Spirit in the World

I have been working for several days on a post about the unprecedented extended interview Pope Francis did for America Magazine. I simply haven’t had time enough to absorb the material to know where to begin.

It made headlines all over the world, garnering praise not just from Stephen Colbert, who is a Catholic after all, but from John Stewart as well. Talk about the New Evangelism!

This Pope has continued to catch the commentators–and the faithful–off guard from the day he took his name and stood before us with arms at his side. It seems that before we can adjust to one remarkable gesture, story or homily, the next follows right on its heels.

Tonight, still trying to finish that post, I followed a link in the New York Times to an interview that has stunned me to a degree beyond even the America piece.

The Pope of the Roman Catholic Church calls one of Italy‘s most well-known journalists and atheists on the phone and asks for an appointment. They meet for a conversation that wouldn’t have been considered credible enough for a Hollywood screenplay.

The room around me disappeared as I read. I’m certain my pulse was racing. I read a few phrases aloud just to hear them in the air and taste them on my tongue. Take a moment to read them yourself.

If you love the Church and know it well, you may be frightened that he is telling too much truth, perhaps risking scandal. But below that fear, your heart make take joy, as mine did, to hear the essence of what the Church is named with such courage and faith.

If you have fallen away from love of the Church, or from faith in God altogether, you will hear the words of a man who does not stand in judgement, but inclines his heart and ear toward you, in order to listen.

The Pope: how the Church will change – Repubblica.it.

Image at http://www.biography.com