Francis unfiltered

La Stampa ^ | 10/21/2013 | GIANNI VALENTE

[markomalley]

Even the upper echelons of the Vatican hierarchy have been aware for a while now that, since Francis rose to the papal throne, his river of words has been reaching people through all sorts of channels and without any intermediaries. So the Pope’s direct way of addressing his audience is ensuring that the media do not go into a spinning frenzy regarding the figure and actions of the Bishop of Rome.

The last man who clearly explained the liberating reach of Francis’ direct style of preaching was the Assessor for General Affairs of the Secretariat of State Peter Brian Wells. Last Friday the monsignor from Oklahoma held a meeting with more than 300 benefactors – for the most part English and North American – who came to Rome to celebrate the 30^th anniversary of the Patrons of the Arts in the Vatican Museums (a network which collects funds for the conservation and restoration of the valuable works of art in the Vatican collection). The monsignor publicly answered some of the gusts’ questions regarding the current state of the Church, especially the Roman Curia. According to the Catholic News Service (CNS), during the Q&A session, Wells said that online access to the Pope’s homilies and speeches has freed individuals, families and communities from a reliance on media coverage that may be manipulative or biased.

At the start of every pontificate, media outlets decide what image to attach to the new Pope, Mgr. Wells said without sounding scandalised. The result of this is sometimes a rigid narrative that seeks to confirm a set of pre-packaged interpretative keys of their own. In the first six months of his pontificate, Pope Francis seems to have dodged mediators with his daily morning sermons which are published on Vatican websites such as Vatican Radio, L’Osservatore Romano and www.news.va. Thanks to these websites everyone can read about and listen to what the Pope has said, done and written, starting with his morning homilies in St. Martha’s House. So "you can make your own conclusions, because his words are often very different than the way they are presented by certain media outlets," Wells stated. Thanks to this direct public access to what the Pope has said “people no longer have to go through filters to receive what the pope says," Wells pointed out.

The effect this is having on Church life is palpable and has triggered a variety of processes and reactions. Having constant access to the off-the-cuff remarks Pope Francis makes (the St. Martha’s homilies being a prime example) makes ecclesiastical opinion makers’ biased and sometimes caricature-like interpretations of the Pope’s profile and teaching look inconsistent. Pope Francis does not seem to have any need for unofficial commentators or self-appointed hermeneuts who once used this to gain exposure also by commenting on Vatican “politics”. One need only listen to Francis’ almost daily homilies or his catecheses to realise that certain comments and inquiries are passed off as in-depth analyses of his pontificate, when in actual fact they do not explain anything about the real Pope but aim to create a fake avatar, tailored according to their own media and ecclesiastical strategies.

Those who benefit most from the unfiltered and non-stop access to the Pope’s words are the “holy People of God” as Francis calls them. Not those who form part of that Church which Benedict XVI called self-centred, who waste their time with intra-ecclesial controversies. But the individual and myriads of a faithful and “hypo-faithful” who go to mass (not regularly necessarily), fill shrines and perform bodily and spiritual gestures mercy without shouting about it. The sensus fidei of these faithful – however weak it may be – can immediately relate to Pope Francis’ words and gestures.

[little jeremiah]

Placemark