I am soooo in the bag for Pope Francis!
He is my spiritual leader, and I feel that he genuinely cares about the likes of me … and the likes of you. He showed that again today when he made the “highly unusual” move of joining the annual March for Life in Rome.
We have a Walk for Life here in Oklahoma each fall, and we are trying to start an on-going March for Life in the spring. A sprinkling of clergy show up for these events. Another sprinkling actually mention them in announcements at mass. But for the most part, these are laity led, laity run and laity done events.
I’m not saying that’s bad. The clergy can do nothing in this world without a laity that is willing to go into the boardrooms and back rooms and onto the streets to stand for Christ. But, on the other hand, we can’t do much without their active and enthusiastic leadership.
Pope Francis, for all his 77 years, brings enthusiasm to his job. He seems willing to inconvenience himself, take risks and step over barriers in order to be the shepherd of this great flock God has given him.
Leaders lead.
They don’t talk about leading. They do it.
Churchill didn’t hide during the blitz and keep himself safe. He went out into the streets of London and let the people see him. That is the kind of leadership that can get a people through something as daunting as what the British faced during the early years of World War II.
Pope Francis has that great leadership touch. He will actually step out, go to the head of the line and lead.
The Holy Spirit has given us such a gift in this good man. God bless Pope Francis, and as the Protestants say, Thank you Jesus.
From LifeSiteNews:
Pope surprises, delights 40,000 Italian pro-lifers, joins March for Life
ROME, May 12, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Pope Francis surprised about 40,000 Italian and international participants in today’s Marcia per la Vita (March for Life) Internazionale in Rome this morning, when he left the Apostolic Palace to greet them personally from his popemobile in the street where they were lined up.
Monsignore Ignacio Barreiro, the head of the Rome office of Human Life International, told LifeSiteNews.com that for the pope to have effectively joined the March for Life was highly unusual.
Since his election, the pope has gained a reputation for making spontaneous gestures that have sometimes taxed his security staff, beginning with taking the bus back to his temporary residence with the other cardinals the night of his election, instead of the car reserved for the pope.
In this case, however, the Vatican appeared to have prepared the event ahead of time. Monsignore Barreiro noted they had prepared crowd control barriers to guide the popemobile out of St. Peter’s square and across the adjacent piazza and down the wide Via della Conciliazione that leads up the Basilica.
But if organizers knew about a planned appearance by the pope at the march, they made no mention of it before the event, leaving participants delighted by the unexpected arrival of the pontiff.
The pope also gave a shout-out to the marchers from his usual weekly Regina Coeli address, briefly welcoming them and endorsing a European-wide pro-life petition against embryo research.
The ‘One of Us’ campaign is seeking to gain 1 million signatures as part of a European Citizen Initiative. If organizers of the campaign achieve their goal the European Parliament is duty-bound to schedule a debate on the issue.
“I invite you to keep the attention of everyone on the important issue of respect for human life from the moment of conception,” the pope told the marchers.
He also invited all to attend the Vatican’s “Evangelium Vitae Day,” which he said would be “a special moment especially for those who care about the defense of the sanctity of human life,” to take place “in the context of the Year of Faith,” on 15 and 16 June.
March organisers were delighted with the greeting and with the extraordinary surge of numbers from last year’s march, which attracted 15,000 from around the country.
“The welcome of Pope Francis represents the highest recognition for the initiative and the confirmation of the sensitivity of the Pope to the non-negotiable principles, beginning with the right to life,” organisers said. Read the rest here.)
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