2013 – The Year of Pope Francis

(Vatican Radio) I wonder how my grandchildren will view the Year 2013?
However they view it, they will probably do what I just did: run a web search for something like: “Highlights of 2013” (presuming web searches are still around when I no longer am).
If they do, then this is what they might find in the 2013 Top Ten lists:

Top Ten News stories of 2013 – Pope Francis
Top Ten Personalities of 2013 – Pope Francis
Top Ten Quotes of 2013 – Pope Francis
Top Ten Best Dressed Men of 2013 – Pope Francis

Clearly, future generations will have no choice but to associate the Year 2013 with the figure of Pope Francis. Hopefully, someone will remind them that behind every Pope there is another – and that were it not for the humble and heroic gesture of Benedict XVI who chose to resign from the Petrine ministry on February 28^th 2013, there could be no Pope Francis.
Coherence and Continuity are two of the key words that characterize the Catholic Church.
I hope my grandchildren will still use them.

I also hope they will take the time to look more closely at these two figures and at how they shaped the way we will remember 2013. Through the sound archives of Vatican Radio, perhaps they will even listen to their voices. Perhaps they will hear Benedict XVI at his last General Audience when he said: “I am not abandoning the Cross, but remain close to the Crucified Lord in a new way”…
Because, from that point on, everything was “new” – everything was a first.

March 13^th saw the election of the first Pope to come from the American continent, the first Jesuit Pope in history, the first to take the name Francis, the first to stand before the world as Bishop of Rome and to ask for the peoples’ blessing: “Before the Bishop blesses the people, I ask you to pray to the Lord that He will bless me: the prayer of the people asking the blessing for their Bishop”…

Perhaps, if I am still around, my grandchildren might even ask me for my own 2013 Top Ten list.
It would have to begin with the Holy Thursday Mass that Pope Francis celebrated at the juvenile prison outside Rome on March 28^th. The image of him kneeling down to wash the feet of 12 young people of different nationalities and religious beliefs, is still with me.
Then, in quick succession: the simplicity of his visit to the shelter for the poor run by the Sisters of Mother Teresa on May 21^st, the noise surrounding the publication of his first encyclical, “Lumen Fidei” on July 5^th, the silence shrouding St Peter’s Square on the day of prayer and fasting for peace in Syria and the rest of the world on September 7^th, the spontaneity of the celebration with families on October 27^th when a little boy refused to leave the Pope’s side, and the anticipation that accompanied his first Apostolic Exhortation, “Evangelii Gaudium” on November 26^th.

But highest on my list is Pope Francis’ visit to the island of Lampedusa on July 8^th in order to mourn those immigrants who had drowned in yet another tragic shipwreck off the coast of Italy: “The globalization of indifference has stolen our ability to weep”…he said.
His trip to Brazil for World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro is another highlight – probably because I was there and can testify that there really were 3 million young people on Copacabana Beach listening to him as he told them to: “Enter the revolutionary wave of Faith”…
Then there was his visit to the town of Assisi to mark the feast of his namesake on October 10^th.
Who can forget how he hugged and caressed those disabled children? He does the same thing every Wednesday after every General Audience.

Which brings me to Number 10 in my 2013 Top Ten list.
Obviously, it was my own meeting with Pope Francis – after the Mass in Santa Marta for employees of Vatican Radio on May 20^th. I thanked him for the special and sensitive attention he shows constantly to the sick and disabled. I told him how much comfort and consolation his gestures give to their friends and families. “I know”, he replied. And I know he does.

Seàn-Patrick Lovett