For the first time in his papacy—and his life—Pope Francis is visiting the U.S. at the end of September. He’s coming for the World Meeting of the Families in Philadelphia but will also make stops in Cuba, D.C., and New York. Scroll down to see our coverage.
Catholic ex-blogger Andrew Sullivan discusses the mass appeal of Pope Francis during a ranging discussion withBob Wright, author of The Evolution of God:
Watch the entire hour-long episode here. Or check out some of these smaller chunks:
Since Francis’ introduction of a reproduction of [a painting called “Mary, Untier of Knots”] in Buenos Aires, it has grown in popularity in South America, with the faithful praying in front of it for Mary to “untie the knots” in their own lives. What strikes me about it is how undoing knots conveys a way of being in the world. It begins with a recognition that life isn’t easy, that a smooth and linear path is rarely given to us, that challenges keep presenting themselves. It is not so much the overcoming of these challenges that defines us, but the manner in which we tackle them.
It’s possible to get extremely frustrated by knots, after all, as I remember each time I retrieve a set of iPhone earbuds from the black hole of a coat pocket.
Your first thought is just anger: how on earth did this get so fucking tangled up? Your second impulse is to grab it and shake it or even to pull on it to resolve the issue in one stroke. But that only makes things worse. The knots get even tighter. In the end, you realize your only real option – against almost every fiber in your irate being – is to take each knot in turn, patiently and gently undo it, loosen a little, see what happens, and move on to the next. You will never know exactly when all the knots will resolve themselves – it can happen quite quickly after a while or seemingly never. But you do know that patience, and concern with the here and now, is the only way to “solve” the “problem.” You don’t look forward with a plan; you look down with a practice.
This has a relationship with the concept of “discernment” that is integral to Francis’ spiritual life, as it is to any Jesuit’s. A Christian life is about patience, about the present and about trust that God is there for us. It does not seek certainty or finality to life’s endless ordeals and puzzles. It seeks through prayer and action in the world to listen to God’s plan and follow its always-unfolding intimations.
Read the rest here. For more religious reflections from Andrew, check out this podcast he did with Matthew Vines, author of God and the Gay Christian, and this one he did with Richard Rodriguez, author of Darling: A Spiritual Autobiography. If you have any of your own reflections on Francis or religion in general, email hello@theatlantic.com and we’ll post them.
Yesterday, my colleague Emma wrote wisely about the dangers of viewing Pope Francis through a partisan American political lens. Yet even if the bishop of Rome isn’t a politician, any speech he delivers on the White House lawn, with President Obama by his side and dozens of members of Congress in attendance, is bound to have political repercussions.
Partisans on both sides were hoping for something to bolster their causes, and in short remarks, delivered in careful, slow English, Francis offered something for everyone.
So Francis tosses one to conservatives with religious liberties and one to liberals with climate change, huh?
With countless other people of good will, [American Catholics] are likewise concerned that efforts to build a just and wisely ordered society respect their deepest concerns and their right to religious liberty. That freedom remains one of America’s most precious possessions. And, as my brothers, the United States Bishops, have reminded us, all are called to be vigilant, precisely as good citizens, to preserve and defend that freedom from everything that would threaten or compromise it.
Then, rather more to the left’s delight, Francis spoke at some length about climate change. “Mr. President, I find it encouraging that you are proposing an initiative for reducing air pollution,” he said. “Accepting the urgency, it seems clear to me also that climate change is a problem which can no longer be left to a future generation.” He linked that to income inequality:
Pope quotes Martin Luther King re: climate & development. "We have defaulted on a promissory note - and now is the time to honor it." Wow!
And Francis talked about immigration as well, saying, “As the son of an immigrant family, I am happy to be a guest in this country, which was largely built by such families.”
The pope may not be a politician, but that doesn’t mean he’s not political.
For the first time in his life, Pope Francis is on American soil. He’ll be in the country until Sunday, and we’ll be following along as he travels through D.C., New York, and Philadelphia.
