More on the Pope's Christmas Message--including the biggest bombshell.

I have noticed that whenever I dip into the past, readership goes down and when I deal with current issues, it springs back up.  So, while I am really enthused about this Church of England thing, I need to swing to the bleachers; consequently back to Pope Francis and his message to the Roma Curia.  But remember this is not just for us to gloat over the sins of the boys in purple (a sin itself under the wonderfully named category of morose delectation—the savoring of another’s faults or misfortunes), it should serve each of us as well as a measure for our own conscience.  You don’t need have a miter to chip away at the credibility of our Catholic faith.  So Pope Francis went after the boys for:

The disease of rivalry and vainglory. When appearances, the colour of our clothes and our titles of honour become the primary object in life, we forget the words of Saint Paul: “Do nothing from selfishness or conceit but in humility count others better than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others” (Phil 2:3-4). This is a disease which leads us to be men and woman of deceit, and to live a false “mysticism” and a false “quietism”. Saint Paul himself defines such persons as “enemies of the cross of Christ” because “they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things” (Phil 3:19).

The “Holy” See has long worked on the principle of rivalry and vainglory and now the Pope decides this is a “disease?”  I guess it is somewhat like smoking—for the longest time it was fashionable, a necessary social activity and all of a sudden someone decided that it wasn’t good for you—or for anyone within 100 feet of you.  Just as our eyes were opened to the dangers of tobacco, we should be grateful that this poison of pomposity and a zeal for its trappings has finally been called out.  Of course there are some—and we all know who don’t we—for whom it is still all about dressing up in more yards of silk than a Chinese empress ever dreamed of and parading around for people to kiss your ring and kneel for your blessing.  How much is a blessing from a self-idolater worth anyway?  I guess you need to go up to Gricigliano and ask the boys in blue.  And this is precisely the problem: how often do we fall for the bait represented by some grandiose prelate.  There is a saying that when a man becomes a bishop he has had his last bad meal and he will never hear the truth again.  How much to we get carried away in the moment fall all over the bishop or the Cardinal or whoever when they come to visit our parish.  We respectfully listen to what they have to say—whether it is worth listening to or not—and we bite our tongues rather than speak up and tell them what we believe.  Last November at their meeting in Baltimore, the American bishops showed a lot of hesitancy about the agenda for the family that clearly has the backing of Pope Francis.  They are not willing to go out on a limb and explore the possibilities to offer greater support to the non-traditional family structures that are very quickly becoming the norm in our society.  Yet the “Catholic in the pews” is supportive of Pope Francis.  The “Catholic in the pews” wants to see new pastoral approaches to the remarried, to same-sex households, to single parents, to couples who have opted for in vitro conception, and others who just don’t fit the traditional mold.  I am not saying that we want to abandon our traditional values, much less our moral heritage—but we do want to explore new ways to minister to those who feel themselves on the margins of the Church and we want ways to be more inclusive as a faith community.  Our bishops hesitate because we hesitate to speak up.  We are the fidelium (the faithful) of the consensus fidelium.  The deposit of the faith is held in our collective heart—not in some catechism or some tome of moral theology. 

I have no problem with bishops wearing red dresses, or even jeweled rings and crosses.  Granted some overdo it, but in principle I could care less.  I know good bishops who just like to dress up and I know sad examples of bishops who dress down in more functional attire.  What we need is to become a community of Truth where all can speak their mind (and their heart) and where we listen to one another and weigh carefully what each other has to say.  The real problem isn’t pomp; the problem is a hierarchical mentality.  Cure that and the pomposity will fall into line. 

The disease of existential schizophrenia. This is the disease of those who live a double life, the fruit of that hypocrisy typical of the mediocre and of a progressive spiritual emptiness which no doctorates or academic titles can fill. It is a disease which often strikes those who abandon pastoral service and restrict themselves to bureaucratic matters, thus losing contact with reality, with concrete people. In this way they create their own parallel world, where they set aside all that they teach with severity to others and begin to live a hidden and often dissolute life. For this most serious disease conversion is most urgent and indeed indispensable.

