Have a blessed Christmas!

and here are some thoughts on silence from Pope Francis:

Pope: silence guards one's relationship with God

courtesy of the Vatican Radio website.

More on the Economics of Pope Francis: Two Videos

Two videos on Evangelii Gaudium, with very different perspectives.  Fr. Barron emphasizes the urgency and the central point of the pope's Apostolic Exhortation, not to be too caught up with internecine quarrels when we should be on fire with the joy of the Gospel, as the early Christians were.  Fr. Barron says nothing at all about the most controversial parts of the letter, those about economics.



Samuel Gregg, research director of the Acton Institute, on the other hand, focuses his attention on precisely what Fr. Barron ignores in his commentary, namely Francis's comments about the market.  It is here that the pope seems most naive and uncomprehending.  Not that a pope needs to be an economist, but if he chooses to comment on the nature of markets, the sources of wealth, and how poverty can be overcome, it is good that he know what he is talking about.

If the point is to set aside bickering and join in the urgent task of communicating the joy and the good news of the Gospel, why permit yourself to be diverted into attacks on the one institution that has done vastly more than any other to lift billions of people out of poverty?

On the Economics of Pope Francis's Evangelii Gaudium

Fr. Sirico, president of the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty, responds thoughtfully to the views on economics and poverty expressed in Pope Francis's Apostolic Exhortation.  Where do unfettered, unregulated markets even exist and who even advocates them?  On the difference between crony (or state) capitalism, which prevails in Latin America and elsewhere, and real capitalism, see the excellent paper of Jesse Norman, MP, "Conservative Free Markets, and the Case for Real Capitalism." Norman makes the case for real capitalism - "the greatest tool of wealth creation, social advance and economic development ever known" - but says we are living through an age of crony capitalism.

Here's an interesting article from The Atlantic, by someone who's a speed reader or had an advance copy under embargo.

At this Thanksgiving holiday time, we would do well to remember the Pilgrims' experience.  John Stossel points out that Pilgrims, who held property in common, were saved from starvation for two years by Indians. Then Governor Bradford figured out that private property, capitalism, individual ownership of fields, was the solution to having enough food to eat.

Here's a much quoted passage by Blessed John Paul the Great, who has a more nuanced approach, where he endorses capitalism rightly understood.  As Adam Smith argued, free markets are not only key to the wealth of nations.  They also depend on a moral basis that is indispensable - the free market requires and builds certain virtues (honesty, diligence, creativity, responsibility, initiative, responsible risk-taking, prudence, courage, justice and the avoidance of certain vices - cronyism, corruption, bureaucratic interference, etc.  As all the popes from Leo XIII on say, socialism is bad, evil in all its forms; capitalism needs a proper juridical framework and regulation.  So they all opposed "unfettered capitalism" or strong libertarianism and the kind of individualism that leads people into selfishness and ignoring social problems and the plight of the poor and exploited.  They say, socialism NO, capitalism, yes but (the but standing for tendencies to materialism and greed, seeing economic freedom as the only freedom, etc.).

It seems the difference between JP II and Francis lies in the latter's seeing the market as somehow causing poverty instead of being key to eliminating or reducing it, as Governor Bradford came to see.

Here's the much quoted start of para #42 in John Paul II's social encyclical, Centesimus Annus:

42. Returning now to the initial question: can it perhaps be said that, after the failure of Communism, capitalism is the victorious social system, and that capitalism should be the goal of the countries now making efforts to rebuild their economy and society? Is this the model which ought to be proposed to the countries of the Third World which are searching for the path to true economic and civil progress?

The answer is obviously complex. If by "capitalism" is meant an economic system which recognizes the fundamental and positive role of business, the market, private property and the resulting responsibility for the means of production, as well as free human creativity in the economic sector, then the answer is certainly in the affirmative, even though it would perhaps be more appropriate to speak of a "business economy", "market economy" or simply "free economy". But if by "capitalism" is meant a system in which freedom in the economic sector is not circumscribed within a strong juridical framework which places it at the service of human freedom in its totality, and which sees it as a particular aspect of that freedom, the core of which is ethical and religious, then the reply is certainly negative.

