Showing posts with label Francis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Francis. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 25, 2014
Sunday, March 9, 2014
Conservative Pundits Love Pope Francis" Progressive Rhetoric
There’s no question that Pope Francis has Catholics and non-Catholics alike sitting up and taking notice. Posting popularity numbers that most politicians would sell their firstborn child for, Pope Francis is enjoying a Catholic revitalization that is more in words than actual deeds:
Despite the immense popularity the aged Argentine has won since his election last year, not a jot of doctrine has changed, nor has the Catholic Church swelled with American converts.
But there’s more than one way to measure a pontiff’s influence on his far-flung flock. Start asking around — here in Boston and beyond, Catholics and atheists alike — and it’s easy to find people eager to share how one man, in just one year, has changed their lives.
There’s the gay man who finally feels welcome in his church. The woman who weeps when headlines deliver good news at last. The former priest who no longer clenches his fist during Mass. The Latinos who waited forever for a Pope who speaks their language.
“I’m telling you, brother, if you focus on the numbers, you’re missing the story,” says the Rev. John Unni, a Boston pastor
I suspect that conservative pundits Ana Navarro and Peggy Noonan are missing the story as well, as they gush over Pope Francis on This Week.
Conservative Pundits Love Pope Francis" Progressive Rhetoric
Tuesday, January 21, 2014
Obama to meet with Pope Francis in March
FILE – This Dec. 8, 2013 file photo shows Pope Francis as he arrives at the Spanish Steps to pray at the statue of the Virgin Mary, in central Rome on the occasion of the Immaculate Conception feast. President Barack Obama will meet with Pope Francis at the Vatican as part of a European trip scheduled for March. The White House says Obama “looks forward to discussing with Pope Francis their shared commitment to fighting poverty and growing inequality†during their March 27 meeting. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino, File)
FILE – This Dec. 8, 2013 file photo shows Pope Francis as he arrives at the Spanish Steps to pray at the statue of the Virgin Mary, in central Rome on the occasion of the Immaculate Conception feast. President Barack Obama will meet with Pope Francis at the Vatican as part of a European trip scheduled for March. The White House says Obama “looks forward to discussing with Pope Francis their shared commitment to fighting poverty and growing inequality†during their March 27 meeting. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino, File)
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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama will meet with Pope Francis at the Vatican as part of a European trip scheduled for March.
The White House says Obama “looks forward to discussing with Pope Francis their shared commitment to fighting poverty and growing inequality” during their March 27 meeting. Obama also plans to meet in Rome with Italian President Giorgio Napolitano and Prime Minister Enrico Letta.
Obama’s trip begins March 24-25 in The Hague, Netherlands, where he will participate in a nuclear security summit hosted by the Dutch government and meet with Dutch leaders.
On March 26, Obama will travel to Brussels for an U.S.-European Union summit with the presidents of the European Council and the European Commission, as well as meetings with Belgian leaders and NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen.
Obama to meet with Pope Francis in March
Friday, January 17, 2014
Pope Francis Is a "Political Genius"
(Newser) – He’s known for his humility, his down-to-earth nature, his personal phone calls to the flock, and even his selfies. But is Pope Francis actually a “political genius”? Yes, writes Candida Moss at Politico Magazine. “Herein lies the genius of Pope Francis’s papacy: He has persuaded the world he isn’t a politician and, in doing so, has become arguably the most politically influential man in the world.” The thing is, predecessor Benedict said many of the things Francis is saying. But with Francis, because of how he leads his life, more people listen.
President Obama would do well to pay attention to this pope, writes Moss. “What other world leader has such clarity of message?” Maybe Obama can’t literally get as close to the public as Francis can, but he can take a larger lesson: Francis “shows that even in the informational deluge of the modern age, it’s possible to hold to and embody a few big ideas and persuade people to rally around them,” writes Moss. “What American president couldn’t benefit from a reminder of that?” Click for the full piece.
