{"id":2768,"date":"2013-12-11T15:31:27","date_gmt":"2013-12-11T20:31:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/barefootandpregnant\/?p=2768"},"modified":"2015-06-09T13:46:13","modified_gmt":"2015-06-09T17:46:13","slug":"viva-il-papa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/barefootandpregnant\/2013\/12\/viva-il-papa.html","title":{"rendered":"Viva il Papa!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Well, I\u2019ve had an extra kid home from school all week so far, which has left less than zero time for blogging. Thank the Lord my mom is coming to visit tonight! Just wanted to pop in and make sure you guys had seen this. Viva il Papa!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The skeptics will point to the obstacles Francis faces in accomplishing much of anything beyond making casual believers feel better about the softer tone coming out of Rome while feeling free to ignore the harder substance. The Catholic Church is one of the oldest, largest and richest institutions on earth, with a following 1.2 billion strong, and change does not come naturally. At its best it inspires and instructs, helps and heals and calls the faithful to heed their better angels. But it has been weakened worldwide by scandal, corruption, a shortage of priests and a challenge, especially across the fertile mission fields of the southern hemisphere, from evangelical and Pentecostal<\/a> rivals. In some quarters, core teachings on divorce and contraception are widely ignored and orthodoxy derided as obsolete. Vatican bureaucrats and clergy stand accused of infighting, graft, blackmail and an obsession with \u201csmall-minded rules,\u201d as Francis puts it, rather than the vast possibilities of grace. Don\u2019t just preach; listen, he says. Don\u2019t scold; heal.<\/p>\n

And yet in less than a year, he has done something remarkable: he has not changed the words, but he\u2019s changed the music. Tone and temperament matter in a church built on the substance of symbols\u2014bread and wine, body and blood\u2014so it is a mistake to dismiss any Pope\u2019s symbolic choices\u00ad as gestures empty of the force of law. He released his first exhortation, an attack on \u201cthe idolatry of money,\u201d just as Americans were contemplating the day set aside for gratitude and whether to spend it at the mall. This is a man with a sense of timing. He lives not in the papal palace surrounded by courtiers but in a spare hostel surrounded by priests. He prays all the time, even while waiting for the dentist. He has retired the papal Mercedes in favor of a scuffed-up Ford Focus. No red shoes, no gilded cross, just an iron one around his neck. When he rejects the pomp and the privilege, releases information on Vatican finances for the first time, reprimands a profligate German Archbishop, cold-calls strangers in distress, offers to baptize the baby of a divorced woman whose married lover wanted her to abort it, he is doing more than modeling mercy and \u00adtransparency. He is \u00adembracing complexity and acknowledging the risk that a church obsessed with its own rights and righteousness could inflict more wounds than it heals. Asked why he seems uninterested in waging a culture war, he refers to the battlefield. The church is a field hospital, he says. Our first duty is to tend to the wounded. You don\u2019t ask a bleeding man about his cholesterol level.<\/p>\n

(\u2026)<\/p>\n

These days it is bracing to hear a leader say anything that annoys anyone. Now liberals and conservatives alike face a choice as they listen to a new voice of conscience: Which matters more, that this charismatic leader is saying things they think need to be said or that he is also saying things they\u2019d rather not hear?<\/p>\n

The heart is a strong muscle; he\u2019s proposing a rigorous exercise plan. And in a very short time, a vast, global, ecumenical audience has shown a hunger to follow him. For pulling the papacy out of the palace and into the streets, for committing the world\u2019s largest church to confronting its deepest needs and for balancing judgment with mercy, Pope Francis is TIME\u2019s 2013 Person of the Year<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Read more: The Choice: Nancy Gibbs on Why Pope Francis Is TIME\u2019s Person of the Year 2013 | TIME.com<\/a><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well, I\u2019ve had an extra kid home from school all week so far, which has left less than zero time for blogging. Thank the Lord my mom is coming to visit tonight! Just wanted to pop in and make sure you guys had seen this. Viva il Papa! The skeptics will point to the obstacles […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1110,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[266],"class_list":["post-2768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-pope-francis"],"yoast_head":"\nViva il Papa!<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Well, I've had an extra kid home from school all week so far, which has left less than zero time for blogging. 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