Pope Francis and the White Crucifixion

When asked about his favorite painters, Pope Francis responded: “Among the great painters, I admire Caravaggio; his paintings speak to me. But also Chagall, with his ‘White Crucifixion.’” It's a fascinating choice.

Marc Chagall was, as Wikipedia notes, “the quintessential Jewish artist of the twentieth century.” He was also captured by the figure of Jesus Christ: he has numerous paintings of the Crucifixion, and designed stained glass windows for several Christian churches. His White Crucifixion, the painting mentioned by Pope Francis, was painted in 1938, on the eve of the Holocaust. It depicts Jesus as a Jew, even wearing a Jewish prayer shawl (a tallit), while He is surrounded on all sides by anti-Semitic violence.

Marc Chagall, White Crucifixion (1938)

This dimension of the faith, Jesus the Jew, hovers over every Crucifix in the “INRI” inscription. It's also reflected in two particularly strong statements on the subject:

“Mark well that in the Catholic Mass, Abraham is our Patriarch and forefather. Anti-Semitism is incompatible with the lofty thought which that fact expresses. It is a movement with which we Christians can have nothing to do. No, no I say to you it is impossible for a Christian to take part in anti-Semitism. It is inadmissible. Through Christ and in Christ we are the spiritual progeny of Abraham. Spiritually, we are all Semites.” - Pope Pius XI, September 6, 1938.

“Anti-Semitism, a quite modern development, is the most horrible buffet that Our Lord has received in His Passion, which is still going on; it is the most outrageous and the most unpardonable because He receives it on the face of His Mother and from Christian hands.” - Léon Bloy (the Catholic poet and author referenced in Pope Francis’ first homily as pope).

The Key to Understanding Pope Francis' Pastoral Approach

“Love It, Learn It, Live It.”

That’s the slogan my archbishop, Archbishop Joseph Naumann, chose for the Faith Initiative for the Year for Faith. I was initially surprised by the ordering, since it seemed to me that it would be more logical to put “Learn it” first.

Apparently, I wasn’t alone: one of the priests addressed this question during Mass. He did so by asking one of the altar servers a series of questions: name, favorite color, and so on. What we received was a bunch of information. But, he pointed out, most of us didn’t know this server, so we would quickly forget everything we’d learned (and sure enough, I can’t even remember if the server was a boy or a girl).

He then contrasted this with the relationship of spouses: they’re in love with each other, so they joyfully want to know more about each other. You want to know the minutiae about the person you love: that desire to know him/her well is part of the nature of love. And so it is with God. If we love Him, we’ll desire catechesis, we’ll want to know more. If we don’t, these teachings will seem like a bunch of “rules,” or a political party’s public policy positions (say that three times fast).

That’s what came to mind while I was reading Pope Francis’ interview with Antonio Spadaro, S.J.. I would suggest that the critical passage to understanding both this interview, and Pope Francis' papal style more broadly, is right here:

“The church’s pastoral ministry cannot be obsessed with the transmission of a disjointed multitude of doctrines to be imposed insistently. Proclamation in a missionary style focuses on the essentials, on the necessary things: this is also what fascinates and attracts more, what makes the heart burn, as it did for the disciples at Emmaus. We have to find a new balance; otherwise even the moral edifice of the church is likely to fall like a house of cards, losing the freshness and fragrance of the Gospel. The proposal of the Gospel must be more simple, profound, radiant. It is from this proposition that the moral consequences then flow.

“I say this also thinking about the preaching and content of our preaching. A beautiful homily, a genuine sermon must begin with the first proclamation, with the proclamation of salvation. There is nothing more solid, deep and sure than this proclamation. Then you have to do catechesis. Then you can draw even a moral consequence. But the proclamation of the saving love of God comes before moral and religious imperatives. Today sometimes it seems that the opposite order is prevailing. The homily is the touchstone to measure the pastor’s proximity and ability to meet his people, because those who preach must recognise the heart of their community and must be able to see where the desire for God is lively and ardent. The message of the Gospel, therefore, is not to be reduced to some aspects that, although relevant, on their own do not show the heart of the message of Jesus Christ.”

This stands is sharp contrast from the media spin. For example, the Associated Press story claimed:

U.S. bishops were also behind Benedict's crackdown on American nuns, who were accused of letting doctrine take a backseat to their social justice work caring for the poor — precisely the priority that Francis is endorsing.

