2 weeks Ago By David Bonior
Retired Congressman David Bonior. (PHOTO COURTESY OF DAVID BONIOR)Where do we find hope? Maybe where it almost always resides, within love and faith.Or another way to think about it is: Where do we find faith? Maybe it is from the building blocks of our lives that are centered around love and hope.
But whatever the formula is, I do know that a concoction of faith, hope, and love is a powerful elixir that feeds the soul.I began my novel, “When Mercy Seasons Justice: Pope Francis and a Story of Migration,” with the true story of Francis’ encounter with a nine-year-old boy named Emanuele. It has all the elements of faith, hope and love.
I was searching for someone to look up to. Someone who shared my belief in Catholic social teachings and might have the personal and political skills to reform a tired and poisoned church. The time of Trump was lurking just around the corner.
At the outset of Francis’ papacy, he was a cool breeze in a church that had become stodgy and corrupted. So many of his “firsts” had been revolutionary. First Jesuit, first South American, first pope to say he does not judge gay people, first to have washed the feet of a woman, first to appoint a commission on allowing women to become deacons.
First pope to build a shelter for the homeless and spend his birthday with them. First pope to rescue an immigrant family from Syria and shelter them in the Vatican.In his apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, Francis directed his criticism against the twin evils of inequality and exclusion found in the financial and economic system of capitalism.
He called these gaps the “dung of the devil.”In his equally forceful encyclical on ecology, “Laudato Si” (On Care of Our Common Home), he called for a broad cultural revolution to save our planet, our home.But it is the story of Emanuele breaking down into the Pope’s arms and Francis’s tender way that he handled him and the boy’s most difficult question that I will always cherish.
Emanuele stands frozen at the microphone. He has been told about Francis’ goodness and kindness, but that doesn’t stop Emanuele from being intimidated by this robbed man seated in front of him. There is a quiet tension building among all who have come to see the pope in this working-class neighborhood in Rome.
Suddenly, it all becomes too much for young Emanuele. He breaks down and starts to cry into his hands. A priest who is assisting and encouraging him, reaches out to comfort the boy, but with no results.
Finally, Francis speaks out and says to the boy, “Come to me.”Emanuele, hesitantly and with the help of the priest, walks toward the pope, who instantly embraces him. They stay in this embrace a long while, whispering to each other.
Francis is fatherly with the young boy, while two cardinals sit on each side of the pope and are entirely enthralled with the exchange the boy and the pope are having.Now that Francis has consoled Emanuele and put aside his fear, the boy whispers again in the pope’s ear, asking his question and then hurriedly returns to his seat and his classmates where he once again buries his head in his hands.Francis in a slow and compassionate voice speaks to the crowd.
“I asked Emanuele’s permission to say publicly the question he asked me. And he said ‘yes.’ So, I will tell you.
Emanuele asked, ‘A little while ago my father passed away He was a non-believer, but he had all four of his children baptized. He was a good man. Is dad in heaven?The pope pauses and lets the significance of Emanuele’s story and question sink in for the crowd.
“His father was not a believer, but he had his children baptized,” Francis repeated. “He also had a good heart and Emanuele wonders, because he was a nonbeliever, is he in heaven?”It is time again for Francis to wait a moment before he continues past the boy’s heartbreaking question.“The one who says who goes to heaven is God.
But what Is God’s heart like, with a dad like that? What do you think?”The pope goes on to answer his own question.“A father’s heart. God has a dad’s heart.
And with a dad who was not a believer, but who baptized his children and gave them that bravura, do you think that God would be able to leave him far from himself? Do you think? Speak up, come on.”With Francis’s encouragement the crowd began to call out “No, no.”The pope responded by asking another question.
“Does God abandon his children?”To that, the crowd answers again, “No, no!”This leads the pope to turn to Emanuele and say, “There, Emanuele—that is your answer. God surely was proud of your father because it is easier as a believer to baptize your children than to baptize them when you are not a believer. Surely this pleased God very much.
Talk to your dad, pray to your dad.”All present at this simple gathering, on an ordinary spring day, had witnessed a stunning papal exchange, because such an answer of inclusion would have been inconceivable before his pontificate. The pope’s answer was one of mercy, and mercy underscored Francis’ papacy.
Pope Francis did much to be admired. But one of his greatest efforts was appointing new cardinals to choose his own successor. Of those eligible to vote in the conclave in a couple of weeks, 73% were appointed by Francis.
Even in death Francis lives and that gift may be one of his best contributions to the future of the church. We will see.David Bonior represented Macomb County and Michigan in the House of Representatives from 1977 to 2003.
He served as Democratic whip from 1991 to 2002..