This is the real bombshell in the Christmas address.  I remember when I was living in Rome being invited to a Diplomatic Reception in Lateran Palace.  It was one of those scenes like you see in a movie with everyone dressed to the hilt—men in evening dress, women with their jewels, prelates in full peacock glory, waiters with trays of champagne and hors d’oeuvres, tables piled with pastries and all the empty chatter.  I was in the company of a priest friend, a chaplain in the Canadian military, and a handsome man.  There was a long line of prelates—including two cardinals—waiting to speak with him and invite him to dinner.  As he remarked to me afterwards: “the expectation is that I will be the dessert.”  The double-life of many in the Curia is a matter of open knowledge and frequent gossip in Rome.  And you know, it could to a certain extent be forgiven if it wasn’t so hypocritical with everyone posing as the paragon of moral virtue.  Francis’ “Who am I to judge” should be the blazon on every prelate’s coat of arms.  We all need to keep in our moral eye our own failures and sins and realize that none of us is in a position to judge—much less to condemn—others.  Francis defined this particular fault as a “schizophrenia” and so it is as so often we are able—all of us from the boys in the red dresses down to little old lady from county Monaghan who is daily at the communion rail—we are all able to compartmentalize our lives and put a fire wall between our own sins and our public persona.  Psalm 50 is my favorite prayer perhaps simply because it calls me to face my sins honestly and keeps me truthful to myself.  At least I hope it does. 

The disease of gossiping, grumbling and back-biting. I have already spoken many times about this disease, but never enough. It is a grave illness which begins simply, perhaps even in small talk, and takes over a person, making him become a “sower of weeds” (like Satan) and in many cases, a cold-blooded killer of the good name of our colleagues and confrères. It is the disease of cowardly persons who lack the courage to speak out directly, but instead speak behind other people’s backs. Saint Paul admonishes us to do all things without grumbling or questioning, that you may be blameless and innocent” (Phil 2:14-15). Brothers, let us be on our guard against the terrorism of gossip!

 This gossiping, grumbling, and backbiting has long been part of the Vatican culture.  You can go back to the very dirty papal elections of the 16^th century where cardinals knocked out their rivals—or at least attempted to—by circulating the most scurrilous of rumors.  What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul in the process?  But again, the fight to the top of the caterpillar pillar is so vicious and it brings out the worst.  Unfortunately the Vatican runs on gossip: if you could turn it to energy you could light and heat all of Italy.  The nasty little comments that are slipped in between the primo piatto and the secundo at Abruzzi on the Piazza SS Apostoli, or La Sagrestia over near the Pantheon are legendary.  Just grab a table anywhere in the Borgo during lunch and you will overhear some nasty remark or another from a fellow in a soutane about one of his co-workers. 

Francis comes from a very different tradition.  I understand that Jesuits take a vow never to speak ill of another Jesuit.  Of course, like other vows people take the rate of keeping doesn’t match the rate of taking.  Nevertheless, it does create a certain culture in which you learn to be careful of speaking ill—especially when untrue—of others.  We could all benefit from that consciousness.  People can be just as vicious in staking out their niche in the local parish as some desk-jockey Monsignor in the Vatican in his battle for the purple.  Or it may not even be in the Church that we fall into gossip and undermining the reputation of others.  It might be in our Knights of Columbus Council or even the local swim club.  It might be at our job.  In whatever situation we find ourselves sinking to this low, we need to remember that it reflects very poorly on us as Catholics.  This is an area where you and I can do as much damage, and maybe even more, to the credibility of our Faith than any Cardinal or bishop ever could.

Foundations of the Anglican Church CII

Nicholas Ferrar 

One of the more interesting phenomenon of the Religious Renaissance in the Church of England was the “community” at Little Gidding.  The Puritan faction was appalled and called it a “Protestant nunnery” but in fact it was nothing more than a devout extended family living a prayerful life while supporting themselves by their own labors, most through bookbinding.  Nevertheless, the Community at Little Gidding demonstrates the desire of devout families in the Church of England to live the sort of intense commitment represented by a monastic life style.  It also shows the resurgence of a Catholic understanding of the freedom of the will under grace that had been supplanted in Anglicanism by the Puritan/Calvinist emphasis on predestination.  Liturgical Prayer and spiritual discipline were seen as characteristics that testify to active collaboration with grace in a way that the Puritan faction rejected.  The experience of the Ferrar household at Little Gidding is a bright spot in the history of Anglicanism and its instinct will rise again a century later with the Wesleys and Methodism. 

The organizer of the Community at Little Gidding was one Nicholas Ferrar (1592-1637).  Ferrar,  a fellow of Clare College Cambridge, was a friend of George Herbert, the Welsh-born English Metaphysical poet and Anglican priest.  Herbert is one of the leading “Caroline Divines.”  After travelling extensively on the continent where he encountered Roman Catholics (including Jesuits and the Oratorians of Saint Philip Neri), German Lutherans, Jews, and Anabaptists—all of whom broadened his religious views—he returned to England with a vision of establishing a pious household for himself and his extended family.