But that’s just patently false. Francis isn’t saying that moral issues favored by Republicans need to take a backseat to moral issues favored by Democrats. That’s a complete misreading, and suggests that the media obssession with viewing everything through the lens of politics obstructs their ability to grasp this. What Francis is saying instead is that all moral issues (even ones involving life and death) properly flow from a relationship with Christ. Morality that doesn’t flow from, or towards, Jesus Christ is simply incoherent. 

Have You Wept Over the Death of Immigrants?

Last week, Pope Francis visited the small Sicilian island of Lampedusa, a crossing-over point for immigrants
coming from northern Africa to Europe. He went to mourn the deaths of an estimated 20,000 migrants who have crossed over. These individuals were mostly Muslims who were crossing into Europe illegally, and their deaths were largely ignored. The pope's trip was intended to correct that, and even more, to beg God to have mercy on us in our indifference. His homily was phenomenal, and is well worth the read. He ended it by calling us to tears for our dead and dying brothers:

John C. Dollman, The Immigrants' Ship (1884)

"Adam, where are you?" "Where is your brother?" These are the two questions which God asks at the dawn of human history, and which he also asks each man and woman in our own day, which he also asks us. But I would like us to ask a third question: "Has any one of us wept because of this situation and others like it?" Has any one of us grieved for the death of these brothers and sisters? Has any one of us wept for these persons who were on the boat? For the young mothers carrying their babies? For these men who were looking for a means of supporting their families? We are a society which has forgotten how to weep, how to experience compassion – "suffering with" others: the globalization of indifference has taken from us the ability to weep! In the Gospel we have heard the crying, the wailing, the great lamentation: "Rachel weeps for her children… because they are no more". Herod sowed death to protect his own comfort, his own soap bubble. And so it continues… Let us ask the Lord to remove the part of Herod that lurks in our hearts; let us ask the Lord for the grace to weep over our indifference, to weep over the cruelty of our world, of our own hearts, and of all those who in anonymity make social and economic decisions which open the door to tragic situations like this. "Has any one wept?" Today has anyone wept in our world?

Lord, in this liturgy, a penitential liturgy, we beg forgiveness for our indifference to so many of our brothers and sisters. Father, we ask your pardon for those who are complacent and closed amid comforts which have deadened their hearts; we beg your forgiveness for those who by their decisions on the global level have created situations that lead to these tragedies. Forgive us, Lord!

Kyrie, Eleison!

Why Non-Christians Should Read Lumen Fidei

On Friday, Pope Francis released his first encyclical, Lumen Fidei, which means “The Light of Faith.” Even though the encyclical is addressed to “the bishops, priests, and deacons, consecrated persons, and the lay faithful,” I hope that non-Christians will read it as well. Why? Because Francis explains in stark terms the differences in how “faith” is understood by believers and non-believers.

He begins by explaining that to Christians, faith is illuminating, and is described by Christ as a light:

Oskar Nylander, The Christ Glory (1849)

1. The light of Faith: this is how the Church’s tradition speaks of the great gift brought by Jesus. In John’s Gospel, Christ says of himself: "I have come as light into the world, that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness" (Jn 12:46). Saint Paul uses the same image: "God who said ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts" (2 Cor 4:6). The pagan world, which hungered for light, had seen the growth of the cult of the sun god, Sol Invictus, invoked each day at sunrise. Yet though the sun was born anew each morning, it was clearly incapable of casting its light on all of human existence. The sun does not illumine all reality; its rays cannot penetrate to the shadow of death, the place where men’s eyes are closed to its light. "No one — Saint Justin Martyr writes — has ever been ready to die for his faith in the sun".[1] Conscious of the immense horizon which their faith opened before them, Christians invoked Jesus as the true sun "whose rays bestow life".[2] To Martha, weeping for the death of her brother Lazarus, Jesus said: "Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?" (Jn 11:40). Those who believe, see; they see with a light that illumines their entire journey, for it comes from the risen Christ, the morning star which never sets.