Of course, it doesn't help that there seems to be a serious error in the English translation, giving a key passage a slant that is not there in the original.  Fr. Z explains here.

See also this Poverty Cure video on what really helps the poor and what harms them:

Pope Francis and Caravaggio: Part Two

October 6, 2013

By CORNELIUS SULLIVAN

NAPLES, FLORIDA - Pope Francis said, "That finger of Jesus, pointing at Matthew. That's me. I feel like him. Like Matthew." 

 

From my Pope Francis and Caravaggio, published last week, inhttp://www.italianinsider.it/?q=node/1694, about his recent interview:

 

"At the same time that some Catholics are worried about the pope being soft on important issues, the secular media is ready to definitively pronounce that church doctrine has been changed on controversial matters this week."  

 

Many who are agenda-driven have misread the Pope and have not understood the subtleties in how, without changing anything, Pope Francis has changed the order in the statement "Condemn the sin, love the sinner" to "Love the sinner, condemn the sin." In so doing, he has done more than cause the "l" of love to be capitalized rather than the "c" of condemn; he has proposed a real life change in determining which action should come first sequentially.

 

If you condemn, ears become shut. If you love, ears become open. Only then can you assert that you can have a moral system; you can even insist that you have a right to have a moral ethical system that permits you to call your own sins, sins, and to believe that some behaviors are objectively sinful. 

 

Then, if someone calls you homophobic you can say:  well, I disapprove of murder, does that make me a murderaphobic? Then I must also have theftaphobia, and adulteryaphobia. Isn't a phobia a fear? I am not afraid of homosexuals, but I maintain that we have a right, the privilege even, under the Freedom of Religion, to have religious beliefs that differentiate good and evil. Yes, we get it from our religion, we get it from the Bible. It may be guaranteed by civil authority. And we can try to apply it to ourselves and to our own lives.

 

Enough of the rash, wishful thinking of those with agendas who misinterpret the Pope's call for understanding and mercy as a commendation of their own lifestyles. 

 

What is more puzzling is the fact that so many Catholic experts and theologians have found fault with the Pope's words. Much of what they say comes from a poorly disguised provincial pride that goes, "I would have said it differently." 

 

Other than that, the only point that the experts make that has any emotional resonance at all, is the idea that some faithful members of the Church have not been praised. An example would be those pro-lifers who work tirelessly in support of the Church's position on the sanctity of all human life.

 

In response to that, I say that it is not an accident that all of the Jesuit publications released the Pope's interview on September 19th and that the gospel for that day, read around the world, is about the woman who, known as a sinner in a Pharisee's house, washed the feet of Jesus with her tears of sorrow. In the same way that it is not an accident that the Pope talked about Caravaggio and Saint Matthew, both sinners, it is not an accident that this gospel is coupled with the Pope's words about understanding and forgiveness. Characteristically, in the gospel, Jesus did not rush to praise the Pharisee for being righteous, but was quick to forgive the sinner. 

 

We can understand how Caravaggio, the sinner, connects with Saint Matthew and how the Pope's words are truly pontifical, meaning bridge-building, the word derving from the Italian word for bridge, ponte.

 

As far as praising the faithful members of the Church, that is indeed part of the Pope's job. He beatifies and he canonizes, he meets with Bishops from around the globe, and he continually meets with worthy groups. He praises virtue. So let's give him a break and understand what he is doing when he acts on the gospel truths and occasionally reaches out to the lost sheep.

 

The Calling of Saint Matthew, Caravaggio, San Luigi dei Francesi, Rome.

Pope Francis and Caravaggio - by Cornelius Sullivan

NAPLES, FLORIDA - Pope Francis said, "That finger of Jesus, pointing at Matthew. That’s me. I feel like him. Like Matthew. It is the gesture of Matthew that strikes me: he holds on to his money as if to say, ‘No, not me! No, this money is mine.’ Here, this is me, a sinner on whom the Lord has turned his gaze. And this is what I said when they asked me if I would accept my election as pontiff."

