The Pope Interview

The cover of "America" Magazine with the exclusive interview with the Pope. Credit: America
The cover of “America” Magazine with the exclusive interview with the Pope. Credit: America

Dear Blog Readers — This post is just for those of you who are interested in the Pope, the Vatican and the Catholic Church.  I found the interview that Pope Francis gave to a Jesuit journalist so fascinating that I am going to pull out long quotes on various topics and put them in below.  There as so many captivating details from his attraction to Caravaggio’s “The Calling of St. Matthew” to the “daringly astute” nun who saved his life.

ON HIMSELF

“Yes, perhaps I can say that I am a bit astute, that I can adapt to circumstances, but it is also true that I am a bit naïve. Yes, but the best summary, the one that comes more
from the inside and I feel most true is this: I am a sinner whom the Lord has looked upon.”

ON ROME AND BEING ELECTED POPE

“I do not know Rome well. I know a few things. These include the Basilica of St. Mary Major; I always used to go there. I know St. Mary Major, St. Peter’s…but when I had to come to Rome, I always stayed in [the neighborhood of ] Via della Scrofa. From there I often visited the Church of St. Louis of France, and I went there to contemplate the painting of ‘The Calling of St. Matthew,’ by Caravaggio. “That finger of Jesus, pointing at Matthew. That’s me. I feel like him. Like Matthew.” …. “It is the gesture of Matthew
that strikes me: he holds on to his money as if to say, ‘No, not me! No, this money is mine.’ Here, this is me, a sinner on whom the Lord has turned his gaze.
And this is what I said when they asked me if I would accept my election as pontiff.”

See Blog Post on “The Calling of St. Matthew

ON CHOOSING TO LIVE IN THE  SANTA MARTA RESIDENCE INSTEAD OF THE PAPAL APARTMENT

“I need a community. And you can tell this by the fact that I am here in Santa Marta.
At the time of the conclave I lived in Room 207. (The rooms were assigned by drawing lots.) This room where we are now was a guest room. I chose to live here, in Room 201, because when I took possession of the papal apartment, inside myself I distinctly heard a ‘no.’ The papal apartment in the Apostolic Palace is not luxurious. It is old, tastefully decorated and large, but not luxurious. But in the end it is like an inverted funnel. It is big and spacious, but the entrance is really tight. People can come only in dribs and drabs, and I cannot live without people. I need to live my life with others.”

ON “SMALL-MINDED” CHURCH RULES

“I see clearly that the thing the church needs most today is the ability to heal wounds and to warm the hearts of the faithful; it needs nearness, proximity. I see the church as a field hospital after battle. It is useless to ask a seriously injured person if he has high cholesterol and about the level of his blood sugars! You have to heal his wounds. Then we can talk about everything else. Heal the wounds, heal the wounds…. And you have to start from the ground up. The church sometimes has locked itself up in small things, in small-minded rules. …”

ON HOMOSEXUALITY

“We need to proclaim the Gospel on every street corner, preaching the good news of the kingdom and healing, even with our preaching, every kind of disease and wound. In Buenos Aires I used to receive letters from homosexual persons who are ‘socially wounded’ because they tell me that they feel like the church has always condemned them. But the church does not want to do this. During the return flight from Rio de Janeiro I said that if a homosexual person is of good will and is in search of God, I am no one to judge. By saying this, I said what the catechism says. Religion has the right to express its opinion in the service of the people, but God in creation has set us free: it is not possible to interfere spiritually in the life of a person.”

ON DIVORCE AND ABORTION

“I also consider the situation of a woman with a failed marriage in her past and who also
had an abortion. Then this woman remarries, and she is now happy and has five children. That abortion in her past weighs heavily on her conscience and she sincerely regrets it. She would like to move forward in her Christian life. What is the confessor to do? We cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage and the use of contraceptive methods. This is not possible. I have not spoken much about these things, and I was reprimanded for that. But when we speak about these issues, we have to talk about them in a context. The teaching of the church, for that matter, is clear and I am a son of the church, but it is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time. The dogmatic and moral teachings of the church are not all equivalent. The church’s pastoral ministry cannot be obsessed with the transmission of a disjointed multitude of doctrines to be imposed insistently.”

ON WOMEN AND THE CHURCH

“Women are asking deep questions that must be addressed. The church cannot be herself without the woman and her role. The woman is essential for the church. Mary, a woman, is more important than the bishops. I say this because we must not confuse the function with the dignity. We must therefore investigate further the role of women in the church. We have to work harder to develop a profound theology of the woman. Only by making this step will it be possible to better reflect on their function within the church. The feminine genius is needed wherever we make important decisions. The challenge today is this: to think about the specific place of women also in those places where the authority of the church is exercised for various areas of the church.”