In stark contrast, non-believers tend to envision faith as a “blind leap,” or as a turning-away from the light of reason:

2. Yet in speaking of the light of faith, we can almost hear the objections of many of our contemporaries. In modernity, that light might have been considered sufficient for societies of old, but was felt to be of no use for new times, for a humanity come of age, proud of its rationality and anxious to explore the future in novel ways. Faith thus appeared to some as an illusory light, preventing mankind from boldly setting out in quest of knowledge. The young Nietzsche encouraged his sister Elisabeth to take risks, to tread "new paths… with all the uncertainty of one who must find his own way", adding that "this is where humanity’s paths part: if you want peace of soul and happiness, then believe, but if you want to be a follower of truth, then seek".[3] Belief would be incompatible with seeking. From this starting point Nietzsche was to develop his critique of Christianity for diminishing the full meaning of human existence and stripping life of novelty and adventure. Faith would thus be the illusion of light, an illusion which blocks the path of a liberated humanity to its future.

3. In the process, faith came to be associated with darkness. There were those who tried to save faith by making room for it alongside the light of reason. Such room would open up wherever the light of reason could not penetrate, wherever certainty was no longer possible. Faith was thus understood either as a leap in the dark, to be taken in the absence of light, driven by blind emotion, or as a subjective light, capable perhaps of warming the heart and bringing personal consolation, but not something which could be proposed to others as an objective and shared light which points the way. Slowly but surely, however, it would become evident that the light of autonomous reason is not enough to illumine the future; ultimately the future remains shadowy and fraught with fear of the unknown. As a result, humanity renounced the search for a great light, Truth itself, in order to be content with smaller lights which illumine the fleeting moment yet prove incapable of showing the way. Yet in the absence of light everything becomes confused; it is impossible to tell good from evil, or the road to our destination from other roads which take us in endless circles, going nowhere.

What I’ve observed is that many of the people who understand faith in this way seem genuinely unaware that this isn’t how believers view faith. If that describes you, or those you know, it behooves you to read this encyclical. It’s relatively short (only four chapters), well written, and thorough, quoting from Nietzsche, Dante, Martin Buber, the Church Fathers, Rousseau, Dostoevsky, Guardini, Wittgenstein, Aquinas, Bonaventure, John Paul II, and T.S. Eliot, amongst others. Who knows? It just might change the way you approach the topic of religion.

Ten Great Quotes from Pope Francis

Pope Francis is a gifted orator, and an effective evangelist, proclaiming the Gospel from the world’s largest pulpit. In the short time that he’s been pope, he’s had a lot to say. Today, I want to highly ten quotations from Pope Francis that you might have missed. These are taken from ten different occasions, on a wide range of subjects related to the faith:

On the importance of Easter:

Workshop of Mario Minniti, The Five Signs (16th c.)

What was a simple act, done surely out of love – going to the tomb – has now turned into an event, a truly life-changing event. Nothing remains as it was before, not only in the lives of those women, but also in our own lives and in the history of mankind. Jesus is not dead, he has risen, he is alive! He does not simply return to life; rather, he is life itself, because he is the Son of God, the living God (cf. Num 14:21-28; Deut 5:26; Josh 3:10). Jesus no longer belongs to the past, but lives in the present and is projected towards the future; Jesus is the everlasting “today” of God. This is how the newness of God appears to the women, the disciples and all of us: as victory over sin, evil and death, over everything that crushes life and makes it seem less human. 

And this is a message meant for me and for you dear sister, for you dear brother. How often does Love have to tell us: Why do you look for the living among the dead? Our daily problems and worries can wrap us up in ourselves, in sadness and bitterness... and that is where death is. That is not the place to look for the One who is alive! Let the risen Jesus enter your life, welcome him as a friend, with trust: he is life! If up till now you have kept him at a distance, step forward. He will receive you with open arms. If you have been indifferent, take a risk: you won’t be disappointed. If following him seems difficult, don’t be afraid, trust him, be confident that he is close to you, he is with you and he will give you the peace you are looking for and the strength to live as he would have you do. (Homily, Easter Vigil, March 30, 2013)

 On the need for small (and large) proclamations of the faith:

To be sure, the testimony of faith comes in very many forms, just as in a great fresco, there is a variety of colours and shades; yet they are all important, even those which do not stand out. In God’s great plan, every detail is important, even yours, even my humble little witness, even the hidden witness of those who live their faith with simplicity in everyday family relationships, work relationships, friendships. There are the saints of every day, the “hidden” saints, a sort of “middle class of holiness”, as a French author said, that “middle class of holiness” to which we can all belong. But in different parts of the world, there are also those who suffer, like Peter and the Apostles, on account of the Gospel; there are those who give their lives in order to remain faithful to Christ by means of a witness marked by the shedding of their blood. Let us all remember this: one cannot proclaim the Gospel of Jesus without the tangible witness of one’s life. (Homily, April 14, 2013)

On the true goal of economics and politics: 

“[C]oncern for the fundamental material and spiritual welfare of every human person is the starting-point for every political and economic solution and the ultimate measure of its effectiveness and its ethical validity.