For the next 25 hours, I’ll be offline—I’ve got some reflections here on what it means that the pope came to America on Yom Kippur. My Atlantic colleagues will be following the papal happenings in this thread—stay tuned.
Bonus: At the end of his Cuba trip, the pope gave a homiletic tribute to grandmas. Yep: Awww.
As pope stalkers of the world watched his flight path on the Alitalia website, the plane started making several loops over North Carolina on its way to Joint Base Andrews this afternoon:
FlightAware
In an earlier version of this note, I reported that the reason the plane started circling was that Obama and his entourage had been running late to the greeting ceremony. However, as a White House spokesman subsequently pointed out, the Pope deplaned at 4 p.m., precisely as scheduled, and the president was on hand to greet him. Others have meanwhile indicated that the Pope’s plane took off early from Cuba, which would explain the flight pattern.
On Tuesday, Pope Francis will finish up his visit to Cuba and hop on a plane to the United States. At his last mass on the island, he celebrated the role of Mary in the Church, speaking at the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Charity of El Cobre in Santiago.
But what this really means is that the pope had an excuse to cheer on moms and grandmas. He gave them big ups for sustaining the country through periods of hard times over the last decades:
The soul of the Cuban people, as we have just heard, was forged amid suffering and privation which could not suppress the faith, that faith which was kept alive thanks to all those grandmothers who fostered, in the daily life of their homes, the living presence of God, the presence of the Father who liberates, strengthens, heals, grants courage and serves as a sure refuge and the sign of a new resurrection. Grandmothers, mothers, and so many others who with tenderness and love were signs of visitation, valor, and faith for their grandchildren, in their families. They kept open a tiny space, small as a mustard seed, through which the Holy Spirit continued to accompany the heartbeat of this people.
Grandmothers: the keepers of the tiny mustard seeds of soul. Now that’s some lovely imagery.
There’s a good drinking game to play while Pope Francis is in town. (Yes, drinking game—if you’ve never taken a shot with a priest, you haven’t lived.) Look for all the headlines that combine “Pope Francis” and “Democrat” or “Republican” or “GOP.” For example:
I bring this up not because I’m secretly hoping the crowds who greet Francis will be drunk—Lord, have mercy—but to make a point: It seems as though American media outlets are basically unable to process the pope’s visit and views outside the context of politics.
This is not surprising. The media does a great job of understanding political personhood, or how someone’s political views shape his or her choices. It also does a pretty good job of understanding economic personhood, or how someone’s wealth and occupation shape his or her choices. But the media is not very good at understanding religious personhood: the set of metaphysical commitments that fundamentally shape people’s world views and decision-making. In this case, these headlines show the inverse effect: the media only caring about how an event will affect politics.
As I wrote in my opener for Pope Francis’s arrival in the U.S., it’s not very productive to try and interpret him within the left/right political spectrum of the United States. For one thing, our political system is totally idiosyncratic and not all that useful for understanding an Argentinian who caters to the world and resides in Rome.
But more importantly, Francis is not a politician. He’s a priest. His convictions about Christ guide everything that he does; that’s his lens of interpretation. Trying to read him as liberal or conservative misses the point, because neither is the best word to describe him—he’s a Christian.
It’s not that political stories don’t matter; of course they do. And Francis will become part of American politics twice over on this trip: He’ll make stops at both the White House and Congress. But just this once, perhaps theology can take center stage in America. We’ll learn more by listening for what the pope says about God, not the GOP.
On Tuesday, Pope Francis will land on American soil. (NB to all those who are clearing their throats and starting to say, in their best announcer voices, “Shepherd One is preparing to land”: John Allen Jr. over at Cruxpoints out that the plane isn’t actually called that.) A lot has already happened on this trip, which started on Saturday in Cuba—if you’re looking to catch up, here’s what we’ve covered so far.
