Denver Catholic

Letting the fl y out of the fl y bottle 19 DENVER CATHOLIC | OCTOBER 10-23, 2015 visit S ome 8,000 credentialed journalists from all over the globe followed Pope Francis around last month to docu- ment his six-day, three-city whirlwind tour of the United States. They sought to capture those surprising gestures that have made our Pontiff the global super- star he is today. Journal- ists were kept busy document- ing the motorcades halted by babies dressed like the Pope, countless selfi es taken with school children and adults alike, and a little Fiat quietly making its way through the streets of DC, New York and Philly. And then there were the words—the speeches and homilies, 20 in all, in which the Holy Father spoke on all topics ranging from religious liberty to the importance of family to immigration. There was one little address, however, that seemed to go almost unnoticed, most likely because it immediately fol- lowed the much-anticipated, fi rst-ever address by a Pope to a Joint Session of Congress. Admittedly, that's a hard act to follow. After leaving Capitol Hill, Pope Francis headed directly to St. Patrick in the City Parish, just minutes from the corridors of power of our federal government. Looking out on the faces of those gathered in the parish, some 200 homeless assisted by Catholic Charities, the Pope spoke from the heart of a person he says he goes to often, particularly when he's "in a pinch." He then proceeded to give the most beautiful refl ection on St. Joseph I have ever heard. "You make me think of St. Joseph," he said. "Your faces remind me of his." And just like those gathered with him, the Pope explained, St. Joseph "had to face some diffi cult situations." Pope Francis noted that Christ himself was born homeless. "We can imagine what Joseph must have been thinking," he continued. "How is it that the Son of God has no home?" The Pontiff noted that many of those present could ask the same question, "Why are we homeless, why don't we have housing?" He didn't off er a political answer, or a solution to the social injustices of our time. What he did off er, however, was a path forward for anyone facing a diffi cult situation based on St. Joseph's quiet example of faith, charity and prayer. Joseph was "fi rst and foremost" a man of faith, Pope Francis said: "Faith gave Joseph the power to fi nd light just at the moment when everything seemed dark. Faith sustained him amid the troubles of life. Thanks to faith, Joseph was able to press forward when everything seemed to be holding him back. "In the face of unjust and painful situations, faith brings us the light which scatters the darkness. As it did for Joseph, faith makes us open to the quiet presence of God at every moment of our lives, in every person and in every situation." And God's presence, he said, "spurs us to charity." "Charity is born of the call of a God who continues to knock on our door, the door of all people, to invite us to love, to compassion, to service of one another," the Pope commented. Finally, the Holy Father encouraged those present to pray the Our Father, and to learn to say "Father" and "Dad" when they pray. "Prayer unites us," he said. "It makes us brothers and sisters. It opens our hearts and reminds us of a beautiful truth which we sometimes forget ... we learn to see one another as brothers and sisters. In prayer, there are no rich or poor, there are sons and daughters, sisters and brothers." For all of the addresses of Pope Francis, visit http://archden.org. Karna Swanson is the general manager of Denver Catholic, www.DenverCatholic.org. A Little Perspective KARNA SWANSON The Pope's little-noticed reflection on St. Joseph D uring the Pope's visit to America, I had the privilege of commenting for NBC News and for MSNBC. Twice I was on for extended periods with Brian Williams, the former anchor for NBC Nightly News, and twice with Chris Matthews, the host of Hardball. I must say that both m e n a r e very good at what they do, namely, keeping a c o n v e r s a - tion going a m o n g s e v e r a l d i f f e r e n t people with varying points of view and assuring that things stay suffi ciently lively and inter- esting. Like most gifted people, they make their particular work seem eff ort- less, but it is a delicate and dangerous high-wire act that they are performing— and all on live television. Williams is a cool customer with a sly sense of humor, and I might add a surprisingly detailed knowledge of motor vehicles and aircraft, whereas Matthews is more passionate, brash, and unpredictable. I enjoyed spending time with both of them. A theme to which Chris Matthews returned again and again was the role of women in the Church. Like most lib- erally minded Catholics, he thinks that women get the short end of the stick most of the time and that simple jus- tice demands that they be given equal opportunity. Once he baldly introduced the subject to me this way: "Bishop, isn't it true that, in the Catholic Church, the management is all male while the women do most of the grunt work? Why can't women be priests?" Another time, he wondered, "how come all the bishops are Republicans while all the nuns are Democrats?" I certainly know how com- plex these questions are and how they stir up such strong feelings on all sides, but in responding to these questions, I tried a technique that the philosopher Wittgenstein referred to as "letting the fl y out of the fl y bottle." This means to move the discussion into an entirely diff erent register so as to prevent all the disputants from spending a lot of energy only to end up in frustration. I told Matthews that I thought it was very important to revisit the largely unrealized aspiration of the Vatican II fathers to empower the laity to sanctify the world. Priests, I explained, have as their sole purpose the sanctifi cation of the laity through word and sacrament precisely so as to enable great Catho- lic lawyers, business leaders, writers, journalists, investors, parents, teachers, etc. to make the world a holy place. The book of Revelation holds out to us the image of the heavenly Jerusalem, with its streets of gold and gates of pearl, but with no temple in it. The point is that the city itself has become a temple, which is to say, a place of right praise. So what is the role of women in the Church? How can women fi nd more power? By becoming world-trans- forming saints! Thérèse of Lisieux, Bernadette of Lourdes, Mother Kath- arine Drexel, Mother Cabrini, Mother Teresa, and Edith Stein all wielded more real power than 99% of the priests and bishops of their time. If we move our attention away from the priesthood and toward sainthood, we let the fl y out of the fl y bottle. During our coverage of the Pope's fi nal Mass in Philadelphia, Brian Wil- liams posed a question to all of the commentators: "Isn't it odd," he asked, "that those without families are set- ting the moral agenda for families?" A number of the contributors chimed in, more or less agreeing with this anom- alous thought, and I felt obliged to intervene. "As the only celibate on the panel," I said, "May I off er an opposing point of view?" Borrowing a phrase from the scholastic philosophers, I said, "Brian, in regard to your ques- tion, nego majorem (I deny the major premise). Priests, I explained, have families. I then indicated the ring that I received upon being ordained a bishop and I said, "That's a wedding ring, and we are explicitly told never to take it off , for it symbolizes our marriage to the people we serve." Then I quoted my mentor, the late Cardinal Francis George: "Priests are not bachelors; they are married men, and they have spiri- tual children." Celibacy should never be understood in a purely negative way, as though it amounts simply to the denial of something. The no to marriage and children in the ordinary sense is in service of a far greater yes, the yes to a wider, more inclusive, and more abiding form of marriage and procreation. In point of fact, the very familial impli- cation of the celibate commitment is precisely what makes priests uniquely positioned to help and advise families. Once again, the teaching of Vatican II is apposite. Celibacy and marriage are ordered to one another, since both are ultimately in service of the sanctifi ca- tion of the world. When they are set up as rivals or as mutually antagonistic, we get a fl y stuck in the fl y bottle. When Karol Wojtyla was Archbishop of Krakow, he led his people in a careful and prayerful reading of the documents of Vatican II. I am convinced that many of the disputes that we have in the Church in this country are a func- tion of not having done what Wojtyla compelled his people to do. When the properly theological and spiritual framework falls away, all we are left with is the political or psychological or sociological framework—and this leads to lots of bumping against the side of the bottle. Bishop Robert Barron is the founder of the global ministry, Word on Fire, and Auxiliary Bishop of Los Angeles. He is the creator of the award winning documentary series "Catholicism." Word on Fire BISHOP ROBERT BARRON

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