Moreover, the goal of economics and politics is to serve humanity, beginning with the poorest and most vulnerable wherever they may be, even in their mothers' wombs. Every economic and political theory or action must set about providing each inhabitant of the planet with the minimum wherewithal to live in dignity and freedom, with the possibility of supporting a family, educating children, praising God and developing one's own human potential. This is the main thing; in the absence of such a vision, all economic activity is meaningless.

In this sense, the various grave economic and political challenges facing today's world require a courageous change of attitude that will restore to the end (the human person) and to the means (economics and politics) their proper place. Money and other political and economic means must serve, not rule, bearing in mind that, in a seemingly paradoxical way, free and disinterested solidarity is the key to the smooth functioning of the global economy.” (Letter to H.E. Mr David Cameron, British Prime Minister, on the occasion of the G8 Meeting, June 15, 2013).

On war and peace:

“This morning I celebrated Holy Mass with several soldiers and with the parents of some of those who died in the missions for peace, who seek to further reconciliation and peace in countries in which so much fraternal blood is spilled in wars that are always madness. ‘Everything is lost in war. Everything is gained with peace’. I ask for a prayer for the fallen, for the injured and for their relatives.” (Post-Angelus comments, June 2, 2013)

On the Parable of the Prodigal Son:

I am always struck when I reread the parable of the merciful Father; it impresses me because it always gives me great hope. Think of that younger son who was in the Father’s house, who was loved; and yet he wants his part of the inheritance; he goes off, spends everything, hits rock bottom, where he could not be more distant from the Father, yet when he is at his lowest, he misses the warmth of the Father’s house and he goes back. And the Father? Had he forgotten the son? No, never. He is there, he sees the son from afar, he was waiting for him every hour of every day, the son was always in his father’s heart, even though he had left him, even though he had squandered his whole inheritance, his freedom. The Father, with patience, love, hope and mercy, had never for a second stopped thinking about him, and as soon as he sees him still far off, he runs out to meet him and embraces him with tenderness, the tenderness of God, without a word of reproach: he has returned! And that is the joy of the Father. (Homily, Papal Mass for the Possession of the Chair of the Bishop of Rome, Divine Mercy Sunday, April 7, 2013)

On the role of women in proclaiming the Gospel:

Friedrich Overbeck, Easter Morning (1818)

But how was the truth of faith in Christ’s Resurrection passed down to us? There are two kinds of testimony in the New Testament: some are in the form of a profession of faith, that is, of concise formulas that indicate the centre of faith; while others are in the form of an account of the event of the Resurrection and of the facts connected with it. [....]

Another point: in the profession of faith in the New Testament only men are recorded as witnesses of the Resurrection, the Apostles, but not the women. This is because, according to the Judaic Law of that time, women and children could not bear a trustworthy, credible witness. Instead in the Gospels women play a fundamental lead role. Here we can grasp an element in favour of the historicity of the Resurrection: if it was an invented event, in the context of that time it would not have been linked with the evidence of women. Instead the Evangelists simply recounted what happened: women were the first witnesses. This implies that God does not choose in accordance with human criteria: the first witnesses of the birth of Jesus were shepherds, simple, humble people; the first witnesses of the Resurrection were women. And this is beautiful. This is part of the mission of women; of mothers, of women! Witnessing to their children, to their grandchildren, that Jesus is alive, is living, is risen. Mothers and women, carry on witnessing to this! It is the heart that counts for God, how open to him we are, whether we are like trusting children.

However this also makes us think about how women, in the Church and on the journey of faith, had and still have today a special role in opening the doors to the Lord, in following him and in communicating his Face, for the gaze of faith is always in need of the simple and profound gaze of love.

The Apostles and disciples find it harder to believe. The women, not so. Peter runs to the tomb but stops at the empty tomb; Thomas has to touch the wounds on Jesus’ body with his hands. On our way of faith it is also important to know and to feel that God loves us and not to be afraid to love him. Faith is professed with the lips and with the heart, with words and with love. (General Audience, April 3, 2013)

On good and bad pastors: 

“‘Do you love me?’; ‘Are you my friend?’