After a brief and contentious term in Parliament, Ferrar persuaded his mother, his brother and his brother’s wife and family and his sister and her husband and children to go in with him and purchase the abandoned manor at Little Gidding in Huntingdonshire.  They restored the ancient church on the manor—it had been a Templar Church—and one member or another of the family was always to be found there in prayer.  They had a strict regimen of keeping the prescribed fasts of the Church of England and of following the Prayer Book daily offices of Morning and Evening Prayer.  They devoted themselves to the education of the local children.  And they supported themselves by bookbinding, an art which they learned from a Cambridge binder.  They attracted much notice and even three visits by King Charles I.   The Ferrars were enthusiasts for the High Church vision of both a disciplined Christian life and dignified liturgical service.  They fitted the Church at Little Gidding with a pipe organ as well as a brass lectern in the traditional shape of an Eagle.  Nicholas Ferrar died in 1637 but the communal life continued for another twenty years at Little Gidding.  

Foundations of the Anglican Church CI

The Laudian Altar at St. Peter's

Wolverhampton, an example of 

Laud's pushing the Church of 

England into a more sacramental

or even "Catholic" direction

There is so much to talk about—I want to finish some reflections on the Pope’s Christmas message to the Curia as it is a very dramatic innovation that helps us understand just how serious Pope Francis is in the Reform of the Church.  And then there is the matter of his new cardinals.  Very interesting choices: more interesting from the perspective of who was not chosen than for who was.  But I really want to get back to the Anglican history and we left off on the brink of some very crucial developments.  I must have been a Scandinavian in a past life as I seem to like the smorgasbord approach.  Or maybe—and more likely—I just have a short attention span.  But today we go back to England in the third and fourth decades of the seventeenth century.  Charles the I has just ascended the throne.  And it is a lively time for the Church of England.

Charles, incidentally has a wife that is openly Catholic.  His mother—Anne of Denmark—had been a Catholic ( a convert from Danish Lutheranism) but quite discreetly.  Charles’ wife, Henrietta Marie, was a French Princess and there was nothing discreet—much less clandestine—about her papist leanings.  Charles had a Catholic chapel—the Queen’s Chapel—built for her at the Palace of Saint James, the seat of the Court in London.  

During the reign of Charles there was a distinct move away from the stern puritan/Calvinism of the Church of England.    Charles named William Laud to be h is Archbishop of Canterbury and while Laud was a convinced Anglican, he was a bit of a throwback to the sort of Anglicanism represented in the First Book of Common Prayer (1549).  His views on the sacramental life of the Church were anything but Calvinist, much less the Zwinglism advocated by Cranmer in his later development.  Laud wanted to restore a certain dignity, even pageantry, to the Liturgy.  Moreover Laud and other “High Churchmen” moved away from the strict double predestinarianism of the Calvinists.  (This was the idea that God had predestined some to eternal salvation and others to eternal damnation and there was nothing that one could do alter the eternal sentence.)  We will go into more details about Archbishop Laud and “Laudian” Anglicanism in future posts, but suffice it to say here that the Archbishop’s preferences—and his determination to force a liturgical uniformity on the Church—only widened the split between the Puritans (who tended towards Presbyterianism) and the High Churchmen (who supported episcopalianism or governance of the Church by bishops). 

Meanwhile, the Catholic Church was in a period of great spiritual renewal generated by the Counter Reformation.  Spiritual writers were producing volume after volume about prayer and mystical theology.  The Spiritual Exercise of Saint Ignatius Loyola had given a mystical discipline to Ignatius’ disciples the Jesuits.  The writings of Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross—two Spanish Carmelites—were being translated into all the European languages and being read by the devout.   The French Church in particular was undergoing an incredible spiritual renaissance.  Francis de Sales and his Introduction toThe Devout Life brought spirituality into the realm of everyday people.  English Catholic writers on the continent, notably Richard Crashaw, Robert Southwell, Dom Augustine Baker and Dame Gertrude More, helped introduce contemporary spiritual writings into the English world and the result was a renaissance of spirituality among Anglican divines as well.  Jeremy Taylor, Herbert Thorndike, and Thomas Ken are three examples of Anglican spiritual writers at this period.  The flowering of a spirituality was not conducive to the Calvinist spirit which was always suspect of any move away from a strict adherence to Scriptural doctrine and moral rigidity  to personal piety and subjective religion.  

