The Asian Pope Francis

Last thursday, the Divine Word Seminary Tagaytay, in partnership with XVD Association (former SVD seminarians) and the lay society of St. Arnold Janssen, sponsored a “Dinner for the Missions.” The event marked the 50th anniversary of the Tagaytay institution and featured a conversation between Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle and John L. Allen Jr., a 16-year veteran analyst of Vatican affairs for CNN and presently associate editor of the Boston Globe. Allen has been described as “the journalist other reporters (and some cardinals) look to for the inside story on how all the Pope’s men direct the world’s largest church.” By coincidence, Thursday was the first anniversary of Jorge Bergoglio’s papacy.

There are a number of issues on which I disagree with my Church. But after listening to Cardinal Tagle and Allen, I left the dinner feeling good and hopeful about the Church, a feeling I haven’t had in a long time.

Here are some of the items taken up in the conversation.

When asked by the moderator, Reverend Father Roderick Salazar, SVD, what his image was of the Catholic mission in the 21st century, Cardinal Tagle related his early years under Belgian missionaries of the Congregation of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (CICM). What struck him most was the simplicity and frugality of the Belgians. At one time, he opened their refrigerator and found nothing but water. To him, this revealed the humility and prudence with which the Belgians carried out their mission.

During the dinner, Cardinal Tagle related various instances of Pope Francis’ closeness to people. The latter would call up friends on their mobile phones. Father Tagle said that he would be officiating at a Mass and his phone would vibrate, but being unable to answer it at the time, he would later realize that it was the Pope calling him. (Perhaps the Church’s admonitions to turn off all cellular phones during Holy Mass should not be taken too seriously; it may be Pope Francis on the line.) The same was experienced by a nun, who was called by Pope Francis to greet her on her birthday. She couldn’t believe it was the Pope!

In the same light, the “Francis effect” of humility is a phenomenon that CNN religious reporter John Allen covers in his book “The Future Church: How Ten Trends are Revolutionizing the Catholic Church.” He explains that the “effect” is an outward manifestation of Pope Francis’ warm demeanor and closeness to his flock, coupled with a take-charge attitude and hands-on style of leadership. During the dinner conversation, he related what Pope Francis envisions to be our mission in the 21st century: “Nothing is as important that he has done as laying out the new vision of what mission looks like… vision has two pieces… one is that the principal message of the Church in this time has to be mercy rather than judgment; both are necessary but mercy comes first. Secondly, that the Church rather than being a bureaucratic structure, has to be what the Holy Father has called a field hospital in which the wounds of humanity are cured… more eyeballs, more ears are on the Church as to what it has to say. We must ask ourselves, ‘Are we going to be able to live up to that compelling vision?’”

Cardinal Tagle related a visit to Milan to address a congress of the clergy and laity in its diocese. In attendance were 1,200 priests and 7,000 lay people. When he was invited to address the people outside the duomo, he found that 20,000 Filipinos filled the piazza as they could not be accommodated inside the church. His host said that they represented the future of the Church in Milan. Tagle corrected him, saying that they are not just the future, but the present. He was reminded of what John Paul II declared on one Migrant Sunday, addressing Filipinos in Rome: “You came here looking for jobs; instead, you found a mission. Through you, Italian children have learned to pray. The elderly hear the gospel and get the caring they need. This is an affirmation of a new way of being a missionary.”

According to Allen, the Catholic global church is made up of 1.2 billion Catholics today, of whom two-thirds (some 735 million people) live in the developing world—Latin America, Africa, Asia, Middle East. By the middle of the century, the proportion will rise to three-fourths. In fact, three out of four men and women will be non-Western. Allen concludes that “the Philippines is destined to be one of the powerhouse Catholic nations of the 21st century. Filipinos are the new Irish.” For him, “Catholic life in the United States would be virtually unimaginable if not for the energy and enthusiasm and dynamism of the Filipino.”

Shame and scandal spots

Cardinal Tagle mentioned dehumanizing poverty as one of the most shameful situations faced by our world. He says that for such a rich country, we have people who worry about their cholesterol levels even as a great mass of society is concerned about when the next meal will be available. He also told the story of two sisters who were expelled from school for numerous absences. When asked by the principal for an explanation, the mother of the girls replied that between the two of them, they had only a single pair of shoes. So when one went to school, the other had to be absent. School policy required that students wear shoes. At this explanation, the principal cried because she realized that her problem each morning was deciding which of her many shoes to wear. Tagle advises: “Go to the periphery; there is much to be taught by those in the periphery.”

John Allen said that the primordial sources of shame and scandal in Church affairs are sex and money. Despite the divine foundations in the Church, there exists much evil. But the recovery efforts being undertaken to correct such sex abuses and financial wrongdoing are herculean. Much of the credit, according to Allen, goes to Pope Benedict XVI; Pope Francis is continuing the work.

Cardinal Tagle and the Filipino people thus have an “utterly new responsibility in the 21st century,” Allen claims, “because of the decisions that are being made here—the pastoral priorities of the Filipino Church, where your time and treasure are going to be invested, how you understand mission… that’s relevant not just within your borders but in the entire world because Filipinos are carrying the mission and these models within them, and they are becoming an incredibly important piece of the whole scaffolding of Catholic life in our time…. You are no longer responsible just for yourself but to the entire Church. We are counting on you, so get it right.”