The One who scrutinizes hearts (cf. Rom 8:27), makes himself a beggar of love and questions us on the one truly essential issue, a premiss and condition for feeding his sheep, his lambs, his Church. May every ministry be based on this intimacy with the Lord; living from him is the measure of our ecclesial service which is expressed in the readiness to obey, to humble ourselves, as we heard in the Letter to the Philippians, and for the total gift of self (cf. 2:6-11).

Moreover, the consequence of loving the Lord is giving everything — truly everything, even our life — for him. This is what must distinguish our pastoral ministry; it is the litmus test that tells us how deeply we have embraced the gift received in responding to Jesus’ call, and how closely bound we are to the individuals and communities that have been entrusted to our care. We are not the expression of a structure or of an organizational need: even with the service of our authority we are called to be a sign of the presence and action of the Risen Lord; thus to build up the community in brotherly love.
Not that this should be taken for granted: even the greatest love, in fact, when it is not constantly nourished, weakens and fades away. [....] A lack of vigilance — as we know — makes the Pastor tepid; it makes him absentminded, forgetful and even impatient. It tantalizes him with the prospect of a career, the enticement of money and with compromises with a mundane spirit; it makes him lazy, turning him into an official, a state functionary concerned with himself, with organization and structures, rather than with the true good of the People of God. Then one runs the risk of denying the Lord as did the Apostle Peter, even if he formally presents him and speaks in his name; one obscures the holiness of the hierarchical Mother Church making her less fruitful. (Profession of Faith with the Bishops of the Italian Episcopal Conference, May 23, 2013).

On the quest for holiness: 

Carl Heinrich Bloch, Woman at the Well (19th c.)

Draw always from Christ, the inexhaustible wellspring; strengthen your faith by attending to your spiritual formation, to personal and communitarian prayer, and to the liturgy. [...] Advance with determination along the path of holiness; do not rest content with a mediocre Christian life, but let your affiliation serve as a stimulus, above all for you yourselves, to an ever greater love of Jesus Christ. (Homily, Holy Mass on the Occasion of the Day of Confraternities and of Popular Piety, May 5, 2013)

On staying close to Christ in times of trouble:

Remain steadfast in the journey of faith, with firm hope in the Lord. This is the secret of our journey! He gives us the courage to swim against the tide. Pay attention, my young friends: to go against the current; this is good for the heart, but we need courage to swim against the tide. Jesus gives us this courage! There are no difficulties, trials or misunderstandings to fear, provided we remain united to God as branches to the vine, provided we do not lose our friendship with him, provided we make ever more room for him in our lives. This is especially so whenever we feel poor, weak and sinful, because God grants strength to our weakness, riches to our poverty, conversion and forgiveness to our sinfulness. The Lord is so rich in mercy: every time, if we go to him, he forgives us. Let us trust in God’s work! With him we can do great things; he will give us the joy of being his disciples, his witnesses. Commit yourselves to great ideals, to the most important things. We Christians were not chosen by the Lord for little things; push onwards toward the highest principles. Stake your lives on noble ideals, my dear young people! (Homily, Holy Mass and Conferral of the Sacrament of Confirmation, April 28, 2013)

 On the institution of the priesthood:

It is true that God has made his entire holy people a royal priesthood in Christ. Nevertheless, our great Priest himself, Jesus Christ, chose certain disciples to carry out publicly in his name, and on behalf of mankind, a priestly office in the Church. For Christ was sent by the Father and he in turn sent the Apostles into the world, so that through them and their successors, the Bishops, he might continue to exercise his office of Teacher, Priest, and Shepherd. Indeed, priests are established co-workers of the Order of Bishops, with whom they are joined in the priestly office and with whom they are called to the service of the people of God. (Homily, Holy Mass on the Occasion of Priestly Ordinations in the Vatican Basilica, April 21, 2013)

Obviously, these ten passages are just scratching the surface. If you want more, feel free to check out his homilies, Angelus and Regina Caeli talks, papal audiences, and letters.

The Gospel and The Poor: Léon Bloy and Pope Francis

One of the things that has most impressed me about Pope Francis is that he talks about sin, and about the devil as if he actually believes that sin and the devil are real. In his first homily as pope, Pope Francis made this stunning claim:

When one does not profess Jesus Christ - I recall the phrase of Leon Bloy – “Whoever does not pray to God, prays to the devil.” When one does not profess Jesus Christ, one professes the worldliness of the devil.