Pope Francis Is a "Political Genius"
Saturday, January 4, 2014
Rich Catholics Threaten Pope Francis — Because He Frightens Them
If anyone wonders whether Pope Francis has irritated wealthy conservatives with his courage and idealism, the latest outburst from Kenneth Langone left little doubt. Sounding both aggressive and whiny, the billionaire investor warned that he and his overprivileged friends might withhold their millions from church and charity unless the pontiff stops preaching against the excesses and cruelty of unleashed capitalism.
According to Langone, such criticism from the Holy See could ultimately hurt the sensitive feelings of the rich so badly that they become “incapable of feeling compassion for the poor.” He also said rich donors are already losing their enthusiasm for the restoration of St. Patrick"s Cathedral in Manhattan — a very specific threat that he mentioned directly to Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York.
Langone is not only a leading fundraiser for church projects but a generous donor to hospitals, universities and cancer charities (often for programs and buildings named after him, in the style of today"s self-promoting philanthropists). Among the super-rich, he has many friends and associates who may share his excitable temperament.
While his ultimatum seems senseless — would a person of true faith stiff the church and the poor? — it may well be sincere. And Langone spends freely to promote his political and economic views, in the company of the Koch brothers and other Republican plutocrats.
Still, a pope brave enough to face down the mafia over his financial reform of the murky Vatican Bank shouldn"t be much fazed by the likes of Langone.
Yet Langone has reason to worry that the Holy Father is in fact asking hard questions about people like him. Indeed, he could serve as a living symbol of the gross and growing economic inequality that disfigures the American system and threatens democracy.
As a leader of the New York Stock Exchange, he was largely responsible for the scandalous overpayment of his friend Richard Grasso, the exchange president who received nearly $ 190 million in deferred compensation when he stepped down. Although New York"s highest court eventually upheld Grasso"s pay package, it was a perfect example of the unaccountable, self-serving greed of Wall Street"s elite.
Anything but repentant following the revelation and repudiation of the Grasso deal by NYSE executives, Langone told Forbes magazine in 2004: “They got the wrong f—ing guy. I"m nuts, I"m rich, and, boy, do I love a fight. I"m going to make them s— in their pants. When I get through with these f—ing captains of industry, they"re going to wish they were in a Cuisinart — at high speed.”
He embarked on a furious vendetta against Eliot Spitzer, who had fought to recapture Grasso"s millions as New York attorney general. And when Spitzer was forced to resign as governor in the wake of a prostitution scandal, Langone"s public gloating seemed to indicate that he had played a personal role in exposing his enemy"s indiscretions. He particularly hated Spitzer for attempting to punish and curtail the worst misconduct in the financial industry.
While Langone passionately defended the outlandish grasping of the super-rich like his friend Grasso, however, he has displayed far less indulgence toward workers, especially those struggling to support their families on poverty wages. Until just last year, he was a director of Yum! Brands, the global fast food conglomerate that includes Taco Bell and Kentucky Fried Chicken among its holdings — and that spends millions annually to hold down the minimum wage and prevent unionization of its ill-paid employees and farmworkers.
What all this adds up to is hundreds of millions of dollars in questionable compensation for financial cronies, but not a dime more for low-income workers. It is exactly the kind of skewed outcome Francis means when he speaks about today"s capitalists, “the powerful feeding upon the powerless,” and the need for renewed state regulation to bring their burgeoning tyranny under control. He is talking about Langone, the Kochs and an entire gang of right-wing financiers.
“How I would love a church that is poor and for the poor,” Francis said not long after his election to the papacy. This could be what he gets — and that might not be so bad, for the poor and for all of us, Catholic or not, who love justice.
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Rich Catholics Threaten Pope Francis — Because He Frightens Them
Wednesday, December 25, 2013
Who Is Pope Francis? Part 7
From TPM Reader MOG …
I can only speculate about how Pope Francis is acting and the reaction to it. I offer these comments from the perspective of someone who just turned 64, grew up in the Chicago suburbs, attended parochial grade school and high school (non Jesuit) but isn’t much of a practicing Catholic these days. However, I still believe myself Catholic, especially in outlook and mindset. My freshman year of high school (1963) was the first time the Chicago Diocese began implementing the revised religion curriculum which was an outgrowth of Vatican II.
