FIRST SAY:
“I would rather be a little nobody, than to be an evil somebody.”
― Abraham Lincoln
◆ ◆ ◆
Pope Francis, now 87 years old, has this uncanny knack of being always in the news. Now, it is his participation in the ongoing G7 meeting in Italy, having been invited by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. He is actually the first pope invited to that exclusive meeting of the world’s richest nations collectively called “the West.” The world’s richest means it would exclude Russia and China, at last for them.
But before that, Pope Francis had the limelight all for himself when he admonished Catholic priests and their bishops to keep their homilies short and speak for a maximum of eight minutes to prevent members of the congregation from nodding off.
The prelate wanted the parishioners to hear what the priest is saying. Anything longer than 8 minutes will make the audience sleep. This pope knows the mental science behind the act of human listening.
The homily is known in the Philippines (a very Catholic nation) as sermon. And sermon it is, really, and there are a number of priests who relish in this activity, bolstering their power over the minds of his flock. (Christopher Hitchens vehemently objects to this term—flock.)
The homily follows the reading of Bible passages in most Roman Catholic churches. It builds on whatever theological thought was written and read in the Bible for that day, reinforcing the teaching.
The message delivered by a celebrant during a church service, “must be short: an image, a thought, a feeling,” the pope said.
“It should not last longer than eight minutes because after that time attention is lost and people fall asleep, and they are right. Priests sometimes talk a lot and you don’t understand what they are talking about.”
Short, terse and direct-to-the-point. These are the messages that stick, and Pope Francis knows about this, and is in fact trying to teach this trick to his priests for them to be effective.
Here’s an interesting report from the wires—while Pope Francis is quick to point out the deficiencies of Catholic priests in relaying the message, his own use of the language did not make a certain sector happy. This is the LGBT community all over the world.
Francis recently had used a highly derogatory term to describe the LGBTs.
Wire reports said the Pope apologized last month after Italian media attributed to him the use of the word “frociaggine,” a vulgar Italian term roughly translating as “faggotness” or “faggotry,” on May 20 during a closed-door meeting with Italian bishops.
However, according to Italian news agency ANSA, Francis repeated the term on Tuesday as he met Roman priests.
Like US President Joe Biden and at 87 years of age, the Pope has been showing clear signs of memory impairment. His forgetfulness is shown in his use of the word “faggotness.”
◆ ◆ ◆
Karine Jean-Pierre, Biden’s press secretary, Matteo Bruni, director of the Holy See press office of the Roman Curia, and our very own Secretary Cheloy Garafil of the Presidential Communication Office hold distinctive and responsible positions, tasked to project the good and positive image of their respective organizations.
It is a tough job that demands focus every day of the week, especially if you also speak for the President, the Pope, or the Prime Minister. As human, you are not perfect and you are bound to commit mistakes, especially in a highly charged environment in the Palace or the Holy See, or the White House.
This is the rationale behind the Catholic News Agency’s forgetfullness in mentioning the papal gaffe on frociaggine (faggotness).
The CNA reports thus:
Speaking in St. Peter’s Square for his Wednesday catechesis on June 12, the pope explained that the goal of a homily is to “help move the Word of God from the book to life.”
“But the homily for this must be short: an image, a thought, a feeling. The homily should not go beyond eight minutes because after that time you lose attention and people fall asleep,” he said.
It is not the first time that Francis has stressed the importance of short homilies. In 2018, the pope urged priests to “be brief” and ensure that their homilies are “no more than 10 minutes.”
The pope’s words echo the recommendations made by Archbishop Nikola Eterovic in his 2010 book on the 2008 Synod on the Word of God, which advised prelates to keep their homilies to eight minutes or shorter and to avoid “improvisations” from the pulpit.
Pope Francis often exceeds this time limit in his own homilies. On Holy Thursday this year, the pope’s homily for the chrism Mass was more than 20 minutes long.
The pope made the comments on homily length off the cuff during a reflection on how the Bible is “inspired by God and authoritative.”
Francis added that “the Holy Spirit, who inspired the Scriptures … also makes them perennially living and active.”
“It can happen that in a certain passage of the Scripture, that we have read many times without particular emotion, one day we read it in an atmosphere of faith and prayer, and then that text is unexpectedly illuminated, it speaks to us, it sheds light on a problem we are living, it makes God’s will for us clear in a certain situation,” the pope said.
“The words of the Scripture, under the action of the Spirit, become luminous; and in those cases, we touch with our own hands how true is the statement in the Letter to the Hebrews: ‘The word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword’ (Heb 4:12).”
Pope Francis urged Catholics to take time every day to read and reflect on a passage from Scripture, recommending that Christians carry “a pocket Gospel” with them to read during spare moments throughout the day.
“But the quintessential spiritual reading of the Scripture is the community reading in the liturgy in the Mass,” he said. “There, we see how an event or a teaching, given by the Old Testament, finds its full expression in the Gospel of Christ.”
“Among the many words of God that we listen to every day in Mass or in the Liturgy of the Hours, there is always one that is meant specially for us. Something that touches the heart. Welcomed into the heart, it can illuminate our day and inspire our prayer. It is a question of not letting it fall on deaf ears,” Pope Francis said.
“‘The whole Bible,’ observes St. Augustine, ‘does nothing but tell of God’s love,’” he added.
At the end of the general audience, Pope Francis asked people to continue to pray for peace in Ukraine, Palestine, Israel, Myanmar, and the many countries that are at war today.
The pope extended greetings to pilgrim groups visiting from China, India, Indonesia, France, Poland, the United Kingdom, the Philippines, and the United States.
Also in St. Peter’s Square were bagpipers from the the Royal Irish Regiment and 38 Irish Brigade who performed in commemoration of 80th anniversary of the liberation of Rome and Irish brigade’s historic meeting with Pope Pius XII at the Vatican on June 12, 1944.
Pope Francis also encouraged devotion to St. Anthony of Padua ahead of his feast day on June 13.
“Tomorrow we will celebrate the liturgical memory of St. Anthony of Padua, priest and doctor of the Church,” he said. “May the example of this distinguished preacher, protector of the poor and the suffering, arouse in everyone the desire to pursue the path of faith and imitate his life, thus becoming credible witnesses of the Gospel.”
Comments