Sorry, I just don't care about the new Pope.
1. The Election of Francis I doesn't change anything yet. It might change a lot. It likely won't.
2. I have very little hope in church leadership in general. In order to become a Cardinal you kinda have to play the church politics game. Basically for me, when I look at church leadership I assume that they have sold out. I hope I am wrong.
3. My faith in God. My understanding of the life, death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ and the central role of love is not mediated by the church. It was at one point in my life, and I am grateful for that. But these days my prayer is not very Church-centric. So in essence this is not about God. But about a tool that many use to know God- namely the church. For me, right now, they are very very separate.
4. As a lay woman I don't feel represented in the Cardinals at all. I don't expect any of my own experience or concerns are held by church leaders. At the end of the day I don't think they even want me to minister in the church. They would prefer I were a Religious Woman (Sister, Nun etc) or that there were more priests to do my work then they would sigh a big sigh of relief and get people like me out of ministry (and back to raising babies at home).
5. If I know anything as a Catholic, and a Catholic who has a knack for history, things rarely happen quickly. If you hope for speed your hopes are likely to be dashed a day in church history is but a blink.
6. Finally, I don't care very much because many many people around me expect me to care a lot. I am finding my introverted self needs to process a bit. My studious self wants to research a bit. And my late winter exhaustion is thick in my veins.
At the end of this day, I am not hopeless. But I wasn't hopeless before.
My prayer is this:
God be in this rich mess.
The mess of me.
The mess of us.
The mess of it all.
Amen and amen to that prayer. My only true judgment around this so far is that they could have done much worse than the man who is now Francis I.
ReplyDeleteIt's similar to how I reacted to President Obama's election in 2008: some things felt safer (as a woman) but we're still at war, we're still suspending the rule of law for people we deem too horrible for trial, and we're still wreaking havoc on those in poverty both here and abroad.
God brings salvation and sometimes uses humans to help, not the other way around.
-Kari