It was so new in fact that our textbook was still the old one so we only partially used it. I can attest that at least in my experience, Pope John XXIII and Vatican II had a profound impact on many of the young priests at our school. My freshman religion teacher hadn’t yet even been ordained but was the following year. Because of the openness advocated in Vatican II, students had many more heartfelt talks with priests than in the prior years and many of those young priests opened up to us about their feelings and even some doubts. Even though I’m not much engaged in the church these days, I have fond memories of those times. I had heard that several of the young priests from that time left the priesthood eventually.
I bring this up because Pope Francis was a young priest during that time. From his current behavior I would say the Pope John XXIII had a big impact on him. Following Pope Pious XII, who would never be described as warm, Pope John XXIII was a breath of fresh air. He wanted the laity involved which for an altar boy meant having to really remember your Latin as the people were expected to say it along with you and that meant you could no longer quickly mumble it. To Pope John XXIII, all people were important not just Catholics. He believed the Pope should embody Christ in word and action, not just head a bureaucracy and set down a bunch of rules. It appears to me that Pope Francis is following that same philosophy. Whether this translates into changes to actual church dogma is another story but I would say that, as we have already seen, strict adherence to the rules is not the emphasis. Pope Francis is more concerned with the person. If Jesus was willing to forgive who is the Pope to not follow in Jesus’ footsteps.
In grade school, religion classes were all about learning the Baltimore Catechism. Each class we would be given a rule and then spend the rest of the class, or so it seemed, thinking up exceptions. I’m always surprised more Catholics aren’t lawyers. Anyway, the Catholic Church is still a big institution and bureaucracy. Like a big ship it turns slowly. Frankly, Pope Francis’ impact will be seen in how long he lives. Pope John XXIII papacy was fairly short and he didn’t appoint many cardinals. Although Pope Francis is 77, with modern medicine his papacy may last a long time and he may have a lasting impact on the church. As someone who thinks none of the subsequent popes have measured up to Pope John XXIII, Pope Francis is the first to make me believe that he will.
Who Is Pope Francis? Part 7
Tuesday, December 24, 2013
Francis Cheers Jesus" Humble Start
(Newser) – The Vatican’s popular new guy is celebrating his first Christmas Eve mass at St. Peter’s Basilica, and Pope Francis took the occasion to continue to draw from his themes of humility and charity toward society’s poor and vulnerable. Emphasizing Jesus Christ’s quite humble beginnings, he said, “You are immense, and you made yourself small; you are rich, and you made yourself poor; you are all-powerful and you made yourself vulnerable.” He noted that the shepherds—”among the last, the outcast” in society—were the first to get news of Christ’s birth, reports the AP.
On deck for the pontiff: Tomorrow’s Christmas Day message, which he’ll deliver from the basilica’s balcony overlooking St. Peter’s Square. The AP has the full text of Francis’ homily here.
Francis Cheers Jesus" Humble Start
Pope Francis continues to preach reform at first Christmas mass
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Pope Francis continues to preach reform at first Christmas mass
Friday, December 13, 2013
Latest Version of Newsweek Channels Leftists Comparing Pope Francis to Che Guevara
The latest version of Newsweek sounds like it’s going to be even more liberal than the The Daily Beast version. The group hoping to re-launch the print edition has an article on their website called “Is Pope Francis a Socialist?”
Their answer is no, but they’re so impressed with the new pope that they’re channeling the idea that somehow pope photos will replace Che Guevara as a revolutionary icon:
The left-leaning Guardian, which routinely heaped opprobrium on the Vatican for its mishandling of the pedophile priests scandal, hails Francis as the liberals’ new poster boy. Literally: Tomorrow’s undergraduates, predicts Jonathan Freedland, will adorn their rooms with posters of Francis instead of Che Guevara. And Time just named him their Person of the Year.
For many conservative Americans, who believe socialism begins with street lighting, the question of whether the pope is a socialist is not moot. Before they join in the songs of praise for the pope they need to know which side the pope is on.
Of course, the notion that Pope Francis is a true socialist is absurd. Socialists believe in the state taking control of the commanding heights of the economy. They believe the free market should be substituted by a command economy in which goods are produced according to need and prices are fixed to ensure fairness.