That’s a bold first impression to make as pope, and it lead me to pick up Léon Bloy’s Pilgrim of the Absolute at the seminary library. It turns out, the quotation Francis selected is characteristic: Bloy doesn’t mince words, and is radical in his commitment to the Gospel, and to the poor (which he would describe as one commitment, not two).

I. Bloy on the Poor (and the Rich)

Bloy doesn’t hold back against anyone who he views as impeding or ignoring the Gospel or the poor. You are never left wondering what he really thinks, either: one chapter of this book is fittingly called “The Hurler of Curses.” Some of his strongest criticisms are against the sweatshops of his day (pp. 181-83):

The sweatshop system! It is hard to believe these infamous words could have been written

Heinrich Hofmann, Christ in Gethsemane (1890)

even in English. Yes, even in English, it is unbelievable. But what sweat? Good Lord! It is impossible, after such a word, not to think of Gethsemane, not to think of Moses who wanted all Egypt to stream with blood in order to prefigure the Death Throes of the Son of God. Did He who took upon himself all imaginable sorrows and all unimagined sorrows then sweat blood after this fashion? The Bloody Sweat as a system! Jesus’s Bloody Sweat intended to be the silent partner of famines and massacres! … It might be thought that men have gone mad from having leaned over the edge of this gulf … 

[…] 

The Evangelist Saint Luke heard Jesus Christ’s Bloody Sweat falling upon the ground, drop by drop. That noise so slight, unable to awake the sleeping disciples, must have been heard by the most distant constellations and singularly have altered their wanderings. What are we to think of the sound, slighter still and much less listened to, of the countless steps of those poor little ones going to their task of sorrow and wretchedness demanded of them by the damned, but all the same without knowing it and without other knowing it, moving thus towards their elder brother in the Garden of the Agony, who calls them and awaits them within His bloodied arms? Sinite pueros venire ad me. Talium est enim regnum Dei (Suffer the little children to come until me. For such is the kingdom of God).

Poverty, he said, “is nothing less than the Spouse of the Son of God, and when her golden wedding takes place, the barefoot and the starvelings will come running from the ends of the earth, to witness it” (p. 184).  In running from poverty, Bloy suggested that the rich were running from the Cross (pp. 175-76):

Those among the rich who are not, in the rigorous sense, damned, can understand poverty, because they are poor themselves, after a fashion; they cannot understand destitution. Capable of giving alms, perhaps, but incapable of stripping themselves bare, they will be moved, to the sound of beautiful music, at Jesus’s sufferings, but His Cross, the reality of His Cross, will horrify them. They want it all out of gold, bathed in light, costly and of little weight; pleasant to see hanging from a woman’s beautiful throat.

What they (or we) don’t want, Bloy argued (p. 176), was the true Cross: “The base and black Cross, in the midst of a desert of fear vast the world; no longer shining as in children’s pictures, but overwhelmed under a dark sky not even brightened by lightning, the terrifying Cross of Dereliction of the Son of God, the Cross of utter Misery and Destitution.”

II. Bloy on Modern Christians

As you might have deduced from the last section, Bloy has strong words for his fellow Christians, who he
grimly suggested are the closest thing that the saved will experience of Hell (p. 216):

The damned in the abyss of their torments have no other refreshment than the spectacle of the devils’ hideous faces. The friends of Jesus see all around them the modern Christians, and thus it is that they are able to picture hell.

Bloy took the life of sanctity very seriously, and it bore great fruit: for example, he was responsible for the conversion of the great French Thomist, Jacques Maritain.  And it seems to have been an endless source of frustration for him to see Christians simply drifting along, without taking their own sanctification seriously.  

Léon Bloy (1887)

But Bloy’s critical assessments were born out of charity, not ill will: he sincerely loved the people he criticized. And even if he couldn’t understand their often-frivolous lives, he could recall that they were souls beloved by God, and could hope for their salvation.  A priest wrote a friendly letter to him that included the line, “I do not have the soul of a saint.”  The priest undoubtedly meant this as humility, , but Bloy corrected him, and reminded him that (p. 223), “There is a deceptive form of humility that resembles ingratitude.”  Authentic humility recognizes the startling reality that we each do have the souls of Saints (pp. 222-23):

Well, then I answer you with certainty that I have the soul of a saint; that my fearful bourgeois of a landlord, my baker, my butcher, my grocer, all of whom may be horrible scoundrels, have the souls of saints, having all been called, as fully as you and I, as fully as Saint Francis or Saint Paul, to eternal Life, and having all been bought at the same price: You have been bought at a great price. There is no man who is not potentially a saint, and sin or sins, even the blackest, are but accident that in no way alters the substance.