More Thoughts on Pope Francis' "Merry Christmas" to the Boys in the Curia

a heart contrite and humbled, O

God, you will not reject.  

Let’s continue our “examination of conscience” as we look at Pope Francis’s call out to the papal Curia in his bombshell of a Christmas message.  The reform of the Church needs to be in root and branches—that means not only those men in long red dresses lunching at da Roberto in the Borgo Pio or at Scarpone up there on the Janiculum—but here on the local level as well.  And not just Monsignor Quinn at the chancery or Father Jasek in the parish but you and me and the rest of the people in the pews.  There is no shoe-size that only fits a Cardinal. 

The disease of excessive planning and of functionalism. When the apostle plans everything down to the last detail and believes that with perfect planning things will fall into place, he becomes an accountant or an office manager. Things need to be prepared well, but without ever falling into the temptation of trying to contain and direct the freedom of the Holy Spirit, which is always greater and more flexible than any human planning (cf. Jn 3:8). We contract this disease because “it is always more easy and comfortable to settle in our own sedentary and unchanging ways. In truth, the Church shows her fidelity to the Holy Spirit to the extent that she does not try to control or tame him… to tame the Holy Spirit! … He is freshness, imagination, and newness”.

Planning is a good thing.  Jesus tells us in the gospel that a man building a tower will sit down and plan his finances to see if he can complete it; a king preparing for battle will come up with a plan to defeat a larger army or flee the field.  But there are those for whom the Church is a business and not a mission.  They have a business plan.  It is their plan.  The Christian knows that we need to stand back and prayerfully discern God’s plan and our place in it.  What is even more off-putting are those whose plan is not to advance the mission of the Church but for their own advancement in the Church.  This has been a huge problem for decades now.  In the heady years after Vatican II there were many priests who would have made good bishops but they didn’t want to give up the “work in the trenches” of parishes and schools and so they declined the appointment.  We too often were left with the second-stringers, the ones who wanted to get a red dress of their own, the careerists.  The situation deteriorated even more when under John Paul II and Benedict, loyalty to the institution rather than dedication to mission became the bottom line in choosing bishops.  We were flooded with men like Fabian Bruskewitz (now retired of Lincoln) or Paul Loverde of Arlingtion or Joseph Martino (now emeritus of Scranton), or Edward Egan (retired of New York) who couldn’t think for themselves but swallowed the “party line” hook, line, and sinker.  Even worse we got the opportunists who were bright enough to think critically but sufficiently cynical to suck up in hopes of advancing their own careers, people like Robert Finn of Kansas City or Robert Morlino of Madison or Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco.  (Actually Teddy McCarrick, formerly of Newark and Washington, was one of the worst of these until he got his red hat and once having arrived as far as he was going to go, showed a little backbone.)  It got so that intelligence and integrity were almost a barrier to a miter.  We need bishops who have a vision of the Kingdom of God and can see a path to lead us there, bishops who buy into God’s plan with a prophet’s eye and wise man’s heart.  The task is not to preserve what we have—our own “sedentary and unchanging ways” but to allow the Holy Spirit full freedom to spread his wings wide and soar into the future God has planned for us. 

Sometimes we see this problem just as strong on the local level where priests and more interested in keeping things smooth with the chancery than providing their people with the spiritual nourishment they are looking for.  One of my favorite movies, back in the day, was Mass Appeal starring Jack Lemmon as a priest who sold his soul in order to be loved by his wealthy parishioners, but I have met far too many “don’t rock the boat” priests over the years who either for popularity or for advancement have gladly surrendered their integrity.  Sycophantism  does not become the holiness of the priesthood. 

The disease of poor coordination. Once its members lose communion among themselves, the body loses its harmonious functioning and its equilibrium; it then becomes an orchestra which produces noise: its members do not work together and lose the spirit of fellowship and teamwork. When the foot says to the arm: “I don't need you ”, or the hand says to the head, “I’m in charge”, they create discomfort and scandal.

