A woman reacts to Pope Francis’ final words during the closing Mass of the World Meeting of Families on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia Sept. 27. (CNS photo/Brian Snyder, Reuters)
TO WOMEN RELIGIOUS
A big thank you
During an evening prayer service at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York, Pope Francis thanked the nation’s priests, brothers and women religious for their service and gave particular thanks to women religious saying, “Where would the church be without you?” The pope began with unscripted remarks, extending his sympathy to the Muslim community for the stampede in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, that killed more than 700 people that morning. He offered his “sentiments of closeness in face of tragedy” and his assurance of his prayers. “I unite myself with you,” he added. The pope arrived by popemobile at St. Patrick’s Sept. 24 after traveling from Washington. He encouraged those with religious vocations and also acknowledged the pain of the clergy sexual abuse crisis in the church saying, “You suffered greatly in the not distant past by having to bear the shame of some of your brothers who harmed and scandalized the church in the most vulnerable of her members.” The congregation applauded his remarks about women religious in the United States, whom he described as women of strength and fighters and said their “spirit of courage” puts them “in the front lines in the proclamation of the Gospel. To you, religious women, sisters and mothers of this people, I wish to say thank you, a big thank you, and to tell you that I love you very much.”
LITTLE SISTERS OF THE POOR
Unscheduled visit
Pope Francis made a previously unannounced 15-minute stop Sept. 23 at a Washington residence operated by the Little Sisters of the Poor, where he met with about 45 sisters. Sister Constance Veit, communications director for the Little Sisters, said the pope talked individually with each sister, ranging in age from novices to 102-year-old Sister Marie Mathilde, who is Colombian and spoke to the pope in Spanish. Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, told reporters in Washington that evening that the papal visit was intended as a sign of support for the Little Sisters’ lawsuit against the Obama administration’s mandate that all employers offer contraceptive coverage in their health plans or participate in a religious “accommodation” that the sisters have refused. But Sister Constance said Pope Francis made no mention of the lawsuit during his visit. Rather, his message to the group was about the Little Sisters’ “mission to the elderly” and “how important it is in a society that tends to marginalize the elderly and the poor,” she told Catholic News Service Sept. 24. “We were deeply moved by his encouraging words,” she added.
HOMELESSNESS
‘No justification
“We can find no social or moral justification, no justification, no justification whatsoever, for lack of housing,” Pope Francis told an audience of about 200 clients of Catholic Charities gathered at St. Patrick Church. “I want to be very clear,” Pope Francis told the crowd, many of whom have low incomes, are immigrants, and receive medical care or clinical and mental health services from Catholic Charities in the Archdiocese of Washington. After his remarks at St. Patrick’s, he exited from a side door of the church to visit the main headquarters of the archdiocesan Catholic Charities agency, blessing the chapel there. Outside the Catholic Charities office Sept. 24, many homeless clients receive a meal from the St. Maria’s Meals Program. He stopped at the line and told them with a smile, “Buen apetito!” — “Enjoy your meal!” — to applause followed by a swarm of outstretched arms and hands. Pope Francis waded into the throng, waving and shaking hands, surrounded by nearly as many photographers and security agents as hungry people. He also posed for a number of selfies taken by ecstatic members of the crowd. Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser, who was a teen lector at her District of Columbia parish, stayed behind to talk with the homeless diners after the papal motorcade left.
9/11 MEMORIAL
Violence brings tears
Honoring both the pain and the strength of the families of those who died at the World Trade Center on 9/11 and drawing on the pools of water that are part of the site’s memorial, Pope Francis spoke about tears and quenching the world’s longing for peace. “The water we see flowing toward that empty pit remind us of all those lives” lost in 2001, he said. “The flowing water is also a symbol of our tears. Tears at so much devastation and ruin, past and present.” The pope and New York Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan each left a single white rose on the edge of the fountain in Memorial Plaza. Pope Francis also met briefly with 20 family members of fallen first responders, shaking their hands, blessing them and listening to them carefully with the help of an interpreter. Gathered around the fountain were 1,000 people — including some injured when the twin towers fell. Afterward, Pope Francis joined a varied group of religious leaders and about 400 people in Foundation Hall to offer prayers for the deceased and for peace in the world. Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove of Park Avenue Synagogue and Imam Khalid Latif, the Muslim chaplain at New York University, offered reflections before the pope spoke. “Intolerance and ignorance fueled those who attacked this place,” Latif said. “We stand together as brothers and sisters to condemn their horrific acts of violence and honor each life that was lost.”
MADISON SQUARE GARDEN
Gospel of ‘encounter’
Seeing New York for the first time in his 78 years of life, Pope Francis said he knew Madison Square Garden was an important gathering place for sporting events and concerts. For him, it was transformed into a chapel in the heart of the Big Apple. True peace in a big city comes from seeing the vast variety of people not as a bother, but as a brother or sister, Pope Francis said in his homily during the Mass Sept. 25 at “The Garden” where 20,000 people gathered to pray with him. With tough security and long lines, people arrived hours early. They prayed and listened to inspirational music sung live by Gloria Estefan, Jennifer Hudson and Harry Connick Jr. Before vesting for Mass, Pope Francis entered the arena in an electric cart, riding up and down the aisles, kissing babies and blessing several sick children. In his homily, the pope urged the congregation to go out into the city, to seek the face of Jesus in the poor and suffering and to share the joy of the Gospel with all. Jesus urges his disciples “to go out and meet others where they really are, not where we think they should be,” Pope Francis said.
