From the Sunday Independent yesterday. It’s a lovely piece of writing by Colum McCann, positive too, and leaves the reader with hope and trust in the new pope.
I was lucky to meet the pontiff last week and was struck by his sense of reflective calm. One thing is clear: he doesn't want to be the centre of attention
I'm not a particularly devout Catholic, but last week I had the honour of visiting Pope Leo in the Vatican alongside Diane Foley, the mother of murdered journalist Jim Foley. Our visit was short, no more than 15 minutes. The conversation centred on mercy and compassion, as clearly seen in Diane's forgiveness of her son's killer, documented in her book American Mother, which I co-wrote.
One of Pope Leo's most significant refrains, in the four months that he has held the papal office, is the world needs a form of communication where we are all "capable of listening”.
This may seem a routine salvo of language from a pope, or indeed any religious figure. Of course we need to listen. It has always been so. But what Pope Leo has been suggesting in the ongoing shattering of the world around us was that to listen — to properly listen — might be the quiet essence of slow change, a counterpoint to the mechanical loudspeakers of political bluster and war.
War. Hostages. Death. Compassion. The idea of moral courage. As the conversation unfurled, Diane and I also got the chance to talk to him about the atrocities in Gaza and the West Bank. We shared an acute memory of all the journalists and aid workers who had been killed over the course of the war, in particular those who died in the double bombing in the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis. The Pope bowed his head, and his sense of reflective calm filled the room.
We talked, then, of the word "possible” existing within the word "impossible”. The point was, of course, that he was listening. With sincerity. And, crucially, also with a certain amount of graceful delay, or benign silence. I was overcome with the feeling that the real listening would come later, when the information could be parsed and ruminated over, and digested into a form of prayer for the brokenness we all inhabit.
He was not prepared to become declarative. He did not give any outright clue to anything but the sadness of what he heard, and the hope that something might emerge from the words if, or maybe when, they could be disarmed. To remove the weaponry. To acknowledge one's own armaments. To move through language. To learn.
Peace is a dirty word these days. It gets dismissed by government officials. It gets laughed at in progressive and conservative circles alike. It gets crushed under the allegations of naivety and the weight of a fashionable cynicism. And why not? Cynicism spreads. In so many instances we are scared to speak out. Consequently, we are scared to listen. Pope Leo has begun his role in opposition to that sense of cynicism.
It was quite obvious in our brief visit that the Pope was adjusting to his role. He, too, talked of the seemingly impossible actually occurring. Four months ago, he told us, he never could have conceived or even imagined himself being in the position where he finds himself now. The world has offered him the impossible. It is, of course, a shock to the system and something he must inhabit quickly, maybe even uncomfortably. Even the pressure of the morning visits must be overwhelming.
While Diane and I waited for our audience with him, there was a senior Italian politician also waiting in a neighbouring room. At one point, Pope Leo came to the door of our room and peeped his head around. "Buongiorno,” he said.
It was a disarmingly human moment, the spiritual guide of 1.4 billion people looking bemusedly around a doorframe, almost as if he might be the gentle intruder, to see who awaited him. Yet as he talked, it became clear that he has a great sense of who he is. He didn't strike me as American, nor Peruvian. Even if his new position has confounded him at times, he is aware of the "everywhereness” of his role. He is clued in to his responsibility. Perhaps it frightens him in a galvanising way.
One thing is clear: he does not want to be the centre of attention. He is interested in the process of "synodal unity”, a fancy term for walking together. On June 1, at the homily mass for families, the Pope said Jesus does not want us to be a nameless and faceless crowd. "Together, we will rebuild the credibility of a wounded church, sent to a wounded humanity, within a wounded creation. We are not yet perfect, but it is necessary that we be credible,” he added.
Credibility is a good theme for these times. When nothing seems true, we at least have to believe that there is a credibility somewhere, a proper truth, a moment of hope despite all the evidence that the world throws at us.
Nothing is whole if it doesn't lead to eventual action.
Will Pope Leo go to Gaza and stand among the shatterings of our modern world? Sudan? Ukraine? Lebanon? Afghanistan? Will he speak out vocally against the insanity of the actions those who wield power?
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