Nothing Pope Francis has said or done would suggest for a moment that he is a dangerous radical or even that he secretly harbors socialist thoughts.
Then there’s a passage that really suggests there’s a violent dictatorship running Vatican City:
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Because they operate behind the scenes, Vatican bureaucrats can all too easily get away with secrecy – and crimes. Scandals involving clerics’ visits to gay brothels and money laundering by the Vatican Bank have sealed the curia’s reputation as Da Vinci Code baddies.
“They have a lot at stake in things continuing as they are,” claims one Vatican watcher, referring to conspiracy theories surrounding the death of Pope John Paul I in 1978 after only 33 days. “They will see off anyone, even a pope, if they suspect opposition.”
If Pope Francis gets bumped off by wicked cardinals, you heard it first in the new Newsweek.
Latest Version of Newsweek Channels Leftists Comparing Pope Francis to Che Guevara
Thursday, December 12, 2013
Why Pope Francis Is Time"s Person of the Year
(Newser) – 2013 has been a pretty unbelievable year for Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who became Pope Francis, dominated Facebook, and now finds himself Time’s Person of the Year. Managing Editor Nancy Gibbs explains how he ended up on the cover after just nine months on the job: because of how he has positioned himself (“at the very center of the central conversations of our time,” from wealth to the role of women to justice), for his reach in our flattening world (“far beyond the boundaries of the Catholic Church”), and for what he has accomplished in such a short time. “Something remarkable: he has not changed the words, but he’s changed the music.”
Gibbs acknowledges the skeptics’ likely response—that Francis faces many obstacles “in accomplishing much of anything beyond making casual believers feel better about the softer tone coming out of Rome while feeling free to ignore the harder substance.” But the fascination that swirls around him gives him an ability Benedict XVI lacked: “to magnify the message of the church and its power to do great good.” Writes Gibbs, “The heart is a strong muscle; he’s proposing a rigorous exercise plan. And in a very short time, a vast, global, ecumenical audience has shown a hunger to follow him. For pulling the papacy out of the palace and into the streets, for committing the world’s largest faith to confronting its deepest needs, and for balancing judgment with mercy, Pope Francis is Time’s 2013 Person of the Year” (cover story here). Also, the runners-up: Edward Snowden, Edith Windsor, Bashar al-Assad, and Ted Cruz. See past winners here.
Why Pope Francis Is Time"s Person of the Year
Tuesday, October 22, 2013
Bush Administration Convicted of War Crimes - Dr. Francis Boyle #N3
Bush Administration Convicted of War Crimes - Dr. Francis Boyle #N3
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Tuesday, September 10, 2013
Tuesday, July 30, 2013
Clergy, faithful digest Francis" Brazil message
Pope Francis waves goodbye as he boards a plane after his week-long visit to Brazil to celebrate World Youth Day, at the airport in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Sunday July 28, 2013. The trip marked the first international foray for the Argentine-born pontiff and his first voyage back to his home continent since becoming pope in March. (AP Photo/Andre Penner
Pope Francis waves goodbye as he boards a plane after his week-long visit to Brazil to celebrate World Youth Day, at the airport in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Sunday July 28, 2013. The trip marked the first international foray for the Argentine-born pontiff and his first voyage back to his home continent since becoming pope in March. (AP Photo/Andre Penner
Pilgrims and residents gather on Copacabana beach before the arrival of Pope Francis for World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Saturday, July 27, 2013. Francis will preside over an evening vigil service on Copacabana beach that is expected to draw more than 1 million young people. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)
An unidentified clergy member dances with performers before the start of a vigil on Copacabana beach in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Saturday, July 27, 2013. Pope Francis is presiding over the evening vigil service that is expected to draw more than 1 million young people. (AP Photo/Luca Zennaro, Pool)
Pope Benedict waves to people from his popemobile at the start of a vigil with pilgrims in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Saturday, July 27, 2013. Francis will preside over an evening vigil service on Copacabana beach that is expected to draw more than 1 million young people. (AP Photo/Jorge Saenz)
Pope Francis, seen on a giant screen, speaks to pilgrims gathered on the Copacabana beachfront in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Thursday, July 25, 2013. Francis addressed young pilgrims from 175 nations Thursday, as Latin America’s first pope continues his inaugural international trip as pontiff. (AP Photo/Jorge Saenz)
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RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — In word and deed during his trip to Brazil, Pope Francis put clergy and faithful alike on notice: Get energized, go out and spread the Gospel, give the Roman Catholic Church a more active role in society.
