The ages of Popes, get with the times (part I)

No, I don't mean how old they are... actually, I kind of do.  The title is in reference to the Rolling Stone article comparing Pope Benedict to Pope Francis.  I'm not going to comment directly on it, but it spurred me to want to write about something I've been thinking about for a while.

When I look back at how different Popes were covered by the media and perceived by the public, I notice a trend.  When JPII was young, he was described using terms like 'strapping'.  He received a lot of attention for being a globetrotter who visited his people where they lived, for celebrating youth culture and inviting it into the church, and for being kind of a rockstar Pope.  Now, fastforward to the point where JPII's health is fading.  If you look at what he did in his older years, it's pretty astonishing in a lot of ways.  Despite his physical difficulties, he still travelled far and often to see Catholics around the world, he still celebrated youth culture, and he lived with tremendous courage and dignity to the natural end of his life.  Of course, the media attention at that point was more likely to mock his appearance and comment on how old he was, questioning his worth.

Now look at the media coverage Pope Benedict XVI got, and is still getting.  He was portrayed more or less from day one as a Nazi, compared through various memes to an evil Star wars villain, and mocked for wearing red shoes (which weren't Prada for anyone with half a brain, they were made by an Italian cobbler who has been providing shoes for people in the Vatican for a long time... besides the fact that red shoes look odd if you ignore the symbolic meaning of the colour, which is what Benedict wore them for, there was nothing remarkable about them). 

Of course I don't need to summarize the media attention for Pope Benedict, you'd have to be blind to have missed it, but I do wonder, if he looked different, a little older, a little physically frail, a little too academic, would he be getting the same attention, or would the media be presenting him as a scary, dour, cranky old man, like they did Benedict.  I think what the media has proven more than anything isn't a bias towards any end of the political spectrum, but rather that it is unashamedly prejudiced.  All three Popes have been openly judged (both in subtext and openly) for their physical appearance, their dress (most notably Pope Benedict who favoured a more traditional style of dress), and for their value based on their age.  If you took comments people made about the three of them, and applied them to just any random group, it would be disgusting.  Look, here is this nice looking guy, he must be way better a person than that old grandpa who has less of a round face, and yeah sure, buddy over there was amazing in his youth, but he has Parkinsons and arthritis now, so he must be worthless... he's better off dead, even though he's so passionate he's trying to talk to us even though they just cut a hole in his windpipe so he can breath.  It's disgusting and offensive to judge anyone like that, and all the media has done is perpetuate and facilitate this culture of ageism. 

I pray that we as Christians, and all people, come to see the dignity inherent in the human person, regardless of age, ability, or appearance much sooner than later, but as long as yellow journalists like the ones at Rolling Stone are around, we have an uphill battle. 

You're shining that right in my eyes you jerk!

Last year, Pope Francis created a pretty huge buzz by telling the world that Catholics had become too obsessed with various issues, and that the Church needed to be a home for all.  Lots of the media ran with it in one direction, speculating on the Pope being a liberal reformer, lots of other folks ran the other direction with posts, articles, etc. outlining 'what the Pope really meant'.  This won't be either, because I don't think the Pope has any plans to change the foundation of the Church, nor do I think he said anything except what he actually meant, and I'm nowhere near qualified to speak for him.  This post is just a little idea that came to me today in a PD session about evangelization in the Church.

At the beginning of Fr. Baron's series on the New Evangelization, there is a little bit about Christ being the light unto the nations, and the Church being the carrier of that light... a torchbearer if you will.  We also explored a little bit of evangelization being about sharing our own light with the world as a way of inviting and building bridges, spreading joy through our faith. To paraphrase, we are called to share our light to guide others along the path to Christ. 

My little idea was this:  As Catholics, in a world that doesn't see eye to eye on a lot of issues, and where there are a lot of things we disagree with and fight against as evil, we want to shine our light directly onto that darkness.  I think the idea is to illuminate it and try to fix it.  I'm going to compare that to getting obsessed with issues.  In good conscience, with the compassionate goal of protecting the innocent, speaking for the voiceless, etc, we focus a beam into a dark corner.  The problem that Pope Francis is pointing out, is that anyone in that corner is gonna be kind of cranky because someone is shining a light in their eyes.  It's annoying, and probably not helpful most of the time.  You know the feeling, it's not a good one.  I worked in an underground mine on a contract, and knew a foreman who got so ticked at a worker constantly shining his lamp in people's eyes, that the foreman smashed it with a wrench while it was still on the guy's head.  It's that obnoxious.

What Pope Francis is asking Catholics to do is take the light out of the dark corner for a little bit, shine it on the road that leads to Christ.  In the real world this looks like building relationships with people and being contagiously joyful.   As a very wise nun told me once, if we are happy about being Catholic, we need to tell it to our faces and smile a lot more about it.  Without shining our lights on joy, love, and how awesome our faith is, then all we are doing is blinding the people looking at us from the other end of the beam, so they can't see the awesome stuff we have to share.

Pope Francis wasn't telling us to ignore the things we disagree with, he was telling us to turn our light around and point it at the love of God and the joy of faith, so everyone can actually see.