclicals, this talk is one of the few to be directed to all listeners in a purely secular forum.
The message, titled “Why the Only Future Worth Building Includes Everyone” (the TED Conference was on “The Future You”), uses the familiar parable of the Good Samaritan and lays out some themes of his pontificate: mercy, love, human dignity, the responsibilities the come with wealth and power, care for the Earth and the poor, hope, a needed “revolution of 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. (14:06)
Exemplifying this tenderness was the work of Francis’ papacy. He lived in humble rooms, wore humble garments and rode in humble cars. He hugged the disfigured, washed the feet of prisoners and refugees, dined with the homeless and the migrants. He kissed the feet of the leaders of South Sudan to beg for peace. In Vatican City, he dedicated a building to the homeless, created a shower room for them and opened a medical clinic in a former post office. He had tremendous tenderness for the poor, the ailing, the forgotten elderly, people trapped by war – all those left behind by the “throwaway culture.”
As Jesus taught, these corporal works of mercy are at the core of our mission as Christians, and Pope Francis brought this ministry to the forefront in a very visible way. But he also confronted spiritual afflictions – from loneliness and despair to individualism and the limitations of power, status and wealth – particularly when speaking of the secular Western world. In short, he sought to move Christianity out of the cultural margins, where it has fallen in recent decades, and return it to the social and digital dialogue.
Pope Francis took this first step of reintroducing the Christian worldview, emphasizing the faith-driven version of Brooks’ “moral ecology” that connects us all with one another and the Earth. To a world where many have been wounded, his vision – a God that forgives, a church that welcomes, a society that loves – is attractive, and a strange new trend is already emerging in Europe and the U.S. At the recent Easter vigil, record numbers of young adults in France, Britain and the U.S. were baptized. Here’s one quote, from the Catholic Leader, posted April 25:
The church in France will welcome more than 10,384 adult catechumens at Easter, marking a 45 percent increase from 2024 figures, according to data released by the French Bishops’ Conference. (“Record number of adult baptisms in France Shows Surge Among Youth”)
The article goes on to explain that adults are converting younger, with the largest number of converts ages 18-25. “Additionally, adolescent baptisms have surged, with more than 7,400 teenagers between 11 and 17 years old preparing to receive the sacrament,” the article continues.
Another article, “The Young Converts Leading Catholicism’s UK Comeback,” published last month by The Week, tells a similar tale. The lead sentence is: “The Catholic Church is experiencing a mini revival in Britain, driven by a new generation of converts.”
This is the headline from the National Catholic Register on the conversion trend across the United States: “Welcome Home: Many Dioceses See Sharp Growth in Converts to Catholic Faith This Easter,” published April 17 on ncregister.com.
Pope Francis was sometimes criticized for his lack of doctrinal clarity (and I’m pretty sure his staff started sweating every time he gave an off-the-cuff interview on an airplane), but the fact was that he had a different priority – namely, ignoring the high cholesterol and the blood-sugar levels so he could stop the bleeding. “Heal the wounds,” he said, and that is how he led the church. We saw the power of it in our own Eucharistic Revival – when the U.S. bishops learned that belief in the Real Presence was waning, they kicked into action. They stopped the bleeding.
Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan, in her April 24 column, “What We Need in Pope Francis’ Successor,” hopes the new pope will be joyful, “in love with Jesus” and happy to be in love. She hopes to see a focus on education – which, I would agree, is the next logical step in the evangelization process promulgated by Pope Francis. Noonan opines:
This is the time for a great teaching pope whose mission is telling the world the meaning of the faith, its history, how it came to its dogma, what it believes and why. How personal faith can come and be won, and what you do to hold on to it. The church must speak to the human heart, which is always hungry.
This is what the Order of Christian Initiation of Adults ministry does, is it not? Opens the doors, welcomes the stranger, then educates and accompanies him or her on the faith journey. But I also like the idea that the church could lead a philosophical conversation and draw in people via intellect. (Is it weird that I was delighted to see Pope Francis and J.D. Vance disagreeing about the relevance of ordo amoris? Usually public conflicts are about football or politics or spatting celebrities.)
Pope Francis, may he rest in peace, has given us the gift of his ministry and of his vision of evangelization, and now we are left to fulfill it. Those of us who know the faith should be ready to mentor new Catholics, to help our parishes move from Maintenance to Mission, and to serve our communities. God, be with us!
