Faith & Life Inspirational Message

Although I am not Roman Catholic, I feel like the Pope is in some sense “my” Pope.   Of course I don’t think the Pope is my Pope in the same sense as a Catholic must see the Pope as his or her Pope.   I know quite a bit about Catholicism and I hang out with a fairly substantial group of Catholics.   I am a lay Benedictine monk, which means I am free to participate with the Benedictine monks in their life and worship.   I am grateful for everything the Catholic community has given to me.             But I am still not a real Catholic in the sense that someone must be if he or she is actually a full member of the Church.   And I recognize the Pope is the Head of the Roman Catholic Church and, as such, has a special relationship with all those who are full members of that Church.   But to see the Pope in that role is to have a too narrow view of the Papal Presence in our world.     ...

There are a few people I follow in the sense that I want to hear and read whatever they are putting out there.   My interest in these kinds of people does not parallel the people the general culture follows.   For example, when I go through the checkout counter in the grocery store, I read with some amusement the cover of the various Hollywood-type magazines.   I usually don’t even know the people about whom the magazine is putting forward.   People are pregnant, getting dumped or duped or generally making a scene out of their lives and I don’t care.   I just want to pay for the carrots!            I am not really interested in the sports stars upon whom our culture lavishes so much blabber.   I don’t care about Tiger, LeBron or Michael.   Certainly, they are accomplished in terms of a skill set for a particular sport.   But that says nothing about the kind of human being they are.   Many a...

Recently Pope Francis willingly made himself available for a rather extended interview that was then published.   People are always interested in what the Pope thinks and what he has to say.   And Pope Francis is certainly generating quite a bit of interest as folks try to figure out the direction of his papacy.   Since the Pope hails from Argentina, people think he is going to be different than most of his European predecessors.   Probably only an American Pope would generate more interest.             I also was interested in reading the entire transcript of the interview.   Everyone is becoming aware the Pope has some pet issues, which is not unusual for any important person.   The Pope clearly has a deep concern for social issues, particularly justice issues.   He has been speaking openly about the Church’s need to tend to the poor among us.   It seems clear the Pope has a special conce...

Although I am not Roman Catholic, I feel like the Pope is in some sense “my” Pope.  Of course I don’t think the Pope is my Pope in the same sense as a Catholic must see the Pope as his or her Pope.  I know quite a bit about Catholicism and I hang out with a fairly substantial group of Catholics.  I am a lay Benedictine monk, which means I am free to participate with the Benedictine monks in their life and worship.  I am grateful for everything the Catholic community has given to me. But I am still not a real Catholic in the sense that someone must be if he or she is actually a full member of the Church.  And I recognize the Pope is the Head of the Roman Catholic Church and, as such, has a special relationship with all those who are full members of that Church.  But to see the Pope in that role is to have a too narrow view of the Papal Presence in our world. I am convinced the Pope is also more than Catholic.  In many instances the Pope speaks to the en...

I like following the work of the Pope.   Since I am not Roman Catholic, the Pope has no inherent spiritual authority over me, but he does exercise a kind of spiritual authority for all Christians.   It would be absurd to say that since I am not Catholic, the Pope does not matter.   After all, there are more than one billion Catholics in our world---that means about one out of every six human beings are Catholic!   Those are impressive numbers.   And to think that one human being has spiritual authority over that group is doubly impressive. If we wanted a comparison, the best comparison would be the nation of China.   That nation also has over one billion in population.   And it, too, is governed by a single president, Xi Jinping.   Even he does not have the kind of authority that the Pope has.   But I am not really interested in the issue of authority---either religious or political.   I am actually interested in the person who is el...