St. Paul's Basilica: monument to a church of evangelization

Vatican City, 13 April 2013: A short speech just a few days before the conclave that elected him pope, then-Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio told his fellow cardinals that the next pontiff "must be a man who, from the contemplation and adoration of Jesus Christ, helps the church to go out to the existential peripheries, helps her to be the fruitful mother who gains life from 'the sweet and comforting joy of evangelizing.'

"The church should not live "within herself, of herself, for herself," the future Pope Francis said. Rather, its evangelization should extend "to the peripheries, not only geographically, but also the existential peripheries: the mystery of sin, of pain, of injustice, of ignorance and indifference to religion, of intellectual currents, and of all misery."

In light of those remarks, the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls, where Pope Francis is scheduled to celebrate Mass on April 14 at 5.30 pm, holds special significance for his pontificate. The Apostle Paul, whose tomb lies under the basilica's main altar, brought the Gospel to peoples across the central and eastern Mediterranean, and even more consequentially, translated the Christian faith into the philosophical terms of ancient Greco-Roman culture.

The so-called "Apostle to the Gentiles" thus exemplifies the missionary spirit invoked by the new pope. St. Paul also embodies the charismatic (or prophetic) side of the church, in much the way that his fellow patron of Rome, St. Peter, the first pope, stands for the church's hierarchical (or institutional) dimension. As the first member of a religious order to be elected pope in nearly two centuries, Pope Francis is in a sense a successor to both apostles, since the charismatic side of the church has traditionally been the particular domain of religious life.

Source: CNS