Francis led the way, with upward of 3 million faithful gathering for his Mass on Copacabana beach, a gushing local press following his every move on nationwide TV and even a group of nuns squealing in delight like groupies upon spotting him. By all measures, the pope’s first international trip was a smash success.
But the burning question in the post-trip glow remains: How to carry out Francis’ commands with a church that’s loaded with challenges, from a severe shortage of priests to the fleeing of faithful for two decades in strongholds such as Brazil, as well as across Europe and the United States.
On Monday, priests, lay people and religious experts alike interpreted through their own cultural lens how to understand Francis’ call to action, when he told bishops in Brazil that clergy must work on the peripheries, get out in the street and better understand how to communicate with modern society.
“As a younger priest, that’s part of my idealism, to take our work into the streets,” said Father Roy Bellen from Manila, who was in Rio for the papal visit. “It’s encouraging for me to hear from the boss that the old school ways aren’t welcome, that of clergy sticking to their comfort zones inside the church.”
Some predicted a rough road ahead if the church is going to change its more traditional pastoral forms, which put a priest at the front of a Mass talking to instead of with parishioners. The growth sought by Francis will require many clergy to exercise atrophied missionary muscles.
“It’s the mission of the church to go out and proclaim the Gospel to everyone, but there are people who don’t like to do this; they prefer to stay within their parishes,” said Jan Scheuthela, a 28-year-old seminarian from Poland attending the Mass on Copacabana beach. “In my parish we try to do things like this, but we need to do more: We need to organize missions on the streets, especially to bring in those young people who have lost interest in the church.”
Francis told Latin American bishops they must be spiritually close to their parishioners and had earlier instructed Brazilian clergy to have the “scent of their flock” on them.
“There are pastoral plans which are ‘distant,’ … which give priority to principles, forms of conduct, organizational procedures … and clearly lack nearness, tenderness, a warm touch,” Francis said Sunday. “The bishop has to be among his people in three ways: in front of them, pointing the way; among them, keeping them together and preventing them from being scattered; and behind them, assuring that no one is left behind.”
Father Omar Mateo, secretary general of Ecuador’s Episcopal Conference, addressed the elephant-in-the-room question: How do you take the Gospel to the street when the clergy are spread so thin?
Nearly 25 percent of the world’s parishes don’t have a resident priest, according to Vatican statistics. While the number of Catholics in the world grew by 68 percent between 1975 and 2010, the number of priests ticked up by just 1.8 percent, according to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University.
In Brazil, the world’s largest Catholic country, the percentage of the population calling itself Catholic dropped from 89 percent in 1980 to 65 percent three decades later, according to census statistics. Many Brazilian Catholics joined charismatic Pentecostal evangelical churches, while Americans joined flashy megachurches and many Europeans simply became secular.
Mateo said the answer will require both “asking God to send more workers to his cause” and by pragmatically “launching campaigns to go out and find new priests who will devote their lives to the Christian vocation.”
“The holy father asks us to live our religious life in all settings,” he said. “To understand and live religion and to go out into the community in a convincing and simple manner.”
Beyond direct calls for a more active church, experts said the pontiff’s Brazilian trip was rich in symbolism just as important in getting his messages across.
He paid a visit to a trash-strewn slum recently cleared of drug gangs. He met with young, recovering drug addicts to whom he gave deep hugs after they told their stories to him at a public event. He responded to a crowd mobbing his car on arrival in Brazil not by recoiling, but by rolling down his car window to shake hands and kiss babies.
“The symbolism Francis showed throughout the trip was perfect. He touched the hearts of all Brazilians, not just Catholics,” said Fernando Altemeyer, a theology professor at the Catholic University of Sao Paulo. “It will be a long-term project to repair losses of the church, but what he’s done is provide an immediate shock to the system.”