This is another subject for which we Americans have long been condemned by people in Rome who are even more guilty of it than we are.  Americans are individualists.  It has long been so.  Tocqueville mentioned it in his 1835 Democracy in America.  But the Curia Romana has long deteriorated into one of the most pitiless aggregates of individuals in the history of bureaucracy.  The jealousies and rivalries as the various prelates try to slither up the caterpillar pillar, each constantly trying to edge the others off to reach the purpled destiny they lust after rather than working for the common good of the faithful has long scandalized any outsider who has had to work with them in any capacity.  But we often see this same malady in the local chancery offices or among priests vying for “better” and “better” parishes.  And as women take their place in chanceries and parish administration they are often no less ruthless in eliminating any opposition to achieving their particular vision of Church rather than being responsive to the needs of the rank and file.  And how often do we “go to the mats” to defend our own ecclesial turf?  “I am always the lector at 10 am Mass.”   “Father Joe comes to all my parties.”  “I do the purificators and corporals around here.”  “I pick the music!” 

The sixth malady the Pope mentioned in his message is:

There is also a “spiritual Alzheimer’s disease”. It consists in losing the memory of our personal “salvation history”, our past history with the Lord and our “first love” (Rev 2:4). It involves a progressive decline in the spiritual faculties which in the long or short run greatly handicaps a person by making him incapable of doing anything on his own, living in a state of absolute dependence on his often imaginary perceptions. We see it in those who have lost the memory of their encounter with the Lord; in those who no longer see life’s meaning in “deuteronomic” terms; in those who are completely caught up in the present moment, in their passions, whims and obsessions; in those who build walls and routines around themselves, and thus become more and more the slaves of idols carved by their own hands.

This is perhaps the saddest.  Here are men who have so completely fallen in love with the power and perks of their office that they have forgotten the Love that first called them to the priesthood or the Religious Life.  Their heart is given to “the Church”—but not the Church as the spotless bride of the Lamb but the Institution with all its what the old baptismal rite used to refer to as “pomps”  as in “Do you renounce Satan and all his pomps.”  They salivate over cappae magnae and mitrae pretiosae and long ceremonies with numerous acolytes to carry a bugia or a thurible.  Love for the Crucified has been reduced to a ceremonial kiss of an ivory crucifix while kneeling on a damask draped prie-dieu at the Church door.  Zeal for souls expresses itself in keeping people from Holy Communion.   “Prayer” is the self-indulgent piety of a daily Holy Hour in one’s private chapel where one prays with the good gentleman of Luke 18:11-12.  Religion, granted “the true religion” has replaced God in this forgetful heart.  Where is the boy who dreamed of going to Africa to minister to lepers?  Where is the young man who dreamed of monastic solitude?  Where is the young priest who made midnight calls to the hospital?  What makes us forget why we raised our head and cocked our ear to a soundless call for sheer love?  It is so easy to slip into vocational dementia.  And that is true for all of us.  Why is it so easy to turn over on Sunday morning and sleep when once we never would have missed Mass?  Why is it so easy to relegate one hour a week to God when we used to find our social life in the parish and its outreach?  Why have we forgotten that beneath that panhandling drunk or that old woman in the nursing home lurks Jesus himself.   Why has love grown cold when it was once so ardent?  

Francis Merry Christmas: Christians 15, Lions 0 cont.

 Let’s look some more at that bombshell that Pope Francis dropped on the Curia in his Christmas message—not only because it gives us some insight as to why the Papal Curia is as dysfunctional as it is, and not even because it gives us hints where the Pope sees that Reform is necessary, but maybe mostly to see if the silver buckled shoe on the feet of one Cardinal or another might also fit your foot or mine.  The New Year is a good time to examine our consciences as well as taking guesses about the state of another’s soul, or as Jesus put it, to take the beam out of our own eye before we try to remove the speck from someone else’s.

Pope Francis characterized the second spiritual disease infecting the Curia and, by extension, the Church as:

Another disease is the “Martha complex”, excessive busy-ness. It is found in those who immerse themselves in work and inevitably neglect “the better part”: sitting at the feet of Jesus (cf. Lk 10:38-42). Jesus called his disciples to “rest a while” (cf. Mk 6:31) for a reason, because neglecting needed rest leads to stress and agitation. A time of rest, for those who have completed their work, is necessary, obligatory and should be taken seriously: by spending time with one’s family and respecting holidays as moments of spiritual and physical recharging. We need to learn from Qohelet that “for everything there is a season” (3:1-15).

