Religion is
struggling these days to be relevant.
About the
only place it seems to me, strangely enough, to be entering some slight renewal
is within Catholicism, which needs it, considering all of the horrors of past priest
abuse. And that flicker of renewal is due solely to the fresh presence of Pope
Francis.
Pope Francis
is in many ways a maverick. He is one of the few in religion today who gets
religion. He is telling us and showing us what religion is supposed to do.
Choosing not
to live in the luxurious pontiff’s apartment and the surroundings of the papal
palace he moved into a small modest cottage nearby. He has scorned capitalism
and materialism and asks us to live for what matters. His sermons are filled
with words of mercy and peace and the love of Jesus.
Pope Francis
goes to the people after each mass and tenderly, lovingly shakes their hands,
waves, kisses babies and touches the sick and prays for them. There was a photo
online the other day of him approaching a man in the crowd whose face was
covered in painful tumors. The man buried his head in the Pope’s chest as
Francis put his hand on the man’s face and affirmed him in love. The man’s
disfigurement momentarily lost its horror in the presence of so much generous
humanity.
Pope Francis exudes
an authentic and appropriate affection for children and they grin and beam when
he is near them. I saw on television a
few days ago where a little boy somehow made his way onto the stage where the
Pope was speaking and simply stood next to him. A papal security agent dressed
like the CIA in a black suit and sunglasses clumsily tried to coax the child
away with a candy sucker but he would not budge. The Pope merely smiled, put
his hand on the boy’s head, and continued.
This week the
news carried the story that Pope Francis is going out at night dressed in the
usual clothes of a parish priest to be among the homeless, to show them care, to
offer them friendship, and to let them know they matter.
When asked by
a reporter not long ago about gays the Pope responded, “Who am I to judge them?”
This is the
work of religion.
The old term
for what we usually think of as church was “sanctuary.” From the French and
Latin the word originally carried the idea of a sacred or holy place. In medieval
times fugitives went to the church for protection from arrest and punishment by
the law. Imagine that; religion serving to protect the guilty.
In our day
religion is all mixed up in politics, in economics, in cultural wars, in divisive
ideologies, and too often in bigotry and elitism and the separating of the self-righteous
from everyone else.
Caught in
those defeating agendas, religion, apart from the Pope’s example, has little meaningful
future.
I have always
thought religion should be about giving people personal dignity, nourishing
their sense of humility, guiding them into a more tolerant love, and giving
them insight into their original worth.
It should
help all of us in keeping ourselves recognizably human.
Religion is
not about making us different, or holy, or unique, or better. If it is to mean
anything it ought to be about teaching us the value and beauty of both
diversity and equality and helping us see how we really are in spite of our
differences all the same in our deepest longings, our human frailties, our easy
disgraces, our need for goodness, and in our search for love.
Book reviewer
Silas Sparkhammer has said, “For
me, religion is like a rhinoceros: I don't have one, and I'd really prefer not
to be trampled by yours.”
Somehow I think Pope Francis
would smile at that, and agree. He is giving religion an identity all of us can
relate to, and if we choose, to make our own.
© 2013 Timothy Moody
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