Most of Francis’ changes were in style rather than substance. He offered no bending on Catholic doctrine that splits some of the church’s followers, including contraception, abortion and refusal to allow clergy to marry. Only on the plane flying home to Italy did he hint at new thinking from the church, saying he wouldn’t judge gay priests for their sexual orientation.
Francis showed a deft ability to understand his audiences in Brazil and how best to communicate with whomever he might be interacting, something he’s also asking of clergy.
During homilies and in public speeches, he used plain language that reinforced basic messages of help for the poor, of God’s love for everyone, and of the need for Catholics to keep the Lord in their hearts.
When meeting with clergy in closed sessions, however, Francis switched to theologically complex discourses laden with thoughts on how the church must change, and said the church must end its overly intellectual and self-referential manner of communicating if it hopes to be understood.
“If the losses of the faithful are the result of church liturgy that is too staid or a message not being put across in a modern way in terms of how it’s delivered, then, yes, he can make a difference,” said Monsignor Raymond Kupke, who teaches church history at Seton Hall University’s School of Theology in the U.S. “One trip to Brazil won’t immediately change things, but it may have an impact on re-energizing people and reaching out to those who are nominally Catholic.”
Shivering in a cold Rio de Janeiro dawn, light just starting to streak the sky, Fabio Feitosa da Silva, a 32-year-old waiter on his way to work, quietly spoke about his impressions of the pope, of how he’s starting to look differently at the Catholic Church he stopped attending 15 years ago when its message no longer resonated with him.
“I didn’t expect this, but I love him, everybody loves him,” Silva said, neatly summing up the general feeling in Brazil. “He’s won my interest, he has my attention, I’m listening. It’s his humility that touches my heart. He’s even got me convinced to attend Mass later on the beach.”
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Associated Press writers Marco Sibaja and Nicole Winfield in Rio de Janeiro and Gonzalo Solano in Quito, Ecuador, contributed to this report.
___
Bradley Brooks on Twitter: www.twitter.com/bradleybrooks
Clergy, faithful digest Francis" Brazil message
Friday, July 26, 2013
Pope Francis urges Catholics to shake up dioceses
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Pope Francis has shown the world his rebellious side, urging young Catholics to shake up the church and make a “mess” in their dioceses by going out into the streets to spread the faith. It’s a message he put into practice by visiting one of Rio’s most violent slums and opening the church’s World Youth Day on a rain-soaked Copacabana Beach.
Francis was elected pope on a mandate to reform the church, and in four short months he has started doing just that: He has broken long-held Vatican rules on everything from where he lays his head at night to how saints are made. He has cast off his security detail to get close to his flock, and his first international foray as pope has shown the faithful appreciate the gesture.
He’s going further Friday, meeting with a small group of young convicts. He’ll also hear confessions from some Catholic youth and then head back to Copacabana beach for a Stations of the Cross procession.
Dubbed the “slum pope” for his work with the poor, Francis received a rapturous welcome in the Varginha shantytown on Thursday, part of a slum area of northern Rio so violent it’s known as the Gaza Strip. The 76-year-old Argentine seemed entirely at home, wading into cheering crowds, kissing people young and old and telling them the Catholic Church is on their side.
“No one can remain insensitive to the inequalities that persist in the world!” Francis told a crowd of thousands who braved a cold rain and stood in a muddy soccer field to welcome him. “No amount of peace-building will be able to last, nor will harmony and happiness be attained in a society that ignores, pushes to the margins or excludes a part of itself.”
It was a message aimed at reversing the decline in the numbers of Catholics in most of Latin America, with many poor worshippers leaving the church for Pentecostal and evangelical congregations. Those churches have taken up a huge presence in favelas, or shantytowns such as Varginha, attracting souls with nuts-and-bolts advice on how to improve their lives.
The Varginha visit was one of the highlights of Francis’ weeklong trip to Brazil, his first as pope and one seemingly tailor-made for the first pontiff from the Americas.
