What a Local Priest Wants to See in New Pope
Dear Editor: Alone, in my fading lounge chair, I am wondering about the future of my rickety institutional Church. To amplify even more my feelings of depression accompanying the sudden death of Pope Francis is the bittersweet celebration of the 50th anniversary of our college seminary’s graduation class in Cathedral College in Douglaston, Queens.
Of course, it will be good to see many of the fellows, six of whom will be bringing their wives. Six have died since we graduated from a modern progressive college-seminary preparing college-aged men for the possibility of serving as priests in the New York metropolitan area. This formation program emphasized openness to the world. One-quarter will make it to the prayer and social, which we hear is quite a good average for college reunions. Our college seminary is closed now and has become a retirement center for male clergy.
What has not changed is the wild hope that the legacy of the Second Vatican Council will really continue. Words like “synodality,” “women’s ordination,” and “LGBTQ” were very distant whispers in the cafeteria and in the hallways outside philosophy seminars “back in the day.” These are not completely faded memories, but still carry real, untapped raw energy. What Pope Francis, a fully Jesuitical educator pope, presented with both a grin and a passionate glare for justice was that the last word on change has not yet been pronounced. However, I am now left much older and hardened by the world that I have seen for the past half century.
We all are. What I long for in the new pope is someone who understands how difficult it is to be a person of public faith — and admits it. Someone who does not run to the rhetoric around religious functions but can simply state: “I too feel lonely and am not able to explain all the issues in the Church today.
I, too, feel frustrated with the real limits of gender roles as we try to be witnesses to the good news in the 21st century. “I, too, know what it means to struggle in my prayer life — especially as racism, sexism, and the abuse of power still mark much of our lives in society and Church.” And yes, I deeply pray that the pontiff be as friendly and as encouraging as he can be to make the Church community really become alive again, and refreshed and refreshing. If the winds of renewal were happening in 1975, why can it not happen again, like now?
Father James Coy Francis Sheehan Jr.
South Bronx
Dear Editor:
As the world mourns the leader of our Church, an almost universally acknowledged man of great holiness, we must also remember that he was maybe the greatest prophetic voice of the 21st century. It is fitting that on his last full day on Earth, Easter Sunday, he made one final appeal for the people of Palestine. Luckily, Pope Francis brought courage and moral clarity to a world that has succumbed to cowardice and madness.
How different the situation might be if more moral leaders, on every level, did the same. It is equally fitting that his first full day in heaven was Earth Day, having published “Laudato si’” a decade ago, probably the most important document on our care of the environment, the greatest moral crisis of our age. His insight that it is not just our descendants but our Creator who will judge us on how we treat creation should be central to our moral compasses.
If we want to pay tribute to Pope Francis, and not just lip service, every parish should have a Laudato si’ group, and every priest should preach on it regularly and urgently. Priests need to preach that a Christian cannot simply give a can to an annual food drive while their lifestyle helps to create drought and famine 365 days a year. Composting, recycling, consuming less, switching off fossil fuels, pressuring business and government to do the same, etc., need to be taught as clearly and unequivocally as the Ten Commandments and the works of mercy.
Schools should teach “Laudato si’,” parishes should study it, and every adult should read it from cover to cover. Every Catholic institution should look at how it can incorporate the Laudato si’ action platform into its specific ministries. That would honor his legacy, and anything less betrays it.
Liam Michael Muller
Glendale