As he visited Washington, New York and Philadelphia Sept. 22 to 27, Pope Francis鈥 insistence on that one request 鈥 to pray for the Pope 鈥 wormed its way into the heart of his message for America and a worldwide audience.
Francis shared with America his gift of sincerity and consistency, whether he was speaking to the world鱿鱼视频app diplomatic elite at the United Nations in New York or his brother bishops at Charles Borromeo Seminary in Philadelphia; whether he was delivering a homily at Mass in Spanish or making a speech in English to senators in Washington. His message was always clear and consistent.
鈥淔or me, the most important thing was the consistency of the message,鈥 Janine Walsh of the Franciscan Action Network told The Catholic Register. 鈥淭he message over all was consistently about love, inclusion, respect. You can name the people or issue he was directing the message to, but it all boiled down to those three things.鈥
That consistency was evident throughout a busy schedule that saw the Pope meet President Barrack Obama at the White House, canonize St. Junipero Serra, become the first pontiff to address Congress, speak to the United Nations, say Mass for 19,000 at Madison Square Garden, honour the dead at the site at ground zero in New York, talk in Philadelphia from a lectern once used by Abraham Lincoln and celebrate a concluding Mass attended by a million people in downtown Philadelphia. The primary purpose of his visit was to attend the World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia, where he pocketed his prepared text and gave an uplifting and amusing talk on family life.
Those were the large events. In keeping with his custom, the Pope also spent time at a Catholic school in Harlem, a homeless shelter in Washington and a prison in Philadelphia.
We must care for one another, the Pope repeated. It is so little to ask, and we鈥檙e not doing it.
鈥淲e live in a lonely world with fear of commitment, accumulating followers on social networks,鈥 Pope Francis told bishops and seminarians at Charles Borromeo Seminary.
On the subject of families, Pope Francis was clear that we need each other.
鈥淎 people that does not know how to care for the children and a people that does not know how to care for the grandparents is a people without a future, because it doesn鈥檛 have strength and it doesn鈥檛 have the memory that will carry it forward,鈥 he said in an unscripted lesson on family life at the Festival of Families in Philadelphia.
When the care and connection necessary for family life is missing, it is also missing on the global stage. There are 鈥渕any victims of badly exercised power,鈥 the Pope told UN diplomats and world leaders.
The victims are the poor and the Earth.
鈥淎 selfish and boundless thirst for power and material prosperity leads both to the misuse of natural resources and to the exclusion of the weak and disadvantaged,鈥 said Francis. 鈥淭he poorest are those who suffer most from such offences鈥(because they are) cast off by society, forced to live off what is discarded and suffer unjustly from the abuse of the environment.鈥
Here Pope Francis鈥 consistency reaches back to his first month in office when he visited Lampedusa off the Italian coast to speak about how we treat refugees who risk death for a better life. Their plight illustrates a culture of waste and the world鱿鱼视频app attitudes towards disposable humans. He told Congress that the world must treat refugees with compassion.
鈥淚f we want security, let us give security; if we want life, let us give life; if we want opportunities, let us provide opportunities,鈥 he said.
For Congress, the Pope quite naturally wove together his concern for public global issues of migration and climate change with his concern for the state of the family. 鈥淚 cannot hide my concern for the family, which is threatened, perhaps as never before, from within and out,鈥 he told the legislators. 鈥淔undamental relationships are being called into question.鈥
It is relationships within the family and the Golden Rule which can lead politicians back to a fruitful dialogue, to remember 鈥渢he common good and co-operation,鈥 he told Congress.
But it was not all theory and principles. He got down to brass tacks on immigration, telling America鱿鱼视频app political leaders, 鈥淲e must not be taken aback by their numbers, but rather view them as persons, seeing their faces and listening to their stories, trying to respond as best we can to their situation.鈥
Francis鈥 teaching on migration and globalization was not only for those who ride in the backs of limousines in Washington.
Standing before an audience full of Latino and Asian migrants who crowded shoulder to shoulder over a kilometre of lawns and closed-off streets along Philadelphia鱿鱼视频app Independence Mall, the Pope went off script three days later to plead with them to foster a healthier, more fruitful globalization.
The 鈥渢echnocratic paradigm鈥 of top-down, elite-driven globalization can only be countered by ordinary people living their culture and traditions within their families, communities and churches, said Francis.
鈥淚 ask you not to forget that, like those who came here before you, you bring many gifts to your new nation. You should never be ashamed of your traditions,鈥 he said.
鈥淒o not forget the lessons you learned from your elders, which are something you can bring to enrich the life of this American land. I repeat, do not be ashamed of what is part of you, your life blood.鈥
It was the word 鈥渄ialogue,鈥 repeated over and over, that struck New Yorker Tom Backen after listening to Pope Francis speak to Congress.
鈥淭hat鱿鱼视频app one of the biggest problems in this country and Congress,鈥 said the immigration lawyer with the Church of St. Francis of Assisi migrant centre on West 31st Street in Manhattan. 鈥淧eople just don鈥檛 listen to each other.鈥
It isn鈥檛 just that Francis has identified a problem in America that has been decried by editorial writers, columnists, politicians and preachers from coast to coast. The Pope also demonstrated how citizens should live in solidarity when he left Capitol Hill to have lunch with the homeless, when he left the United Nations to visit children in Harlem.
鈥淚t rings truer because of that,鈥 said Backen.
鈥淲e鈥檝e needed this Pope for a long time,鈥 said 70-year-old Kate Bini, a retired buyer who worked in New York鱿鱼视频app garment district. 鈥淓verything that he says works. It鱿鱼视频app good for the people in Congress, but also for the good of any people in the country, any country.鈥
鈥淲hat stayed with me was one word that the Pope kept on treating us 鈥 the word dialogue,鈥 said Capuchin Franciscan Father Julian Jagudilla. 鈥淚t鱿鱼视频app inspiring in a way to watch him.鈥
Brother Shadi Naim of the Institute of the Incarnate Word stood on Benjamin Franklin Parkway for hours, waiting to participate in an ordinary Sunday Mass with Pope Francis 鈥 a Mass he would not see except on a giant screen, a Mass he could have had in a quiet parish church. There were about one million people around him. He had endured a long line to get through security and there was no place to sit. But Naim found the suggestion he could attend Sunday Mass anywhere else frankly bizarre. For Naim, the Pope and his words are necessary, essential, believable.
鈥淵ou can鈥檛 see, but you can feel it,鈥 he said as he looked out at the crowd.