5 Hot Takes on Austen Ivereigh’s interview with Pope Francis
Today in Commonweal, journalist and scholar Austen Ivereigh published a remarkable interview with Pope Francis about the pope’s reflections on the role of the Catholic Church in this time of pandemic. Below are five key points which show the pope’s thinking on the situation which faces our human family.
- He wants pastors to be creative in the ways that they stay close to their people. Referencing the Capuchins in Alessandro Manzoni’s novel I promessi sposi (English version The Betrothed, available as an audiobook or ebook), the pope says that people need their pastors to be self-sacrificing, but in ways that rely on creativity:
The creativity of the Christian needs to show forth in opening up new horizons, opening windows, opening transcendence toward God and toward people, and in creating new ways of being at home.
2. He invokes what I’ve called elsewhere “Ignatian mindfulness” (my term, not his). In one place, he specifically invokes Saint Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuit order which gave him his spiritual formation, to speak of the importance of memory — more on that in #3 below. He also invites people to pay attention to the here and now, to be attentive to the reality before us.
Take care of the now, for the sake of tomorrow. Always creatively, with a simple creativity, capable of inventing something new each day. Inside the home that’s not hard to discover, but don’t run away, don’t take refuge in escapism, which in this time is of no use to you.
Ignatian mindfulness draws from the spirituality of Ignatius, particularly the daily Examen, a mindful practice that invites people to look over the past 24 hours in order to discern the ways God has been present in one’s experience. More than simply an act of recalling, it is a spiritual exercise of memory, which allows us to interpret our experience. The Ignatian lens of memory is, to use an optic metaphor, carefully cut so that one sees the world refracted through the light that is God’s grace rather than our own small desires. Hence those things which on the surface may appear bad (say, sickness) may in fact be an opportunity to draw closer to God (say, by a growing love of people who serve selflessly in health care). In light of this Ignatian mindfulness, the pope is able to call people to attend lovingly to the present moment, to lean in even where there might be difficulty, knowing that God is present to us always, and especially in times of suffering.
3. He wants us to pay attention to the way our memory works. In this short interview, the pope uses the word “memory” five times. Anyone who has expertise in Ignatian spirituality knows that this word is important. It appears in the first line of the Suscipe (“Receive” prayer) of Ignatius: “Take, Lord, receive my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will, all that I have and possess.” A person who offers his memory to God asks that God help him re-interpret his entire experience in light of God’s grace. Suffering can become a path to glory; triumphs can become regrets; acts of love and generosity become sources of joy.
The pope points to the fact that most of us have selective memories which pay attention only to what the world tells us is important. He quotes Virgil’s Aeneid (one of two occasions in the interview), the place where Aeneas attempts to comfort his troops who have been defeated in war and sent into a wandering exile: “perhaps one day it will be good to remember these things too.” At the moment, neither Aeneas nor his troops can possibly think that anything good can come from their present experience. Only the gods know that out of this experience will come the glory that is Rome.
The pope goes on:
We need to recover our memory because memory will come to our aid. This is not humanity’s first plague; the others have become mere anecdotes. We need to remember our roots, our tradition which is packed full of memories.
He goes on to cite the Fourth Week of the Spiritual Exercises, in which one finds the Suscipe prayer noted above, noting that in these exercises “it’s a conversion through remembrance.” The person who learns to see the world through God’s eyes — the person who has handed over his liberty, memory, understanding, and entire will — will discover that indeed “it is good to remember these things too,” for these things (our difficult experiences) will be part of the historical tapestry that is the slow work of God (cf. Laudato Si’ footnote 53).
4. He says “This is the moment to see the poor.” He says this in the context of speaking about contemplation, the practice by which we attune our vision to God’s vision. On a broad scale, he calls everyone to see the ways we use our collective resources poorly, ignoring the hungry while manufacturing weapons. (Side note: what if we hit pause on all military spending and funneled it into healthcare?) To recalibrate our souls, we must move from “using and misusing nature to contemplating it.” One important consequence, he writes, is that we will see the hidden poor who are too ashamed to call attention to themselves.
5. He calls for a right understanding of the institutional Church and its mission. As in so many of his writings and speeches, he presents a coincidentia oppositorum, a union of opposites or a reconciled diversity. In this case, his focus is the Church. It avoids the extremes of disorder and structure because it is the Holy Spirit who creates holy order.
It is the Holy Spirit who institutionalizes the church, in an alternative, complementary way, because the Holy Spirit provokes disorder through the charisms, but then out of that disorder creates harmony.
He tells the story of an Italian bishop who wanted to give absolution from the hallways of a hospital, but the canon lawyers said it was not possible. Pope Francis reminded him to do his priestly duty, pointing to the fundamental understanding of canon law as being directed toward the salvation of souls (Canon 1752).
Today, pastors and the faithful are finding unique, creative ways to express their faith and still hold to the liturgy, traditions, and laws of the Church. This, in my view, is the ultimate fidelity to the faith of Jesus, who himself found ways to creatively share the mercy of God, even to the point of breaking the law.
A final thought. What does he think will help us escape our confinement?
So: to be in lockdown, but yearning, with that memory that yearns and begets hope — this is what will help us escape our confinement.