This, I think, is the true point of view. When I go to the café to read petty or stupid newspapers, I look at the customers around me, I see their silly joy, I hear their foolish nonsense or their blasphemies, and I reflect that there I am, among immortal souls unaware of what they are, souls made to adore eternally the Holy Trinity, souls precious as angelic spirits; and sometimes I weep, not out of compassion, but out of love at the thought that all these souls, whatever may be their present blindness and whatever the apparent acts of their bodies, will all the same go invincibly to God who is their necessary end.

All of us, by the grace of God, are capable of being Saints, and if we fall in this endeavor, it is not because we were created with an inferior kind of soul.

III. Bloy on the Priesthood

As critical as Bloy was of the Christians of his day, he was scarcely less critical of the bishops and priests, particularly those he saw as indifferent to the poor, or (worse) as cheerleaders for the lifestyles of the rich.  For example, he says that such worldly priests are of less worth than Judas, who at least returned the money (p. 213):

The sum total of fifty worldly priests would not even amount to as much as one Judas, a Judas who returns the money and hangs himself from despair. Frankly, such priests are appalling. Through them it is that the rich are confirmed in their wealth, as ice is solidified by sulphuric acid.

Nor do worldly bishops escape his criticism (p. 219):

Msgr. Bolo belongs to a different school and makes me think of one of our bishops, he too of the fireside brand, who, with his feet up before a good fire and smoking a fat cigar after a copious meal, would merrily belch these truthful words: “To think we are the successors of the Apostles!”

From this, you might expect Bloy to be anti-clerical, but this wasn’t the case at all. Quite the opposite, in fact: he wrote one of the finest defenses of the priesthood that I’ve read, in a (scathingly anti-Protestant) letter he wrote to a mathematician friend (pp. 221-23):

Your letters inform me of nothing, unless it be of the bankruptcy of your reason. So, my dear

friend, you have doubts concerning the Church because there exist priests and faithful who are unworthy, whose true reckoning, moreover, you cannot know. In other words you have doubts about mathematics because you have known one professor – or three hundred and seventy-seven professors – of algebra or trigonometry who were swine. Really, that’s too stupid, permit me to say it to you with love […]

You say you do not know “any priest who could have won your obedience.” Why say that to me of all people, my dear friend? […] I think you cannot have written those words without a little shame. I have known priests who were admirable men, I still know some, and I shall know others who have in mind nothing but the Glory of God, the Salvation of Souls, the Evangelization of the Poor. So low have we fallen that these words have become grotesque; but I am not afraid to write them…

Sentimental objections are of no value. Does or does one not have the duty of obeying God and the Church? The whole question lies there. From this very simple point of view, the priest is nothing more than a supernatural instrument, a generator of the Infinite; and one must be [a fool] to see anything else, for all this takes place and must take place in the Absolute. For over thirty years, I’ve been hearing masses said by priests unknown to me; and I go to confession to others who may, as far as I know, be saints or murderers. Am I then their judge? and what a fool I would be if I proposed to find out their condition! It is enough for me to know that the Church is divine, that she cannot be anything but divine, and that the Sacraments administered by a bad priest are precisely as efficacious as those administered by a saint.

Isn’t it enough to make one weep, my dear friend? I am here among brutes, suffering tortures, and I must write you, you, a Catholic, these rudimentary things which an informed heretic has no right not to know. It’s appalling.

Here is a very simple comment which ought, I think, to make an impression on you, for there is something mathematical about it. The Protestant world surrounding me is beyond dispute ugly, mediocre, as devoid of the absolute as is possible. What is the character peculiar to that world? It is this: the Supernatural is excluded from it: the Supernatural is excluded from Christianity, which amounts to the most illogical and unreasonable idea that can ever have entered a human head. The consequence: contempt for the Priesthood, the cheapening of the priestly function, outside of which the supernatural cannot be made manifest. Without the power to consecrate, to bind and to loose, Christianity vanishes, to give way, in the stables of Luther and Calvin, to an abject rationalism, certainly inferior to atheism. A Catholic priest possesses such an investiture that, if he is unworthy, the sublimity of his State shines forth all the more brightly. Here, for instance, is a criminal priest liable, if you like, to the fullest damnation, and yet who have the power of transubstantiating! … How can you not perceive this infinite Beauty?