The surprise, though, came during his encounter with Argentine pilgrims, scheduled at the last minute in yet another sign of how this spontaneous pope is shaking up the Vatican’s staid and often stuffy protocol.
He told the thousands of youngsters, with an estimated 30,000 Argentines registered, to get out into the streets and spread their faith and make a “mess,” saying a church that doesn’t go out and preach simply becomes a civic or humanitarian group.
“I want to tell you something. What is it that I expect as a consequence of World Youth Day? I want a mess. We knew that in Rio there would be great disorder, but I want trouble in the dioceses!” he said, speaking off the cuff in his native Spanish. “I want to see the church get closer to the people. I want to get rid of clericalism, the mundane, this closing ourselves off within ourselves, in our parishes, schools or structures. Because these need to get out!”
Apparently realizing the radicalness of his message, he apologized in advance to the bishops at home.
Later Thursday, he traveled in his open-sided car through a huge crowd in the pouring rain to a welcoming ceremony on Copacabana beach. It was his first official event with the hundreds of thousands of young people who have flocked to Rio for World Youth Day. Vatican officials estimated the crowd at 1 million.
Cheering pilgrims from 175 nations lined the beachfront drive to catch a glimpse of the pontiff, with many jogging along with the vehicle behind police barricades. The car stopped several times for Francis to kiss babies — and take a long sip of his beloved mate, the traditional Argentine tea served in a gourd with a straw, which was handed up to him by someone in the crowd.
After he arrived at the beach-front stage, though, the crowd along the streets melted away, driven home by the pouring rain that brought out vendors selling the plastic ponchos that have adorned cardinals and pilgrims alike during this unseasonably cold, wet week.
In an indication of the havoc wreaked by four days of steady showers, organizers made an almost unheard-of change in the festival’s agenda, moving the Saturday vigil and climactic Sunday Mass to Copacabana Beach from a rural area 30 miles (50 kilometers) from the city center. The terrain of the area, Guaratiba, had turned into a vast field of mud, making the overnight camping plans of pilgrims untenable.
The news was welcome to John White, a 57-year-old chaperone from the Albany, New York, diocese who attended the past five World Youth Days and complained that organization in Rio was lacking.
“I’m super relieved. That place is a mud pit and I was concerned about the kid’s health and that they might catch hypothermia,” he said. “That’s great news. I just wish the organizers would have told us.”
Francis’ visit to the Varginha slum followed in the footsteps of Pope John Paul II, who visited two such favelas during a 1980 trip to Brazil, and Mother Teresa, who visited Varginha itself in 1972. Her Missionaries of Charity order has kept a presence in the shantytown ever since.
Like Mother Teresa, Francis brought his own personal history to the visit: As archbishop of Buenos Aires, then-Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio frequently preached in the poverty-wracked slums of his native city, putting into action his belief that the Catholic Church must go to the farthest peripheries to preach and not sit back and wait for the most marginalized to come to Sunday Mass.
Francis’ open-air car was mobbed on a few occasions as he headed into Varginha’s heavily policed, shack-lined streets, but he never seemed in danger. He was showered with gifts as he walked down one of the slum’s main drags without an umbrella to shield him from the rain. A well-wisher gave him a paper lei to hang around his neck and he held up another offering — a scarf from his favorite soccer team, Buenos Aires’ San Lorenzo.
“Events like this, with the pope and all the local media, get everyone so excited,” said Antonieta de Souza Costa, a 56-year-old vendor and resident of Varginha. “I think this visit is going to bring people back to the Catholic Church.”
Addressing Varginha’s residents, Francis acknowledged that young people in particular have a sensitivity toward injustice.
“You are often disappointed by facts that speak of corruption on the part of people who put their own interests before the common good,” Francis told the crowd. “To you and all, I repeat: Never yield to discouragement, do not lose trust, do not allow your hope to be extinguished.”
It was a clear reference to the violent protests that paralyzed parts of the country in recent weeks as Brazilians furious over rampant corruption and inefficiency within the country’s political class took to the streets.
Francis blasted what he said was a “culture of selfishness and individualism” that permeates society today, demanding that those with money and power share their wealth and resources to fight hunger and poverty.