These words are from: Pope Francis, interview with Father Antonio Spadaro, S.J., editor in chief of La Civiltà Cattolica, the Italian Jesuit journal, released on September 19 in answer to the question "Who is Jorge Mario Bergoglio now [Pope Francis]?" http://www.americamagazine.org/pope-interview

This interview has immediately provoked considerable public controversy. The pope mentioned Caravaggio three times in the extensive, wide-ranging interview. It is not an accident that he chose to talk about this painter. Caravaggio is a painter of saints and sinners, and American author Francine Prose has titled her biography of him, Caravaggio, Painter of Miracles.

The interview has spawned a plethora of enthusiastic articles in secular media speculating that the pope has changed Church teachings on homosexuals, abortion, and contraception. We can look at the interview and see if that is indeed true.

The pope's link to Caravaggio's great painting of The Calling of Saint Matthew is a link about mercy. 

In the interview, Pope Francis said on the Gospel story of the calling of Matthew: “Jesus saw a publican, and since he looked at him with feelings of love and chose him, he said to him, ‘Follow me.’" And the pope continued, "when I had to come to Rome, I always stayed in the neighborhood of Via della Scrofa. From there I often visited the Church of St. Louis of France, and I went there to contemplate the painting of ‘The Calling of St. Matthew,’ by Caravaggio."

Caravaggio killed a man in a sword fight duel in 1606. At that time he was the most famous painter in Italy. He was banished from Rome, a fugitive in exile with a price on his head. He never returned and died mysteriously at age 38.

There was no predicting that the young artist from Lombardi would become one of the world's greatest religious painters. It began suddenly with The Calling of Saint Matthew in 1600. Before that, as a young artist he barely survived on the streets of Rome, making small still life paintings and working for other artists. Art historian Sir Kenneth Clark has named The Calling of Saint Matthew the painting that changed the history of painting.

Just fifty years after the High Renaissance in Rome, where Michelangelo and Raphael presented the theology of the Church ideally transcendent in a heaven in the sky with Classical grace, Caravaggio brought the new Counter Reformation faith to the ground. He was a startling realist, inventing his own dramatic light on his models, his street friends, illumining and transforming them into saints. It was the time in Rome where Saint Phillip Neri and his followers on the streets of Camp Marzio lived a new classless faith.

It is not difficult to see how these realities resonate with the humble new pope.

Because Caravaggio was a brawler, fighter, and eventual murderer, always in and out of jail, being self-righteous was never part of his personality. He is a great artist because even when he painted the executioner, probably posed for by one of his friends, we get the feeling that he loves the man, and he is able to show us his humanity.

The part of the recent interview that has become controversial is when Pope Francis said, "We cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage, and the use of contraceptive methods. That is not possible. I have not spoken much about these things, and I am reprimanded for that. But when we speak about these issues, we have to talk about them in a context. The teaching of the church, for that matter, is clear and I am a son of the church, but it is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time."

He has not changed church doctrine. In the concept, "condemn the sin, and love the sinner," he has moved the accent to the latter.
  

Discourse, no matter how correct, does not change hearts. Pope Francis does, and that is his job.

Pope Francis said, “proclamation in a missionary style focuses on the essentials, on the necessary things.” These are what make “the heart burn: as it did for the disciples at Emmaus....The proposal of the Gospel must be more simple, profound, radiant. It is from this proposition that the moral consequences then flow.”

And about the proposal of the Gospel he said, "Tell me: when God looks at a gay person, does he endorse the existence of this person with love, or reject and condemn this person? We must consider the person. Here we enter into the mystery of the human being."

I maintain that Caravaggio excels at portraying "the mystery of the human being" and that is why Pope Francis contemplates and understands his message in paint.

Coincidentally, the Gospel for the day that the interview was released was about the woman, a known sinner, in the house of a Pharisee, who washed the feet of Jesus with her tears.