You know, when Leo XIII condemned “Americanism” in the 1899 Encyclical Testem Benevolentiae, one of the criticisms proffered by the Holy Father was that Americans tend to underappreciate the contemplative essence of the Christian life and here Pope Francis is slamming the prelates of the Roman Curia for the very same fault.  Notice that he hits them on two levels: they are not spending enough quality time with Christ, sitting at his feet (contemplative prayer) and they are not spending enough quality time with others, especially their families.  The Pope sees the Curia bureaucrats as men (and nowadays some women) who let their work consume them, forgetting that God did not created us for the purpose of work—even his work—but for love.  We were created to love God with our entire hearts, souls, strengths, and being and to love our neighbor as ourselves.  We need to redefine our lives putting the primacy of our life on relationships not on accomplishments.  But, of course, we are evaluated (judged) on our work and it is our work that wins us advancement.  But what does it profit us to gain the whole world and lose our very selves in the process?  How many of these bureaucrats have lost themselves in their desire to gain higher and higher position in the caterpillar tree that administers the institutional dimensions of the Catholic Church?  And at the same time, how many of us too trade time with God and time with those whom we are called to love in hopes of advancing our careers?  Oh, we do it for our families.  We do this to be better providers.  We do this so they can have tae kwon do.  We do this so they can afford piano lessons or to be in the school band.  yada yada yada   But at the end of the day we aren’t there for them because of all the things we “do for them.”  The fact of the matter is we opt for a higher standard of living that we could afford if we have our priorities in the right place.  At the end of the day all that matters is that we have been there and given them love.   

Then too there is the disease of mental and spiritual “petrification”. It is found in those who have a heart of stone, the “stiff-necked” (Acts 7:51-60), in those who in the course of time lose their interior serenity, alertness and daring, and hide under a pile of papers, turning into paper pushers and not men of God (cf. Heb 3:12). It is dangerous to lose the human sensitivity that enables us to weep with those who weep and to rejoice with those who rejoice! This is the disease of those who lose “the sentiments of Jesus” (cf. Phil 2:5-11), because as time goes on their hearts grow hard and become incapable of loving unconditionally the Father and our neighbour (cf. Mt 22:34-35). Being a Christian means “having the same sentiments that were in Christ Jesus” (Phil 2:5), sentiments of humility and unselfishness, of detachment and generosity.

And hasn’t this just been the problem?  We have cardinals and bishops and monsignors and priests who, far from having the shepherd’s heart that is a proffered grace of the Sacrament of Orders, have chosen to have hearts of stone.  The Law is what is important.  You know the routine—it is rooted in our Christian tradition from the first days: the High Priest declared: “We have a Law and by that Law this man must die.”  And so too we have our laws: who can go to Holy Communion; who can have a Church wedding or funeral; who can have their children baptized etc.  Gay people can’t be Eucharistic ministers or lectors.  Catholic School teachers must not be remarried after a divorce.  If you are in a same-sex marriage you can’t be the Director of Music.  And don’t forget the famous “Canon 915”—you know the one; it’s the canon that says “I’m holier than thou, you miserable piece of moral turpitude and I will decide that Jesus doesn’t want you coming to the Table of His Body and Blood.”  That’s a loose translation, admittedly, but you get the idea—or at least how some people read it.  Stone, stone, stone—hearts of stone that are quick to judge without knowing the story, without knowing the pain, without knowing the struggles.

This certainly has been the sin of some prelates in the Curia—or, at least formerly in the Curia and now, thanks to Francis the Compassionate, relegated to more ceremonial functions where they can do less harm.  But we find this same legalism in some of our parishes and even among the laity who, given their life experience, should know better.  But it is so much fun to be better than everyone else and to make sure that they, and everyone, knows it.  Why doesn’t the sins of others make us weep in compassion for the struggles they have faced in making their decisions?  Why do we let the failings of others give us an unholy glee to celebrate our moral righteousness?  I think Francis is right on—not just in the sins of the boys in the purple dresses but in raising the questions that should give us all pause. 

We can only be hopeful that the call of Pope Francis to his Curia will bring them to an ever deeper awareness of the Compassion Christ has for each of us and a renewed desire to use their office bring the mercy and forgiveness of God into the lives of all people to heal us of our own spiritual maladies and bring us reconciliation for the forgiveness of our sins.  We need a new face on the public image of the Church.  Francis has brought that at his level, but it needs to spread down and out through the entire administration, not just in Rome but also to our dioceses and our parishes.  For too long everyone has known what the Catholic Church is against.  That is no way to spread the Gospel.  Now we are being given the chance to proclaim loudly what we are for: the spread of the Good News of Jesus Christ that in his infinite mercy God has so loved the world that he sent his only son that whoever believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life; God did not send his Son to condemn the world but rather so that the world might be saved through him.