Scripting a papal message of reconciliation and redemption

National Post, 29 July 2022

After the script is set aside, the real story remains. The story of Pope Francis's trip was not complicated

There is a script that governs papal visits. That of Pope Francis was no different.

In advance the question is put: What will the pope say? Then he says it. Next: Was it too much, too little, or should he have said something else? The pope then says whatever he had planned to say next, given that papal texts are prepared long in advance and distributed under embargo in eight languages, including Arabic. Then the question is asked about whether the pope had responded to the response to what he had originally said.

This tiresome theatre is required to fill up the filings of the 200 or so journalists a typical papal trip attracts. Through this imperfect method, the message of the pope gets scattered abroad like seed. The shallow soil of instant journalism gives it brief attention before it withers and fades. But the rich soil of those with ears to hear allow the papal seeds to spring up and bear good fruit in due season. So it will be with the “penitential pilgrimage” of Pope Francis.

It occurred to me on Thursday morning, providing television commentary on the papal Mass at Sainte-Anne De-Beaupré, that 20 years ago to the hour, I was providing television commentary on the papal Mass of St. John Paul II in Toronto for World Youth Day 2002.

It was the first papal trip to North America after the Boston sexual abuse scandals broke in January 2002. What would the pope say? Would he address it? When John Paul did, those covering the visit, and those covering the coverage of the visit, debated whether it was too hot, too cold, or just right.

I have covered papal trips for 27 years, many from a distance, but in person in the Philippines, Poland (twice), Portugal, Canada, Australia, Israel, United States (twice), Great Britain, Sri Lanka and now Canada again. In different parts of the globe for nearly three decades the script is remarkably constant.

But after the script is set aside, the real story remains. The pope travels for the story, not the script.

The story of this trip was not complicated. In the great human drama of sin and salvation, what happens when the preachers get compromised by political programs, when the sacred gets co-opted by the state?

The Church exists to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ to all nations. That includes the First Nations of Canada, who are no less worthy of it, and no less in need of it, than any other race or people. That’s why the early missionaries came across the oceans and why they defended the dignity of Indigenous peoples, learning their languages and providing education in extremely difficult circumstances. All that took place, with lights and shadows, 200 years before the first residential school existed.

The script for this trip tried to erase that reality; the story required that Pope Francis speak of it, to the consternation of some.

The story had sinful chapters. Catholic religious orders and some dioceses ran residential schools. Some likely thought it a shortcut to proclaiming the gospel. Some likely were accustomed to co-operation with the European colonial expansion and thus did not think very much about it all. Some likely had forgotten, as Pope Francis said, that the gospel cannot be proposed by methods contrary to the gospel, and so embraced the project of assimilation and cultural suppression. And some likely were in concord with the federal government policy goal “to kill the Indian in the child.”

The result for the Indigenous children was “catastrophic,” as Pope Francis confessed at Maskwacis. To heal that historic mistake, reconciliation is required, and that requires contrition and a request for forgiveness.

The story is not over. The principal story that a pope has to tell is that of God’s saving love for all those created in His image and likeness. And if the Church is going to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ to Indigenous peoples, she has to love them, their history, their culture and their language.

Can that be done? Some doubt that, not unreasonably.

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