At a pub in a Catholic university town, I was a mostly silent participant in a lively discussion about the pope's statements on the hot issues. An older writer proposed that it was about not having a narrow, negative focus on some issues while also not proclaiming the larger good news. A younger, more zealous theology student took a more critical view. When I mentioned the Gospel of the day, the young man said, "yes, and Jesus said, 'go and sin no more.'" I think that -go and sin no more- is from the woman taken in adultery, a different passage, maybe it was implied here,  but the central message of this gospel and the additional examples that Jesus used are about how the one who is forgiven much has great love. Jesus said, "her many sins have been forgiven; hence, she has shown great love." Luke 7: 36-50

At the same time that some Catholics are worried about the pope being soft on important issues, the secular media is ready to definitively pronounce that church doctrine has been changed on controversial matters this week. That is even though most of them have never taken the time to know what the authentic teachings of the church are on gays, abortion, and contraception. Someone should tell them that the teachings of the church are clearly defined in The Catechism of the Catholic Church. We can see that Pope Francis, even while calling for compassion and understanding, has told us that those teachings are the same this week as they were last week.

The paint of Caravaggio the sinner, who portrayed Matthew the tax collector sinner, speaks to the pope today.

The Calling of Saint Matthew, Caravaggio, San Luigi dei Francesi, Rome.

Pope Francis Prays for Peace

Cornelius Sullivan

Holy Mary Protectress of the Roman People, Santa Maria Salus Populi Romani

Naples, September 11, 2013

Pope Francis last weekend called for a world wide weekend of prayer and fasting for peace, peace in Syria, in the Middle East, and in the world. Since then suddenly war has been put on hold, at least for a while.  Unexpectedly the plans for the United States to punitively bomb Assad have halted.

It appears that no one has noted that the Pope's call for world wide fasting and prayer for peace has done anything. He was heeded, listened to, people did pray. The United States, even though leading from behind, has said that the threat of attack has caused Assad to blink. Can the idea proposed by Russia to control chemical weapons be feasible during a civil war? These are some of the issues being debated now.

No one has connected the sudden change in circumstances, the bombing pause, with the prayers of Pope Francis and the world. Allow me to point out how the actions of  Popes in other times, with the prayers of the people, have brought about improbable changes.

In 590 AD Pope Gregory the Great with hundreds of pilgrims carried an icon of the Virgin Mary processing from the Basilica of Saint Mary Major through the streets of Rome praying for the end of the plague. The icon is called Santa Maria Salus Populi Romani, Holy Mary Protectress of the Roman People. Almost at Saint Peter's Basilica they all saw a vision of Saint Michael the Archangel above Hadrian's Tomb sheathing his sword signifying that the plague would end. After the same vision occurred later at the same place, at the time of the Black Death in 1348, that mausoleum received its new name, Castel Sant'Angelo. The castle is at the end of the wide boulevard leading to Saint Peter's Square, Via della Conciliazione.

The first full day of his papacy, at 8:05 in the morning, Pope Francis  went to the Basilica of Saint Mary Major to pray before the same icon, Santa Maria Solus Populi Romani. He returned there again a short time later to pray at the beginning of May, the Marian month.

A Time article by Elizabeth Dias chronicles last Sunday's events at Saint Peter's:

The prayer service began when four Swiss guards processed        through the square with the icon Salus Populi Romani, Mary, the Queen of Peace and the Protectress of the Roman people. (the same icon that the Pope has visited twice) The Pope led the Rosary recitation, a meditation, and a Eucharist ceremony. Bible readings from the Gospel of Luke focused on Mary, and thousands of people in the square followed along with a 51-page booklet the Vatican produced for the service. Priests heard confessions under the St. Peters colonnade.

When not being carried in a procession, the icon is displayed in Saint Mary Major in great artistic splendor in the Pauline Chapel, named after the Borghese Pope, Pope Paul V. Tradition attributes the icon to Saint Luke and says that Saint Helena, Emporer Constantine's mother, brought it to Rome from the east.

After his election Pope Francis was seen as a refreshing revolutionary, but we can now see an aspect of him that is like Pope  Gregory, who with the people, connects with the world employing time honored popular devotions; a Marian procession, the Rosary, confessions, a Eucharistic celebration, and then a piazza filled with prayers for peace.   

