IMAGE: CNS/Paul Haring
By Cindy Wooden
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The pope is
human. Pope Francis demonstrated that in Mexico, as he does wherever he goes,
and most people find it attractive most of the time.
In Pope Francis, Catholics can see
a real person trying to live his faith in a complicated world. Sometimes he
waves at them and they can see the frayed edges of his soutane sleeve. When his
sciatica is acting up, he needs extra help going down steps. His aides do not
keep his reading glasses, so sometimes he fumbles with the soutane pocket
trying to get them out.
Crowds “ahhh” when he tenderly
strokes the face of an obviously sick person, and they applaud when he gives a
big hug to a child. However, they can be shocked when the human side of the
pope is impatience or downright anger like it was Feb. 16 in Morelia, Mexico,
when one of the thousands of people who grab the pope at public events yanked
him, pulling him on top of a person seated in a wheelchair.
“What’s the matter with
you?” the pope snapped. “Don’t be selfish!”
While security officers helped the
pope back up, Pope Francis caressed the face of the boy he’d fallen on.
The off-the-cuff Pope Francis is
very human, too. That touches people who experience a pope really listening to
them and who is taking notes as people ask him questions. It sometimes
frustrates journalists who are given his prepared remarks in advance, knowing
full well that he may use little or none of the printed text. For people who do
not usually agree with Pope Francis, the ad-libbing is just a nightmare. And,
those spontaneous remarks can be frustratingly incomplete or imprecise.
But the pope knows that. For
example, when he speaks about the growing gap between the rich and poor, he
openly approximates. “If I’m not mistaken — the figures are approximate
— but more or less 80 percent of human wealth is in the hands of less than 20
percent of the population,” he said Feb. 10 at his weekly general audience
at the Vatican.
When people call Pope Francis
“the pope of surprises,” they usually say it with a delighted sense
of expectation. But there are people in the world who really don’t like surprises.
As far back as the papal trips of
St. John Paul II, journalists have valued being on the papal plane because it
is the only time they are guaranteed a chance to ask the pope questions. Popes
do not hold regular news conferences. With Pope Francis, unlike with Pope
Benedict XVI, the questions are not submitted in advance, and his answers almost
always make the news.
Flying back from Mexico Feb. 17,
Pope Francis was asked to react to Donald Trump’s accusations that the pope is
political and, since the pope had just celebrated Mass at the Mexican-U.S.
border, he also was asked to comment on Trump’s proposal to build a wall along
the entire length of the border and deport millions of immigrants. Pope Francis
answered, “If he says these things, this man is not Christian.”
The pope was less clear in
responding to a question about whether “avoiding pregnancy” could be
considered a “lesser evil” when facing the possibility of birth
defects from the Zika virus. The pope used the word “contraception”
when referring to Blessed Paul VI allowing women religious in the Belgian Congo
in the 1960s to take the pill to avoid becoming pregnant if they were the
victim of rape, which was being used as a weapon of war.
Then, answering the question about
Zika, he said, “Avoiding pregnancy is not an absolute evil. In certain
cases, such as the one I mentioned of Blessed Paul VI, it was clear.” The
answer led to headlines saying the pope said it was possible that using birth
control in response to Zika could be tolerated.
The pope’s responses to
journalists, particularly, to the Trump question and to the Zika question made
a splash in the news and on social media.
Thomas Peters, who tweets as
@AmericanPapist, tweeted, “For the 1 millionth time, no more in-flight papal
news conferences please!” And a bit later, he added, “Seriously, who
believes that off-the-cuff interviews at 30,000 feet after a weeklong
international trip is a good idea anymore?”
Pope Francis’ answer to another
question, one that did not make the news, also illustrates his human side. He
was asked what he was praying for during the 20 minutes he sat before the image
of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City.
He said he prayed for so many
things that Mary, “poor thing,” probably had a headache when he was
done. He said he prayed for forgiveness, for the growth of the church, for the
Mexican people, for priests, nuns, bishops. “I asked for a lot.”
But he would not say more or give
more details. “The things a child tells his mother are kind of secret,”
he explained.
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