Pope Francis: A year after

Exactly a year ago, white smoke emitted from the funnel on the roof of the Sistine Chapel, where the Papal Conclave just elected Jorge Mario Cardinal Bergoglio, an Argentinian as the 266th Pope and successor to the resigned Pope Benedict XVI. Cardinal Bergoglio chose the name, Pope Francis… the first Pope to use that name, and the first Pope to come from Latin America. But what a great choice the Cardinals made in that Papal Conclave in choosing Pope Bergoglio for he is indeed a gift from the Holy Spirit.

I recall that exactly a year ago, CNN had a camera focused only on the funnel on top of the Sistine Chapel, when suddenly a white seagull landed on top of this funnel. The perplexed CNN anchorman wondered if the seagull was just warming up on the stove funnel, but also said that the Holy Spirit often appeared as a dove… although that was not a dove.

Well, it is exactly a year since the blessed Trinity gave us Pope Francis and what a year it has been. Who can forget that on his first appearance as Pope Francis on the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica, instead of blessing the hundreds of thousands of people in St. Peter’s Square, Pope Francis asked them to pray for him, then he blessed them as Bishop of Rome.

The following day was even more surprising when Pope Francis shunned the use of the Papal limousine and instead took a mini-bus that was bringing back some of the Cardinals to their respective hotels. Pope Francis went down to his hotel and to the total surprise of the front desk clerks, he checked out of his room, took his bag and paid his hotel bill. This has never happened in the Vatican in the last few hundred years.

Then as the days followed, Pope Francis became a visible figure inside St. Peter’s Square shaking the hands of pilgrims and kissing babies, he was truly a Pope of the people. He amazed so many people of his uncanny attitude and ordinary stature, unlike the previous popes before him. Indeed, Pope Francis was a new fresh spirit that has entered the Catholic Church, making the billion strong Catholics proud of being a Catholic.

But in all that drama in St. Peter’s Square the liberal press was still cautious that this new Pope could be their man to change the ways of the Catholic Church and open it up, away from its centuries old conservative stand, especially on modern day issues like same sex marriage, contraception or abortion and divorce. The first opening for the liberal press happened right after the World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on the Pope’s return flight to Rome, where he surprised the media on board and held an impromptu presscon on the plane. Another surprise!

The big news that came out of the media was the question about gay rights, where the Pope merely said, “Who am I to condemn a gay person if he is seeking God?” This remark made a big hit with the liberal press… that misinterpreted the Pope’s reaction as being one who is open to gay rights. Little did these media personalities know that this was one of the teachings of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Pope Francis didn’t come up with any new doctrines for the Mother Church.

The pro-life groups were jittery that it has taken Pope Francis so long to condemn contraception or abortion. Well, last July during the Million Man March to Washington DC, Pope Francis condemned abortion as evil and this somehow shocked the liberal press who were probably awakened to the reality that Pope Francis was still a Catholic! Then suddenly the liberals stopped praising Pope Francis and used its number one attack dog to fire a warning salvo against Pope Francis.

Last Jan. 31, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child released a 16-page report castigating the Vatican, demanding that it reconsider its moral teachings on contraception, abortion and homosexuality. Wow, these international bureaucrats have become like God, demanding that the Catholic Church change its 2,000-year-old doctrines in order to suit the desires of modern man. Haven’t these people read what our Lord Jesus Christ said about his church… “That the gates of hell shall not prevail against her.” So why should the Pope even listen to a UN bureaucrat? 

This is the same United Nations (UN) that couldn’t solve the world’s problems on poverty, hunger and yes the civil war in Syria and quite possibly, another civil war in Ukraine, or could not even settle the issues on the Palestinian question or give peace to the Korean Peninsula?

The latest on Pope Francis is his restoration of Gustavo Gutierrez who wrote the book on Liberation Theology. I was against this because I was always against Communism and the Marxists hijacked it and made it their own theology. Indeed so many nuns and priests were lured by those Marxists believing that our Lord Jesus Christ was a Communist. But our Lord taught about the liberation of man from sin and from social injustice.

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