ON ART, MUSIC AND LITERATURE

“I have really loved a diverse array of authors. I love very much Dostoevsky and Hölderlin. I remember Hölderlin for that poem written for the birthday of his grandmother that is very beautiful and was spiritually very enriching for me. The poem ends with the verse, ‘May the man hold fast to what the child has promised.’ I was also impressed because I loved my grandmother Rosa, and in that poem Hölderlin compares his grandmother to the Virgin Mary, who gave birth to Jesus, the friend of the earth who did not consider anybody a foreigner. I have read The Betrothed, by Alessandro Manzoni, three times, and I have it now on my table because I want to read it again. Manzoni gave me so much. When I was a child, my grandmother taught me by heart the beginning of The Betrothed: ‘That branch of Lake Como that turns off to the south between two unbroken chains of mountains….’ I also liked Gerard Manley Hopkins very much. Among the great painters, I admire Caravaggio; his paintings speak to me. But also Chagall, with his ‘White Crucifixion.’ Among musicians I love Mozart, of course. The ‘Et incarnatus est’ from his Mass in C minor is matchless; it lifts you to God! I love Mozart performed by Clara Haskil. Mozart fulfills me. But I cannot think about his music; I have to listen to it. I like listening to Beethoven, but in a Promethean way, and the most Promethean interpreter for me is Furtwängler. And then Bach’s Passions. The piece by Bach that I love so much is the ‘Erbarme Dich,’ the tears of Peter in the ‘St. Matthew Passion.’  Sublime. Then, at a different level, not intimate in the same way, I love Wagner. I like to listen to him, but not all the time. The performance of Wagner’s ‘Ring’ by Furtwängler at La Scala in Milan in 1950 is for me the best. But also the ‘Parsifal’ by Knappertsbusch in 1962. We should also talk about the cinema. ‘La Strada,’ by Fellini, is the movie that perhaps I loved the most. I identify with this movie, in which there is an implicit reference to St. Francis. I also believe that I watched all of the Italian movies with Anna Magnani and Aldo Fabrizi when I was between 10 and 12 years old. Another film that I loved is ‘Rome, Open City.’ I owe my film culture especially to my parents who used to take us to the movies quite often.”

ON A NUN WHO SAVED HIS LIFE

“The frontiers are many. Let us think of the religious sisters living in hospitals. They live on the frontier. I am alive because of one of them. When I went through my lung disease at the hospital, the doctor gave me penicillin and streptomycin in certain doses. The sister who was on duty tripled my doses because she was daringly astute; she knew what to do because she was with ill people all day. The doctor, who really was a good one, lived in his laboratory; the sister lived on the frontier and was in dialogue with it every day. Domesticating the frontier means just talking from a remote location, locking yourself up in a laboratory. Laboratories are useful, but reflection for us must always start from experience.”

11 thoughts on “The Pope Interview”

  1. Thank you so much for sending those excerpts. Francis is an absolutly amazing man. Each generation is granted a few remarkable leaders and we have been short of them recently. Now comes this truly great man man whose courage, and insight with humility are an insparation to all of us. To me he is much more than a Catholic; much more than a Pope. He speaks to all of us.

    L/D

    1. I couldn’t agree more Dad, Pope Francis goes beyond the border of the Catholic Church and touches many of us.

  2. As a divorced Catholic, according to Church rules I am not allowed to take communion. I sit in Mass while others go to receive communion and I often feel like an outcast.
    I hope Pope Francis can repeal this law – I feel it is minor and petty. I would love to fully participate in Mass again.

    1. Well, if we go by the interview it sounds like this Pope doesn’t have much tolerance for “small-minded rules” and wants the church to be inclusive. I think not allowing divorced Catholics take communion is a “small-minded rule” so my guess is that will change very soon. I don’t think this Pope wants anyone in church to feel like an outcast. (Especially someone as nice as you!!!)

  3. Kathy, being divorced does not preclude you from being able to receive communion. You can go. Being remarried without a degree of nullity would – which is a different situation. I searched the term “divorce and communion” and there was an article on EWTN that adresses this concern. I hope you find it helpful if you go there.

    1. Thank you for your comment. I was not aware of this. I just went and found the EWTN link and I will copy it below. These issues are all so complicated. I’ve been meaning to do a post on the Vatican and marriage annulment, but journalists don’t get access to those offices and the only things I’ve heard are horror tales from friends involved in messy annulment cases.
      Anyway, we will save the annulment question for another day. Here is the EWTN article link.
      http://www.ewtn.com/expert/answers/communion_of_divorced_and_remarr.htm

    1. Trisha Thomas

      A pleasure. I think this Pope has given a huge boost to the Catholic Church and to disillusioned Catholics around the globe.

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