Audiences With the Pope Are Always Agreeable Occasions
National Catholic Register, 06 March 2020
It is extremely rare to find anyone who emerges from an audience with the Holy Father without a highly favorable impression and without thinking that the Holy Father shares his position.
The U.S. bishops recently concluded their ad limina visits to Rome, in which each of 15 groups of bishops spent several hours in an extended conversation with Pope Francis. Those colloquies got superlative reviews from one and all, with many bishops marveling at how frank, engaged, generous and wise the Holy Father was.
Which confirms one of the key stories of this pontificate. At the seven-year mark it is extremely rare to find anyone who emerges from an audience with the Holy Father without a highly favorable impression and without thinking that the Holy Father shares his position. Anyone I have spoken to who has had a private audience with the Holy Father has told me that Pope Francis agrees with him on the issue being discussed.
For a pope billed as the “great reformer” who is looking to shake things up and disrupt ossified habits, it is a dog-that-didn’t-bark story. There are apparently no disagreeable meetings with Pope Francis, or even disagreements to be had — at least according to those who are fortunate to meet with him in person.
Bishop Barron on Proselytism
Auxiliary Bishop Robert Barron of Los Angeles wrote a very appreciative column about the meeting Pope Francis held with the bishops of California, Nevada and Hawaii. As you can imagine from the evangelizing bishop, he had noted over the years that the Holy Father spoke negatively about “proselytism” rather frequently.
“I will confess that I have often wondered at some of Francis’ rhetoric here and have longed for something like his definition of the term,” Bishop Barron wrote. He continues:
The Holy Father clarified that he, of course, advocates the spreading of the faith, but he is opposed to an aggressive, divisive, numbers-oriented approach to the task. Evangelization, he joked, is not like getting people to join your football club! As he often has in the past, he emphasized with us the centrality of personal witness to the joy of living a life of faith. Whatever teaching we do, he said, must take place within the context of that way of life. In this, of course, he was simply echoing Pope Paul VI, who said that people today listen to teachers precisely in the measure that those teachers are also witnesses. I was particularly gratified to hear him on this point, for there have been some in the commentariat who have suggested that engaging in apologetics or theological clarification is tantamount to “proselytizing.” Not according to Pope Francis.
So it seems that Pope Francis has the same understanding of evangelization that Bishop Barron does, at least when Bishop Barron is in the room.
Continue reading at the National Catholic Register:
https://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/audiences-with-the-pope-are-always-agreeable-occasions