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Letter #49: Black Shoes

[2013-03-17]
[Engleză]
March 16, 2013, Saturday -- Black Shoes

"First of all I would say a prayer for our Bishop Emeritus Benedict XVI. Let us all pray together for him, that the Lord bless him and Our Lady protect him." --Pope Francis, asking all to pray for Emeritus Pope Benedict, during his first public words after his election on March 13, 2013

It is now official. Pope Francis, 76, will go to Castel Gandolfo, about 15 miles outside of Rome, to meet Emeritus Pope Benedict, 85, on March 23, next Saturday, one week from today.

It will be their first meeting since Benedict renounced his office and since Francis was elected Pope on Wednesday, three days ago.

But it will not be their first meeting ever; the two have met before. Here below are two photos of Pope Benedict meeting with Cardinal Bergoglio, who is now Pope Francis.

According to a Vatican communique issued today, Pope Francis will leave by helicopter from the Vatican at 12 noon and arrive at 12:15 p.m. at Castel Gandolfo, where he will join the Emeritus Pope for lunch.

Pope Francis has already rendered homage to Pope Emeritus Benedict on several occasions during the first three days of his pontificate, beginning with a telephone call to the Emeritus Pope on Wednesday evening, the night of his election.

Then, standing on the balcony of St. Peter's, Francis asked the crowd below in the Square to pray for Benedict, and prayed the Our Father, Hail Mary and Glory Be, in Latin.

On Friday, on the occasion of a meeting with his cardinals, Francis recalled the "goodness" of his predecessor, and rrefreered to his decision to step down as a "courageous and humble" gesture.

Benedict XVI, 85, left the papal office on February 28, 16 days ago.

He is expected to return to the Vatican at the end of April, and to move in to a convent in the Vatican Gardens. It is not yet clear what his relationship will be with his successor, or how often they will meet, if at all.

One difference between the two, however, has already become evident. Pope Francis is not wearing the "red shoes" that past Popes have typically worn.

This tradition goes back more than 200 years. Here are Pius VII's slippers from 1808, 205 years ago:

So, it is a tradition. It isn't a very important tradition. It has no doctrinal significance, of course. But it is a tradition.

And Francis, so far, is not following this tradition.

Since his election, Francis has worn an ordinary pair of black shoes, apparently rejecting the red leather shoes worn by Benedict XVI.

Benedict's red shoes were hand-made for him by a cobbler in the Borgo, the old area of medieval streets just next to the Vatican on the right side of St. Peter's Square.

A pair of the red shoes had been made for his successor and were on display in the days before the conclave.

But, Pope Francis has not worn those red shoes. He has worn his old black shoes.

Reports says that, before he left Buenos Aires for Rome, Cardinal Bergoglio, was wearing a pair of shoes so shabby that friends insisted on buying him a new pair.

"He's always very humbly dressed and the shoes he was wearing were not in very good shape," a South American priest told Vatican Radio.

Here is how he looked this morning as he entered the Paul VI Hall to geet some 5,000 journalists who had come to Rome to cover the Conclave and his election.

And he also wore these same black shoes on Thursday and Friday.

The New York Times commented: "[Francis] wore simple black shoes and an ordinary wristwatch with a thick black band to his first Mass as pontiff.... In an ancient institution where style often translates into substance, Francis, in his first 24 hours as Pope, has dramatically shifted the tone of the papacy. Whereas Benedict XVI, the pope emeritus, was a theologian who favored red loafers, ermine-lined cloaks and erudite homilies, reviving papal fashions from centuries past, Francis, the former Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Buenos Aires, appeared Thursday to be sending a message of radical humility."

Radical humility, radical simplicty, and a willingness to set aside traditional ways -- these are three of the characteristics of this pontificate thus far.

===========================

The Love of the Poor as a Central Christian Mission

But this matter of red shoes and black shoes is not simply a matter of taste, or even of a desire for simplicity.

It is programmatic, or so it seems.

That means, Pope Francis is showing us his "program" by such small gestures.

And what is that program.

It is to set the love of the poor and downtrodden and miserable and despairing at the heart of the mission of the Pope, or the papacy, of the Church hierarchy, of the Church as a whole, and so, of individual Christians.

The Pope is telling us that, to be Christians, to bear witness to the love of Christ, to the reality of Christ and his love for us, shown in his life and his willingness to lay down his life for us on the cross, we must show our love for the poor and the downtrodden in real, practical, evident ways.

And he made this very clear this morning in his meeting with the 5,000 members of the press who are here in Rome.

On the third day after his election, Francis agreed -- as has become customary, so in this he kept to tradition -- to meet with the press.

Once again today, he departed from his written text, or notes, and told us why he had chosen the name "Francis."

And why this choice of a name will mark his pontificate.

His pontificate will be centered on Christ, he said -- and not on "the Pope" or "the Church" -- but also on poverty, on the poor: "How I wish for a poor Church, and for a Church for the poor," he told us.

"Never forget the poor"

The meeting was, in fact, extraordinary.

The Pope asked us if we wanted to know why he chose his name. And, of course, we did want to know. So we all listened intently.

"Do you know why the Bishop of Rome wanted to be called Francis?" he asked. "During the papal election, I had at my side the Archbishop Emeritus of Sao Paulo (Brazil), Cardinal Claudio Hummes. A great friend, a great friend...

(Here, Cardinal Claudio Hummes of Brazil, friend of the new Pope, whose suggestion to "never forget the poor" led Pope Francis to choose the name "Francis" as his papal name)

"When things began to be a little dangerous, he comforted me! And when the votes arrived at two-thirds, and when the cardinals began to applaud in their customary way because the Pope had been elected, he put his arms around me, he hugged me, and he said to me: 'Never forget the poor.'"

"This word stayed with me, the poor, the poor. And after that, thinking about the poor, I thought of St. Francis of Assisi. And then, while the vote-counting continued, I thought about war, until the end of the voting. And Francis is the man of peace. And it was thus that the name Francis came to me in my heart, Francis of Assisi. The man of poverty, the man of peace, the man who loved..."

And then the Pope paused for a moment, and spoke directly from his heart: "How I wish for a poor Church, and for a Church for the poor!"

Sursa: www.InsideTheVatican.com

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