Vision of Saint Michael The Archangel, 2011, oil, 30x40", by the author.

Cornelius Sullivan at home

In England's green and pleasant land

This "hymn" is neither Christian nor nationalistic, nor do most of those who sing it lustily at sporting events as a kind of English (as opposed to British) national anthem, have a clue what it means. Still it stirs the heart of (almost) every English man, woman, and child.  The Dean of Southwark caused quite a stir when he banned it from use in his cathedral. 

'Papal Bounce' Credited for British Confession Boom:

Between Pope Francis and Benedict XVI, British clergy report confessions are on the rise.

The Catholic Church in England and Wales observes Home Mission Sunday this Sept. 15, a day of prayer and celebration for the work of evangelization.

Bishop Kieran Conry of Arundel and Brighton told the Daily Telegraph that “significant numbers” of young people are going to the sacrament of reconciliation. He said this is “a good sign” that means they are connected with the Church even if they are sometimes not regular Sunday Massgoers.

Read more: http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/papal-bounce-credited-for-british-confession-boom/#ixzz2ebYwCVuw

Fr. Barron on Pope Francis and the Religious Sense

Back to the Bad Old Days? OR Giving 'jesuitry' a bad name?

Canon lawyer Dr. Edward Peters begins his comments on Pope Francis’s decision to disregard liturgical law by washing the feet of two women in the Holy Thursday Mandatum rite by noting that “The background to this controversy is the antinomianism that prevails today.”  The Vatican Press Office explanation, he argues, just adds to the confusion.  We are passing through “a period in which the relationship between ecclesiastical law and the life of faith is widely misunderstood and the very content of Church law is often poorly explained.”

Peters actually favors changing the law to allow the washing of women’s as well as men’s feet, but is concerned about the implications and example of disregarding the law that other priests are expected to follow in the meantime.  Again, his concern is not with some abstract legalism, but is in the context of the period of antinomianism through which we have been living, which reached its low point in the dark days of the 1970s.  On the antinomianism of our own day see Daniel Ciofani's reflections on the question raised for him by the 2012 election: How can Christians of all kinds "all across the country vote so consistently to outlaw [their faith's] own historical and religious values?"   (See Ciofani's essay, Antinomianism: The Soft Heresy.)

In another column he also posted yesterday, Dr. Peters comments on an egregious case in which the president of a Jesuit high school, Fr. Edward Salmon, explains his reasons for allowing two male students to attend the McQuaid Jesuit High School 2013 prom as a couple.

Catholics who were mercifully spared the “Church of the 70’s” might find illuminating Salmon’s letter; it’s vintage what so many of us were force-fed for ten dark years: condescending, platitudinistic, partial quotes of Church  documents used to justify the exact opposite of what the Church wants her members to know about Christ and his Gospel. Folks may read the letter for themselves and reach their own conclusions on it.  Here I address only one assertion by Salmon: “I am not encouraging nor am I condoning homosexual activity just as I do not encourage or condone heterosexual activity at a dance.”

What on earth is Salmon talking about? He does not “encourage or condone heterosexual activity at a dance.” Of course he does! And he should!

The whole point of a high school dance, in America, over the last century or so, was precisely to encourage “heterosexual activity” in a relatively controlled environment where men and women who were moving toward making selections for life-long partnerships of the whole of life (Canon 1055 on the definition of marriage, anyone?) could interact publicly as part of the dating/courtship sequence. The formal prom was just a more grown-up version of the mixer, conducted in recognition of the fact that the youth were approaching adulthood and should know how to dress the part.

Read his comments in full HERE.

The Postmodern Pope



March 18, 2013

By Cornelius Sullivan

Rome

He cares about the poor. But he rejects the Marxist Liberation Theology meta-narrative where “the poor” are a class. He knows and has helped poor people in familial ways as individuals. For Pope Francis the beauty is in the details, the white cassock, the small car, riding the bus, carrying his own luggage.