“It is certainly necessary to give bread to the hungry — this is an act of justice. But there is also a deeper hunger, the hunger for a happiness that only God can satisfy,” he said.
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Associated Press writer Bradley Brooks contributed to this report.
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Nicole Winfield on Twitter: www.twitter.com/nwinfield
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Pope Francis urges Catholics to shake up dioceses
Tuesday, July 23, 2013
With Modesty, Pope Francis Begins a Week in Brazil
Aline Massuca/European Pressphoto Agency
Pope Francis greeting Roman Catholic pilgrims after his arrival on Monday in Rio de Janeiro.
RIO DE JANEIRO — Pope Francis arrived in Brazil on Monday for his first international trip as pontiff, treading carefully and in ascetic style in a nation where antigovernment protests have recently shaken a privileged political hierarchy, which faces withering criticism in the streets over claims of incompetence and abuse of power.
“Let me knock gently at this door,” the Argentine-born pope, 76, said in a brief address delivered entirely in Portuguese to his hosts, including President Dilma Rousseff and Sérgio Cabral, the governor of Rio de Janeiro. “I ask permission to come in and spend this week with you.”
Francis sidestepped the issue of Brazil’s protests in his first public remarks here, emphasizing instead the importance of youth evangelization. His weeklong trip was organized around World Youth Day, an international conference of Catholic youth, but it also signaled the importance of Brazil and the rest of Latin America to the Roman Catholic Church.
While Brazil still has more Catholics than any other nation — an estimated 123 million — rising secularism and the fast-growing Protestant churches have challenged centuries of Catholic supremacy in Latin America’s largest country. Only 65 percent of the Brazilian population now identifies itself as Catholic, down from 92 percent in 1970.
Surprising some here not accustomed to his avoidance of conspicuous trappings of power, Francis made his way from the international airport to downtown Rio in a modest motorcade, riding in a compact Fiat car with the window open. People crowded around the vehicle, extending their arms in the pope’s direction while taking pictures of him on their cellphones.
For some who traveled to Rio to get close to the pope, the proximity and lack of pageantry offered yet another example of a Jesuit pontiff who has eschewed the red shoes, elaborate headgear and luxurious papal apartments of his predecessors.
“People needed to see a pope that was humble and out in the world,” said Emanuel Soltero, 40, who produces a children’s television program in Puerto Rico. Mr. Soltero traveled with his wife and two sons to see Francis here in Rio, where they are staying in a public school with other Catholics in Jardim América, a blue-collar neighborhood near several favelas, or slums.
Still, Brazilian television commentators expressed alarm at the images of the mob scene that unfolded around the pope’s Fiat at one point on a thoroughfare crowded with buses. The authorities faulted the pope’s own driver, saying he made a mistake by taking a wrong turn onto a prominent avenue.
Concerns emerged on Monday in connection with the security preparations for the visit. The police said they had discovered a homemade explosive device in the bathroom of a parking garage at a shrine that Francis was scheduled to visit this week in the city of Aparecida. The authorities in São Paulo, the state where it was found, said they had exploded the device, which they described as having “little potential harm.”
Protesters also gathered in the area around Guanabara Palace, where Francis delivered his brief remarks. While some demonstrators expressed anger over the use of public money to receive the pope, many others directed their ire specifically at Mr. Cabral, Rio’s governor, who is facing criticism over corruption allegations and violent police crackdowns on protesters.
The police used water cannons and rubber bullets to disperse demonstrators near Mr. Cabral’s palace on Monday night after some protesters hurled rocks and bottles in the direction of security forces. The violence followed Francis’ address and a speech by Ms. Rousseff, in which she warmly welcomed the pope and said that they shared an objective of diminishing poverty and income inequality.
Many Catholics gathering here expressed the hope that Francis could help to alleviate tension on Brazil’s streets and beyond.
“What I want is for our pope to tell all people to have faith and tell people to be friends,” said Eric Kamanal, 48, who came here with a church group from Ivory Coast. “The pope cannot resolve the problems of society, but he can illuminate the right path.”
With Modesty, Pope Francis Begins a Week in Brazil
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