Archbishop Dolan's Thought for the Week

April 22, 2008

“I’m not a Catholic,” she told me on the Metro in D.C. last week, “but I sure love your Pope Benedict.” She paused a bit and then delivered the knockout punch: “You Catholics sure are lucky to have a Pope!”

I wanted to kiss her, but the subway was crowded, and I was in my clerical suit, so I hardly could give scandal!

How right she is! We’re used to people, even among our own Catholics, whining about how “out of touch” he is, how shackled we are with his outmoded teaching, how we need to liberate ourselves from this medieval relic, how he must “come to grips” with today’s unprecedented challenges and alter the Church to be more “relevant,” politically correct, popular, in vogue, “with it.”

And then this shy scholar, this reserved professor, this octogenarian who wanted only to retire six years ago and write books, comes to America and charms us all with a message of hope, compassion, truth, and spiritual renewal.

Yes, we are lucky to have a Pope -- any Pope, but this one especially.

What stuck me again last week is the iconic dimension of the papacy. A Pope reminds us of the divine. Not that he is deified. Hardly. As he reminded the crowds at St. Patrick’s Cathedral Saturday, he is only the successor of St. Peter, who was a sinner -- and so am I! Benedict admitted.

But he is a sacramental, an icon, a hint of the beyond, a window to the transcendent. When we see him we smile, we imagine, we choke up, as we’re again with Jesus and His apostles, as we’re part of a sacred project that has gone on for 2000 years and envelopes heaven and earth. The poetic clicks in as we dream of the call, the invitation, the summons from the Lord, and for a little while we bask in who we are in God’s sight, and how our faith is that “pearl of great price.”

The Acts of the Apostles tell us that the early Christians simply wanted to be “in the shadow of St. Peter.” All of us were last week. How lucky we are to have a Pope!
 

Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan

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