This Pope is not an ideologue who has a vision for a new world order. It’s the Gospel, the Gospel lived locally. Subsidiarity has been a Catholic theory or organizing principle that says that political and economic matters ought to be handled by the smallest, lowest or least centralized competent authority. The question is, since the encyclical Rerum Novarum of 1891 by Pope Leo XIII, has there yet been an example showing how to live it?

I have a more positive attitude about Postmodernism than some Catholic thinkers today who link it inextricably with relativism and deconstruction. 

I was at Rhode Island School of Design in 1989, as the Berlin Wall was coming down, and had the privilege to know a Polish film critic who was teaching a class in “Post Modernism in the Visual Arts”. (As a marble sculptor who also painted, I suffered through Modernism where Clement Greenberg and his Theory of Flatness reigned, Painting and Sculpture must be separated for purity. And “Sculpture was what you backed into when you were trying to get a good distance for viewing an abstract painting.”)

In visual art Postmodernism meant not just a reaction against Modernism but freedom. We could paint our sculpture and the figure returned to painting and sculpture. Derrida's and the post-structuralist’s philosophy and deconstruction had a superficial influence on Postmodern Architecture in its fragmentation, but Postmodern Architecture’s freedom from the tyranny of Modernist aesthetics was more important. The Modern architects did not care if you knew the building was a church or an apartment building or even if you knew where the door was. They knew better, and they were making great abstract form. Postmodern architecture took some ideas from Route 66 with its shoe store in the shape of a shoe, and meaning became clear, a church could look like a church.

Modernism has always been wedded to the meta-narratives. The housing for the poor was for “the poor”, never considered as suitable for or accommodating to individuals. Charles Jencks in his best selling book, The Language of Post-Modern Architecture (1977),   

described modernism as dying on 15th July 1972, at precisely 3:32pm when the demolition of the Pruitt- Igoe development in St. Louis occurred. The building, a modernist post-war social housing project, was constructed to provide cheap and affordable housing to promote equality and a fair society.

Less than twenty years on, the failings of the modern utopian ideal are showcased in this demolition. It became a place of crime and violence. The place had no human scale, there was no privacy, there were no architectural features promoting human dignity. And yet, the architects were arrogant in thinking that they knew what was best for “the poor”.

Postmodernism is suspicious of the promises of technology.

A friend wrote after the conclave “Some naive people see it as a victory for left/"social justice" tendency because they equate concern for the poor with government programs and redistribution.” They may be disappointed. Look at the localism of the way that Pope Francis lives the Gospel.

The wonderful drawing at the top by Beppe Giacobbe is with the article The Priest Came from The New World to Give Back Faith to Old Europe by Gian Arturo Ferrari in the Sunday edition of the Italian newspaper, Corriere della Sera. (I did not notice at first the subtle world map on the scooter.)

Ferrari emphasizes that Papa Bergoglio is a priest and that he is from the New World. He recalls that Montini (Pope Paul VI), Wojtyla, and Ratzinger were Europeans in culture and in vision of the world from the war and cold war years. He says on the other hand, Bergoglio has simplicity, honesty, and humility, and he is a Jesuit like the ones who converted the Indians in the Americas. Europe is in decline, not only religiously, but also geopolitically. It is bleary eyed and no longer has the clarity of vision that was once its glory. And pessimism is the work of the devil.

He ends by proposing that there is a message of hope for Europe and Italy. Pope Francis will “have a great gift for everyone, whether believers or not.”

home (c) 2013 by Cornelius Sullivan

"Francis, Rebuild my Church!" - God

Fr. Robert Barron's first thoughts on our new pope.

Pope Francis - They Chose Well

Habemus Papam

The South Americans, the Italians, and the journalists think the Cardinals chose well, the surprise Pope, Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio of Argentina.

He is a simple pious man who lives the Gospel. He is a Jesuit who lives like Saint Francis of Assisi. As an outsider, he can be a reformer. He was the runner up to Cardinal Ratzinger in the conclave in 2005, so it is said. He was being used to block Ratzinger and he said, do not vote for me. In 2002 he dodged the move to bring him to the Curia in Rome. So, he has been known by the Cardinals for some time.

