A qualified success

At one level, it's easy to assume that any pope traveling to Ireland ought to have a home field advantage.

It's a country where Catholicism shaped the culture for centuries, and where church and state to this day are deeply intertwined.

Yet the Ireland which greeted Francis politely in 2018 is worlds away from the place that went nuts for John Paul II back in 1979, with well over half the country's population turning out to shower the Polish pope with adulation.

Ireland now is a secular (or, at least, rapidly secularizing) state, where divorce, contraception, gay marriage and abortion are all legal, the result of popular referendums in which a majority of Irish citizens defied the Church.

It's also a country that's been deeply scarred by the child sexual abuse scandals in Catholicism, with rage induced by those scandals virtually a defining feature of national life.

Under any circumstances, therefore, Francis would have had his work cut out for him.

Add in the immediate run-up to the visit, in which one new abuse scandal after another ripped open old wounds, and the mountain he had to climb steep indeed.

In that context, the general consensus was that Francis mostly exceeded expectations.

His crowds were light but genuinely enthusiastic, and most people were more inclined to blame the cold, rainy weather, plus a climate of fear induced by media warnings of road closures, long walks and general awfulness, for the lower-than-expected turnout.

Overall, the "Francis magic" played in Ireland too, especially his iconic visit on Saturday to a Dublin homeless care facility run by the Capuchin Franciscans.

People watched the pontiff project humility and genuine pleasure in greeting society's outcasts.

They also watched him deliver an impromptu rite of repentance on Sunday after meeting abuse victims the night before and found themselves wanting to believe this could still be the pope who makes it all right.

However, one can't call the trip a complete success, because it was dogged at the end by the letter of a former papal ambassador in the United States who accused Francis of covering up scandals surrounding former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, and by the fact that he failed to deliver the concrete action plan on accountability for bishops that many Irish survivors were demanding.

In the end, therefore, the best early judgment is that the trip went better than one might have reasonably thought, but not quite as well as one might have dreamed.

Winners and Losers

Aside from the pope himself, not to mention a somewhat beleaguered Irish Church that badly needed a shot in the arm, there seemed to be two clear winners whose stock rose as a result of the papal visit.

One is Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin, who will get much of the credit for hosting a successful World Meeting of Families and papal trip, and who used the occasion to position himself anew as a change agent and reformer on the clerical sexual abuse scandals. Continue reading

• Image: Deccan Herald

He has been invited by the Irish archbishops to speak about the Wellington Archdiocese's experience with its own Launch Out programme, established to form lay pastoral leaders.

His topic will be Lessons from New Zealand, Launch Out: Lay Pastoral Leadership Roles.

Fr Éamonn Fitzgibbon, director of the Irish Institute for Pastoral Studies, says the time has come for Ireland to look to experience elsewhere and receive the wisdom garnered by others.

Other countries have faced and addressed the challenges now confronting the Catholic Church in Ireland, Fitzgibbon says.

"We need to be open, generous and humble enough to allow that learning to inform us, as we try to ensure parishes can be all that they are called to be."

Other speakers and facilitators at the conference on the future of parishes include Martin Kennedy, Dr Margaret Lavin, Fr Matthew Nunes, Dr Jessie Rogers and Bishop Michael Wüstenberg.

Cardinal John will leave next week for Ireland.

Before going to the conference he will attend the World Meeting of Families 2018 from 21-26 August.

Of his visit, Cardinal John commented, "It is a very significant event for the Church in Ireland which has been dealing with many difficulties in the last few years."

The three-yearly international event brings together families from around the world to celebrate, pray and reflect upon the central importance of marriage and the family.

There will be a simultaneous opening of the meeting across the dioceses of Ireland, followed by the three-day congress reflecting on the meeting's theme of ‘the Gospel of the family: Joy for the world,' one chosen by the Pope himself.

The congress will feature keynote speakers, workshops, talks, cultural events and musical performances.

It will conclude with a Mass celebrated by Pope Francis in Phoenix Park, Dublin, where it is expected hundreds of thousands will gather.

Source

• Supplied: Amanda Gregan New Zealand Catholic Bishop's Conference
• irishinstituteforpastoralstudies.com
• www.wn.catholic.org.nz
• irishexaminer.com
• Image: wn.catholic.org.nz

I'd call that inspiring magnanimity, or even a New Testament moment of be-kind-to-your-persecutors grace.

For the Church has, and still does, consider Norris and his fellow homosexuals a "disordered" crew.

Yet when Norris first saw the newly elected Pope Francis at the balcony in St. Peter's Square, "when he pushed away the man who was trying to decorate him like a Christmas tree and said ‘buonasera‘ (good evening) and commanded silence from that vast audience, that was terribly impressive …. I suddenly had a leap of heart."

So said Norris in an interview last week with Jim Braude and me on our WGBH-Boston radio show.

And his admiration for this "wonderful" pope has only increased as Norris has watched Francis help the homeless and migrants and go after Vatican bank corruption and financial systems favoring the rich over the poor.

"Here is a man who got down in a prison and washed the feet of women prisoners," said Norris, who then called Francis that "beacon of hope around the world — although he's not great on gay rights."

Not great on the cause of Norris's life, the senator conceded, chuckling.

Yet Norris is still willing to publicly call Francis a powerful force for good, no matter how that might irk gay partisans demanding all-or-nothing allegiance.

Norris then lamented the Church's declining influence as a moral force in Ireland, blaming not just its sexual abuse cover-up, but also what he called its dismal mid-level management team.

Both Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI appointed cardinals and bishops who "are very conservative and really pretty mediocre intellectually and out of touch with modern reality." No vision, Norris said.

Francis, however, is both a visionary and a "very humble man." Continue reading

• Margery Eagan, spirituality columnist for Crux, is a writer and commentator on current affairs.