I was raised Catholic. At some point, Catholic theology became irrelevant to me and my life.
Later, I got into born-again-ism. That was okay for a time. Then it wasn’t. Something about Brother (Jack) Hyles not liking blacks riding on his First Baptist Church buses.
Mary and I were 23 with a son who wasn’t quite two when I realized that moving nearly half-way across the country to follow God had been a mistake. Jack Hyles was a phony. That was part of Mark’s history, too.
I wrote a bit about my Catholic experience in a previous book of essays. The essay was called “The Altar Boy.” My family of origin didn’t really like it. What I wrote was true, though. And I really don’t give a damn what people who’ve abandoned me time-and-time again think. I didn’t then, I don’t now.
Last night, Mary and I began what will be a new chapter in our lives of grief and loss without Mark. Periodically, we’re going to get out of the house and do something a bit different during the week. Like going to see a movie.
At the movies: Pope Francis
The Eveningstar Cinema, a place where we’ve both been seeing films since it opened in 1979 has undergone a makeover. New seats, carpeting, and a digital marquee out front (not the old climb-a-ladder-to-post-a-film-announcement signage that’s been there forever) make it seem a bit more 2018 (or at least less pre-Reagan). I’m pleased that Barry’s still in the movie business. All of us film buffs are better for it, even if his demographic seems to be getting older all the time.
The new Wim Wenders documentary about Pope Francis was playing on the big screen. We’d seen previews when we were last there two weeks ago, prior to watching Tully.
Pope Francis: A Man of His Word is described by New York Times critic Glenn Kenny thusly:
Mr. Wenders’s singular focus on Pope Francis is born of sincere admiration, but it also constitutes a canny strategy. This pope is a controversial one, and this portrait plucks him out of the context of debated opinions to let him speak without argument. “The world is mostly deaf,” he says at one point. He continues to describe his approach when traveling the world and meeting its leaders: “Talk little. Listen a lot.” Nevertheless, in this film the pope is given his say, at length.
I’m not sure why Francis is seen as being “a controversial one” as a pope. Is Kenny talking about here in America? If so, then I might be able to understand the descriptor—his concern about the poor, admonitions against consumerism, and concern for “Mother Earth” runs counter to the Trump and conservative rhetoric that’s popular with those Catholics and Evangelicals who put ideology ahead of Jesus’ teaching. That the pope has taken Francis as his given “Pope moniker,” as in St. Francis of Assisi is all you need to know about him. Look him up. He’s got a Wikipedia page.
I’m no longer a Xian. I call myself a post-Xian. But I still find I have an affinity for religious types like the Pope, Rob Bell, and John Pavolvitz to name just three who seem to have some hold on who I think Jesus was and what his teaching means for today.
Actually, much of what Mark was doing on his walk had a Francis-like quality about it. A real stark contrast to the Trumpian narcissism that poisons the daily news cycle and too much of our discourse.
I especially liked being reminded of Pope Francis’ encyclical on the environment. For the TLDR crowd, here are key excerpts from it. This element of the film really resonated with both Mary and me. It also brought a few tears, remembering Mark’s own love for Earth. It’s what he gave his life for.
I’m not going back to Catholicism, and I’m well aware of criticisms of the Church. However, as popes go, there ware worse ones than Francis. And in a world where compassion, care for Earth, and concern for going to the frontiers of poverty and for those on the margins seems to be dwindling in many circles (especially among Republicans and conservatives), having someone on the world’s stage saying “pay attention,” and “we are humans not machines” makes me feel a little bit better and warrants my acknowledgement and respect.
On polarization, Francis said, “it is the people themselves who are divided, living an isolated and siloed existence in their own spheres, depending on different sources of information, and distrustful, if not dismissive, of the other group and their sources of information.” Doesn’t this capture our current cultural milieu of everyone having their own ideologically “pure” source of information, perfectly?
My memory runs back to a saying my uncle used to utter often that I think is pertinent to today’s post: “Rome wasn’t built in a day.”