I did not expect white smoke but decided to take my camera and go out anyway for an evening passagiata just before 7. Ten blocks from Saint Peter’s there was a bus stopped in traffic. Suddenly, all the doors opened and everyone ran out toward the basilica. In the piazza everyone was smiling, it was a sight such that I had never seen before. I wished I could freeze time and take a picture of every face. Standing behind me were three men speaking English. A young priest from Milan, an older man from Australia, and another young man from Brazil. The priest said to me, “This is family, this is a family event. We are together here, we are from three different continents.”

Running.

Then the surprise announcement of Cardinal Bregoglio came, he would be Pope Francis.  I had heard of him. The crowd turned quiet and subdued but only for a time. Then chants of Viva Francesco! and Viva Papa! filled the cool air. It had rained for a week. Gulls circled the cupola of the church as we waited. Then the rain stopped just before the new Pope appeared. Just in time, umbrellas came down so we could see. Today is my first day of sun in Rome.

I had heard a great deal about the Cardinal from Argentina. On Saturday evening walking home late down Via Borgo Pio, the street that leads directly to the Santa Anna Gate into the back of the Vatican, half way down the street, there was a wine bar restaurant with the door open, a man singing and playing a guitar, and a sign painted on arched glass above the door, Enoteca Amor Divino.  It was like a living room or dining room with bottles on the table. I did not see a menu. You poured your own glass. If the wine that you wanted was not yet opened, you opened it.

 After a while the owner of the bar stood behind a large Italian man at the head of a big table of ten people. The woman with the big man had just sung with the guitar man in a trained classical soprano voice. Riccardo, put his hands on the big man and said in English, “He combines Sean Connery and Padre Pio. He combines the sacred and the profane. The saints are always connected to the earth…. I knew we would talk.

When we did talk it was about the sacred and the profane, I was reminded of the Titian painting in Museo Borghese of Sacred and Profane Love.  Later, I said to him, “I noticed that the sign over the door says “Winebar Divine Love” and the menu says “Enoteca Amor D Vino”, which is “Enoteca Love of Wine”. He said, yes, the sign painter made a mistake!” I said, “God tricked you.” He shrugged and said, “Yes, but I like God.”

AMOR DIVINO

Amor D Vino

We agreed to meet the next day and I would interview him about Vatican things. We went to a little park across the street. I sat and wrote by the fountain. He stood in front of me so he could have space to wave his arms, pace, and move.

Mr. Della Chiesa (from the Church) is middle aged, a photographer, an energetic, charismatic man who is passionate about ideas. About the Curia and the conclave he said, “It begins, the politics, we want this, and we want that,…then when they give up. That is the God moment.” He continued, “To clean up the Curia, well, to clean up a room, you have to empty it first.”

I was trying to understand his ideas, they were in good English mixed in with Italian phrases for emphasis. He said, “We need a new era, a Post Humanism, a new Middle ages.” He talked about how man has tried to become God with machines. This is where he talked about Cardinal Bergoglio as a holy man. I could not connect all the dots but his passion and clean heart were apparent. It sounded like a repudiation of Enlightenment ideas that have privileged progress, science, and world order over some more human values that he mentioned, like honesty, simplicity, and humility.

Is he an Italian Post-Communist Hippy or a bar man secular saint?  The night after the election he saw me on the street coming to see him and he ran to me, took my hand and would not let go, and said, “I told you, I told you.” He did not stop smiling.

Then he told me that he lived downstairs from Cardinal Ratzinger for eight years at Piazza della Leonina Citta, 1.  He said the Cardinal was the “kindest man I ever knew, gentle and reserved.” He said as Pope, Benedict bore his cross and suffered greatly because he was so shy. He said that he did not think that Benedict gave up his office from weakness because he is a German who lived through the war and that his generation never would give up. He said we must look at the Pope’s words, “I wish forgiveness for my weakness.” And, “The Cardinal always asked about my family, my children and my mother.”

home (c) 2013 Cornelius Sullivan