Chapter 10 – Habeo Papa

It’s not surprising that after the floating Lady episode, my internal turbulence has settled into a nice coasting.  I went to my first confession, and while it didn’t feel life-altering, it certainly wasn’t soul-crushing.  I still don’t know our priest very well, but he’s a relaxed and gracious person who made the confession experience pretty easy, and I’m really glad to have it off my chest the time that I stole my friend’s Barbie’s shoe when I was six.

The next Mass we attend, they play one of my favorite hymns (well, it has different words, but the melody is at least familiar, and it’s my favorite melody), and I’m compelled to actually lift my hands during worship.  Nothing too exciting – like I said, a nice coasting.

Then, one day, in spite of having a bunch of kids in my house that needed tending to, I find myself glued to the television after Lukus has just texted me that white smoke has been released from the Vatican, and there’s finally a Latin phrase that I’m familiar with: “Habemus Papam! We have a pope!”  I’ve known very little about Pope Benedict.  Everyone’s loved him, but personally, I just couldn’t find that connection with him.  Even when I was a complete NON-Catholic, I, like many other non-Catholics, still loved Pope John Paul II.  When he died, I felt compelled to seek out a Catholic book store to buy a candle and light it for him – even though Lukus thought I was weird, and I had no idea why Catholics lit candles for dead people.  It just seemed the thing to do.  And during this process, while I trusted that Benedict was a great pope, I just didn’t have the same natural affection for him that I did for John Paul.  I was kind of excited that we would be getting someone new upon our entrance into the Church.

I know the pope thing is a difficult one for Protestants to get over – I was the same way.  I viewed him as someone living like a king, giving orders that the faithful had to obey without ever criticizing.  But I’ve since learned that’s not the case.  The thing is, Catholics understand that the Holy Spirit can still operate through imperfect people, and while the pope is supposed to be a righteous man, the trust is still in God to protect His Church through flawed vessels.  And the pope can be wrong on a lot of things – which I never knew Catholics believed – but it’s when he’s speaking on dogma and doctrine that Catholics believe he’s speaking with the authority of the Holy Spirit.  I’ve also known a lot of Protestants who think that Catholics worship the pope – which maybe some do, but they’d be in error to do so.  The things is, Catholics believe in giving honor to whom honor is due, like children honoring their parents, or honoring the elderly – and the pope is considered an elder and a spiritual father.  And yet, so many Protestants are more willing to honor government leaders that they don’t like or don’t agree with because “it’s the office they respect” before they’re willing to honor spiritual leaders.  That seems a little flip-flopped to me.  It also doesn’t seem fitting that there would be authority structures set up in every other area of life – the family, business, judicially – and yet there be no authority in the Church.  Rejection of proper authority in Jesus’ Church has left us splintered and crippled.

So after much thought and consideration, I came to understand the role of the pope, and I was excited to experience the process of getting a new pope at the very beginning of our journey.  So I watched the t.v. with great anticipation.  I had no idea who Cardinal Bergoglio was when he emerged out onto the balcony.  Upon first impression, he was really underwhelming.  He wasn’t smiling, he didn’t offer up any deep words of wisdom, and his prayer was very simple.  But that underwhelmed feeling quickly gave way to immense joy and excitement as I began to research and hear what kind of man this was.  I was already beginning to feel like he was this wonderful, warm, generous grandpa, full of fun stories, and always available.  I began to think, “How wonderful and blessed we are that we Catholics get to have an earthly father who loves us and looks after us and shows us what our heavenly Father is like toward us!”

We live in a world of broken families, a fatherless generation, a generation that doesn’t understand what honoring your parents even means.  Our earthly fathers have failed us in so many ways, leaving a blank or ugly canvas of what God looks like to us.  But just like God gave the Israelites Moses, then Joshua, then Samuel, to be fathers to a nation in their time, God has given us this earthly father to point back to Himself.  The pope isn’t divine, he’s not perfect, I don’t have to blindly agree with everything he says or does.  But when our personal experience has destroyed the concept of what a father means, we have this loving, patient, forgiving, wise man who can be that spiritual foster-father, showing us what God is truly like.

I already love this pope.  I know I will never meet him, that he doesn’t know my name, but it’s not necessary.  What I learned from those seminarians in Rome, and what it taught me about the saints applies to the pope as well.  We are a family, and space and time don’t matter.  Even knowing each other personally doesn’t matter.  Our spirits know one another through THE Spirit.  The pope knows me.  He doesn’t know my name, but his spirit knows my spirit because we are one in the Spirit of God.  And like all good fathers and grandfathers should do, he inspires me to pursue God, to pursue holiness, to pursue generosity, and love.  Habeo Papa – I have a pope.

Pope Francis was inaugurated on St. Joseph’s feast day – which is exactly four years to the day that we met those seminarians in Rome.  God’s providence is astounding, and I can’t think of a better time to become Catholic.

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