Last week, Jason Berry had a piece on how the Roman Catholic Church survived in Cuba, even through years of communism. Miriam Celaya pushed back on all the hype: “Many Cubans recognize that Francis’s visit will not make a difference in their daily lives and problems,” she wrote on Saturday. She’s not the only one to protest Francis’s visit; on Sunday, at least three people were arrested during the pope’s mass in the Plaza de la Revolución. And speaking of dissidents, the pope met with Fidel Castro, who gave hope to track-suit-wearers around the globe:
Adidas, the official brand of communists (Alex Castro / AP)
Francis has also spoken out on a number of issues, political and theological, during this trip. He made a plea for peace in Colombia, dangling the possibility of a visit in exchange for an agreement between the government and the FARC. He spoke about the role of women religious in the Church, and he helpfully encouraged Millennials, “Don’t be wimpy.”
As we look ahead to the papal invasion, check out my colleague Priscilla Alvarez's great piece on Pope Francis and Hispanic American Catholics. Also, we made a sketch of what the pope will have to brave before making it to the rostrum when he talks to Congress on Thursday; you’re welcome. More tomorrow.
On Thursday, Pope Francis will address a joint session of the United States Congress. Roll Call reports that members of both parties are being recruited to “essentially act as blocking tackles, willing to restrain any of their colleagues intent on trying to reach out for a papal touch as he walks onto the floor of the House.” Cloakrooms and hallways will be blocked—nay, locked—for roughly half an hour as the pope makes his way off the premises.
Francis often says it, but in this case, he’ll really need it: “Pray for me.”
The Atlantic, with seating chart courtesy of TheCapitol.net
On Sunday, the pope gave a big shout-out to all the women who spend their lives dedicated to the Church. More on that here, but in the meantime, Fr. James Martin, a Jesuit who’s known for being besties with Stephen Colbert, has some great tweets on common misconceptions about Catholic life—especially the sisters:
To all media: Better to use "nun" only for a cloistered woman religious. Otherwise use "sister" or a "woman religious." #PapalGoofs
On Sunday, Pope Francis did some off-script advice-giving to “existentially sad” Millennials in Cuba. One gem: “In Argentina, we say, ‘Don’t be wimpy.’” For more on that, see here.
When the bishop of Rome hangs out with one of the world’s most famous Communist revolutionaries, what do the two chat about?
According to Vatican spokesman Frederico Lombardi: “protection of the environment and the great problems faced by today’s world.” On Sunday, Francis and Fidel met for roughly half an hour after the pope celebrated mass in Havana’s Plaza de la Revolución. The meeting wasn’t on the pope’s formal schedule for his trip in Cuba, but it’s not a total surprise that it happened, according to The Guardian’s Stephanie Kirchgaessner.
The two did a book swap, including a bonus CD for Castro. (Perhaps the men of 78 and 89, respectively, haven’t quite embraced mp3s.) The former Cuban president gave the pope a book by a Brazilian priest called Fidel and Religion. Francis returned the favor with several books by the priest Don Alessandro Pronzato and copies of his encyclical on climate change and apostolic exhortation on the gospel—for what it’s worth, that’s Francis’s much celebrated smack-down on greed and capitalism. In his gift, the pope also included writings and recordings of homilies by one of Castro’s childhood priests. Here’s Austen Ivereigh, the author of a biography on Francis, on that gift choice:
In other words, the gift to Fidel of Fr Llorente's book and CD may have been to help El Jefe to come to terms with his past.
Let the protests begin. On Sunday before the pope’s mass in Havana’s Plaza de la Revolución, at least three people were arrested by Cuban security officers, the AP and BBC report. The protesters were apparently distributing leaflets, although it’s unclear what was on them, because officers picked them up. Austen Ivereigh, who wrote a well-regarded biography of Francis, tweeted a picture of the arrests:
This is likely not the end of the protests to come during Francis’s visit to Cuba and the United States, nor the end of the quick and thorough smack-downs; throughout the trip, the pontiff will be traveling with a hefty security team.
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