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<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px; "><b>El Papa Francisco de Argentina</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px; "><span style="vertical-align:baseline"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px; "><span style="vertical-align:baseline">Cardinal Jorge Mario
Borgoglio is at home in many places on both sides of Andes where many Italians
congregate in numbers from Lima to Sao Paolo.
He is the new Pope of Roman Catholic Christendom, hailed as originating
from geography way off the shadows of the southern Alps though the genes
evidently originated from the same wellsprings of yonder Romans.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px; "><span style="vertical-align:baseline"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px; "><i>Habemus Papam</i><span style="vertical-align: baseline"> was false alarm in satirist New Yorker Borowitz’ account after the
fifth ballot as cardinals allegedly shoveled incriminating papers into the
furnace in deference to a new Pope who should not be saddled with all evidence
of indiscretions by his predecessors.
The levity was appropriate as Rome tries to distance itself from the
soot on its hands, especially after the watch of former Cardinal Ratzinger the
Hitler youth storm-trooper, most recently resigned Pope Benedict XVI.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px; "><span style="vertical-align:baseline"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px; "><span style="vertical-align:baseline">Pope John XXIII who
attempted to open the windows of the stale Basilica that shrouded the
Magisterium drew us to the arcane universe of Christian theology. The spirit of
the Vatican II Council was short-lived, not unlike the Prague Spring before the
Russian military hardware rumbled down the cobblestones.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px; "><span style="vertical-align:baseline"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px; "><span style="vertical-align:baseline">I was raised in
Reformation Christianity brought by Protestant Evangelicals into the shores of
Pea Eye after WWII. Given an inquisitive
bent from the scientific ethos, I was not too enamored with the blatant
superstition and fake piety of my institutional Church, so a shaking of the
foundations of a stodgy cathedral of medieval thought came as welcomed news.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px; "><span style="vertical-align:baseline"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px; "><span style="vertical-align:baseline">Superstition in an
Other World beyond as an object of Christian hope came into sharp question from
the pastoral voices of Barth and Bultmann, Tillich and Bonhoeffer, the Niebuhr
brothers and Europe’s existentialists who focused on the here-and-now. Coming out of the influence of Calvin,
Luther, and Wesley, I was at home with reforms.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px; "><span style="vertical-align:baseline"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px; "><span style="vertical-align:baseline">We took on the
panoramic view of two millennia, from the Augustine’s confessions, through Francis
of Assissi’s meanderings, to the heights of Tomas de Aquino’s flights, on to
the militant resolve of Ignatius de Loyola.
The tableau blossomed with Malachi Martin and Andrew Greeley, and we
took seriously the pedagogy of Paulo Freire, Ivan Illich, and Marshall
MacLuhan, awed by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s vision of the Cosmic Christ and
Gustavo Guttierrez’ political liberation motif.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px; "><span style="vertical-align:baseline"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px; "><span style="vertical-align:baseline">Vatican Spring took
its toll as Karl Rahner, Hans Kung, and Edward Schillebeecks retreated to the
sounds of silence. Interfaith dialogue
did not go far even with Newman, Nouwen, and Merton. Matthew Fox anglicized the frock, and if we
hope for another Pope Joan (13</span>th<span style="vertical-align:baseline">
century), we need to become conversant with the works of Mary Daly and
Elizabeth Fiorenza! (An inquiring
colleague who asked who our papal candidate was at the onset of the election
heard me say: “They do not allow Nuns on the list, yet!”)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px; "><span style="vertical-align:baseline"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px; "><span style="vertical-align:baseline">We stopped over Buenas
Aires from Rio to Santiago in ’79, just before Brazil enacted its Amnesty
program to shield military atrocities from prosecution, and a few hours before
General Pinochet of Chile got a diplomatic slap on the face when Ferdinand
Marcos of the Philippines canceled his stopover in Manila after a visit in
Fiji on his way to China.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px; "><span style="vertical-align:baseline"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px; "><span style="vertical-align:baseline">Being one of the rare
non-Aryan persons in the airport at the time, and with the goose-stepping
security all over the place reminiscent of films of the Wehrmacht, we had
pimples of anxiety as we could not wait to get out of the place. The last time I had such feelings was when I
was thrown against the wall on the westside of Chicago for walking a white girl
to the station.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px; "><span style="vertical-align:baseline"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px; "><span style="vertical-align:baseline">Members of the
Interpol in Santiago were more jovial.
They said: “Who would be stupid
enough to come to Santiago on a Philippine passport hours after <i>el</i> <i>President</i>e’s
trip is canceled by Manila’s absence of spine?”
T’was me, and I am not generally that innocent! Happily, the village I went to a few hours
out of the city was a stronghold of the assassinated Allende, so I became an
instant hero to the anti-Pinochet crowd, instead.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px; "><span style="vertical-align:baseline"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="vertical-align: baseline; "><font size="4">This is all to say
that Pope Francis ascends a pathway rich with tradition that can be
embraced. We became familiar with Pedro
Arrupe’s Jesuits while perusing Aquinas Summa.
We had been friendly to Jesuits since, appreciating their work in Micronesia. It was not long after Gary Bradley, S.J. in
Saipan gave up the ghost while lifting the elements of the Eucharist that I surrendered
my institutional ghost as well.</font></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px; "><span style="vertical-align:baseline"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px; "><span style="vertical-align:baseline">Arrupe, a Spanish
athlete and medical practitioner before he took the vows, was one of eight
Jesuit priests within the A-bomb zone when it dropped in Hiroshima. He and his Order brothers survived and turned
the splendid chapel into an emergency haven dealing with the medical and
psychological needs of the survivors.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px; "><span style="vertical-align:baseline"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px; "><span style="vertical-align:baseline">We recall Pope Francis
first act after the election. He
returned to the Cardinals’ hotel on the bus instead of taking the Papal
limousine that would have been perfectly his purview. Not unlike Lee Kuan Yew’s style while guiding
the helms of Singapore living in a two-room apartment rather than a palace or a
mansion, Pope Francis’ in Buenos Aires followed his saint’s style <i>sans</i> the opulence of a Prince of the
Church characterized elsewhere.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px; "><span style="vertical-align:baseline"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px; "><span style="vertical-align:baseline">Hey, we can say <i>Amen </i>with feelings,<i> </i>again!</span></div>
<br>
<div style="font-size: 18px; clear: both; "><a style="font:lighter 10px Verdana, Arial;color:#000000;"><img align="absmiddle" border="0" src="http://presence.mail.aol.com/mailsig/?sn=jrvergarajr2031"></a> <font color="black" size="2" face="arial">j'aime la vie
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<div><i><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#ff0000"><b>Yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today, participate. In all, </b></font></i></div>
<div><i><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#ff0000"><b>Celebrate!</b></font></i></div>
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