SPANISH HARLEM
‘So much to learn’
Pope Francis encouraged an audience of Catholic school students and immigrants to live with joy and dare to dream. He also highlighted the immigrant experience — in a way children could understand, comparing it to seeking acceptance and making friends in school, not always an easy place for them to fit in or find their way. “They tell me that one of the nice things about this school is that some of its students come from other places, even from other countries,” Pope Francis told students and a group of immigrants at the Our Lady Queen of Angels school, where he visited Sept. 25. “I know that it is not easy to have to move and find a new home, new neighbors and new friends,” the pope said. “At the beginning it can be hard. … Often you have to learn a new language, adjust to a new culture. … There is so much to learn! And not just at school.” The message, spoken simply, continued the pope’s call for inclusive attitudes and actions in favor of immigrants, who often occupy the peripheral places to which he has called on Catholics to carry the Gospel. Immigrants at the school greeted him personally, engaged in small talk and read from the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 25. “I was a stranger and you welcomed me.” The Our Lady Queen of Angels School serves Spanish Harlem, a section of New York originally home to African-Americans, then newcomers from Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. Mexicans have arrived in large numbers of late.
THE DREXEL EXAMPLE
Challenge, inspire
Pope Francis encouraged Pennsylvania’s Catholic clergy and women and men religious to challenge young people to develop “high ideals, generosity of spirit and love for Christ and the church.” In his first Mass in Philadelphia, Pope Francis recalled St. Katharine Drexel, a Philadelphia heiress who entered religious life, formed a religious community and used her family inheritance to educate blacks and Native Americans throughout the U.S. after Pope Leo XIII had challenged her to serve the church by asking, “What about you?” The pope posed the same question repeatedly to the audience of 1,500 that included more than 300 priests and 160 deacons in the main Cathedral Basilica of SS. Peter and Paul Sept. 26. Another 500 people in religious life attended in an overflow chapel at the cathedral. “Do we challenge them?” Pope Francis asked in reference to efforts to involve young people in church life. “Do we make space for them and help them to do their part? To find ways of sharing their enthusiasm and gifts with our communities, above all in works of mercy and concern for others? Do we share our own joy and enthusiasm in serving the Lord?” Pope Francis called for creativity in ministry to inspire people to maintain ties with the church.
CLOSING MASS
Care for each other
Pope Francis urged the hundreds of thousands of people gathered for the closing Mass of the World Meeting of Families to serve and care for each other as freely as God loves the human family. The pope called upon the faithful to embrace signs that the Holy Spirit can work through everyone. He referred to the readings in the multilingual Mass — from the Book of Numbers and the Gospel of Mark — in which members of the faith community questioned the work of those not part of their group and for prophesying in the name of God. “To raise doubts about the working of the Spirit, to give the impression that it cannot take place in those who are not ‘part of our group,’ who are not ‘like us,’ is a dangerous temptation,” the pope said. “Not only does it block conversion to the faith; it is a perversion of faith. Faith opens a window to the presence and working of the Spirit. It shows us that, like happiness, holiness is always tied to little gestures.” Illustrating his point before the Mass, Pope Francis engaged in “little gestures” himself along the papal parade route to the Mass, kissing and blessing many babies brought to him from the sidewalk throngs by Secret Service agents, who themselves managed to crack smiles after days of maintaining a stern demeanor as they guarded the pontiff. Pope Francis recalled that Jesus encountered hostility from those who thought it intolerable that he was open to honest and sincere faith from men and women who were not part of God’s chosen people.
CLERGY ABUSE
Crimes can’t be secret
Pope Francis met with a group of survivors of sexual abuse Sept. 27 and later told bishops that he was overwhelmed by a sense of embarrassment and was committed to holding accountable those who harmed children. In a meeting with cardinals, bishops, priests and seminarians at St. Charles Borromeo, the pope prefaced his address on the importance of the family by saying that he had met with the group as arranged by Philadelphia Archbishop Charles J. Chaput. The Vatican said the 30-minute meeting, with three women and two men abused by members of the clergy or their families or their teachers, was held at the seminary shortly before the pope addressed the bishops. “It is engraved in my heart, the stories, suffering and pain of the children abused by priests,” the pope said. “I continue to feel an overwhelming sense of embarrassment because of those who had in their care the little ones and caused them great harm. “I am deeply sorry. God cries,” he said. He said that “the crimes and sin of sexual abuse of children can no longer remain secret” and that he “committed the close vigilance of the church to protect the children, and I promise that all responsible will be held accountable.”
WHEN IN PRISON
All need forgiveness
While pilgrims in Philadelphia put up with a long weekend of lines and security checks at the papal venues, the pope reached out to a group of people whose lives are lines and security checks for years at a time. Pope Francis spent about an hour at the Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility. He entered the gymnasium from behind a blue curtain, walking up on to the small stage and carefully inspecting the large chair the inmates had made for him. He turned, with a big smile across his face, and gave the inmates a sincere Pope Francis thumbs up. As the U.S. debates the need for penal reform, Pope Francis said prisons must focus on rehabilitation, and he insisted that no one is perfect and without need of forgiveness. While his speech was addressed primarily to the inmates, a small group of their family members, prison officials, state legislators and city officials, including Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, also attended. About 20 minutes before the pope arrived — ahead of schedule — Nutter greeted each of the inmates, who were wearing dark slacks and light blue scrubs, as they were led into the gym. Michele Farrell, prison warden, later told Catholic News Service that the pope “threw us a curveball by showing up early.”