So Bloy loved and defended the Church, and the priesthood specifically. This love didn’t require him to be silent in the face of clerical abuses: in fact, it likely motivated him to call clergy (and all Christians) to greater holiness.

Pope Francis, Foot-Washing, and the Cross

Meister des Hausbuches,
Christ Washing the Feet of the Apostles (1475)

The more I read about our new Holy Father, the happier I am.  He seems to combine outspoken orthodoxy with flagrant and outspoken love of the poor and downtrodden.  In short, there is plenty for Catholics (and non-Catholics) of all stripes to like.  One of the most heartening things that I have read in response to his election came from a reader of John Thavis' blog calling himself “Non-practicing Catholic”:

“This makes me want to go back to Mass ASAP. All I can say is WOW! This is simply stunning, and I think Pope Francis will be good for the Church.”

That reaction gives credence to something that Pope-emeritus Benedict XVI has said,

“Today, for faith to grow, we must lead ourselves and the persons we meet to encounter the saints and to enter into contact with the Beautiful.”

This world is full of people who will ignore rational arguments for the faith, but fall to their knees in the face of authentic sanctity the Beautiful.  Beauty and Goodness still seep through in a world that denies Truth.  And as Dostoyevsky said (and Solzhenitsyn explained), “Beauty will save the world.”  Pope Francis appears to have lived this out in a life of humility and simplicity.

A dispute also arose among them, which of them was to be regarded as the greatest. And he said to them, “The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and those in authority over them are called benefactors. But not so with you; rather let the greatest among you become as the youngest, and the leader as one who serves. For which is the greater, one who sits at table, or one who serves? Is it not the one who sits at table? But I am among you as one who serves.

“You are those who have continued with me in my trials; as my Father appointed a kingdom for me, so do I appoint for you that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.

“Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you [plural], that he might sift you [plural] like wheat, but I have prayed for you [singular] that your faith may not fail; and when you have turned again, strengthen your brethren.”

- Luke 22:24-32

Pope Francis (then-Cardinal Bergoglio) washing the feet of a young AIDS patient, Holy Thursday, 2001

Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, rose from supper, laid aside his garments, and girded himself with a towel. Then he poured water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel with which he was girded. 

El Greco, Jesus Carrying the Cross (1580)

He came to Simon Peter; and Peter said to him, “Lord, do you wash my feet?” Jesus answered him, “What I am doing you do not know now, but afterward you will understand.” Peter said to him, “You shall never wash my feet.” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no part in me.” Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” Jesus said to him, “He who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but he is clean all over; and you are clean, but not all of you.” For he knew who was to betray him; that was why he said, “You are not all clean.”

When he had washed their feet, and taken his garments, and resumed his place, he said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you?  You call me Teacher and Lord; and you are right, for so I am.  If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.

- John 13:3-14

Nor does this charity and care for the downtrodden come at the expense of bold proclamation of the Gospel.  In his first homily as pope, Pope Francis called us all to the Cross, and to confession of Jesus Christ:

[W]e can walk as much we want, we can build many things, but if we do not confess Jesus Christ, nothing will avail. We will become a pitiful NGO, but not the Church, the Bride of Christ. [....] 

This Gospel continues with a special situation. The same Peter who confessed Jesus Christ, says, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. I will follow you, but let us not speak of the Cross. This has nothing to do with it.” He says, “I’ll follow you on other ways, that do not include the Cross.” When we walk without the Cross, when we build without the Cross, and when we profess Christ without the Cross, we are not disciples of the Lord. We are worldly, we are bishops, priests, cardinals, Popes, but not disciples of the Lord. 

I would like that all of us, after these days of grace, might have the courage - the courage - to walk in the presence of the Lord, with the Cross of the Lord: to build the Church on the Blood of the Lord, which is shed on the Cross, and to profess the one glory, Christ Crucified. In this way, the Church will go forward. 

My hope for all of us is that the Holy Spirit, that the prayer of Our Lady, our Mother, might grant us this grace: to walk, to build, to profess Jesus Christ Crucified. So be it.

Viva il Papa!