Out in a Blase of glory
While I'm not a practicing Catholic, it's hard not to be aware of certain things happening in the church, especially considering Chicago got a new archbishop today. It's been so long since I went to church regularly that I still expect to hear "Joseph, our bishop" when I attend a mass of any sort and never got used to hearing "Francis, our bishop" during that part of the proceedings. And now, it'll be "Blase, our bishop." Also, autocorrect keeps wanting to fix it to blasé. No, it's someone's name; he doesn't pronounce it like it's French and it doesn't use a special character mark.
Longtime readers may recall that "Francis, our bishop" is Francis George, the pride of my former parish. He graduated from St. Pascal's forty years before I did. He lived a block away from my old house. The honorary street sign for him is on my old block, which of course concerns me because, should I become famous, where would my sign go? :P I know, like that's going to happen. But for as tenuous a tie as I have to being Catholic, that was always a point of pride for me, knowing that someone from Pascal's had become the leader of Chicago's Catholics. I'd always wanted to see him, as the cardinal, perform a mass at that church. I didn't take my chance, figuring it would come again. It didn't, or at least if it did, I wasn't aware of it.
Unlike Cardinal Bernadin, Cardinal George got to choose to leave. While ill, he will not die as the archbishop. He hasn't been looking well and clearly this was the best choice for him and the community at large, but it still makes me sad. I hope he's able to live out his life in a way that he finds meaningful, and is more restful to him than the daunting task of being a cardinal in the 21st century. And I hope the new cardinal is able to move forward the way Pope Francis seems to be moving Catholicism, being more open to people than the church has been in the past. If you believe the teachings, then God created everyone, even people who don't fit into the strict little boxes religion would like to put everyone in. People have colors. People have differing beliefs. People fall in love in nontraditional ways. That doesn't make them bad. And if everyone could be embraced equally, that would go a long way. So we'll see what happens.
Longtime readers may recall that "Francis, our bishop" is Francis George, the pride of my former parish. He graduated from St. Pascal's forty years before I did. He lived a block away from my old house. The honorary street sign for him is on my old block, which of course concerns me because, should I become famous, where would my sign go? :P I know, like that's going to happen. But for as tenuous a tie as I have to being Catholic, that was always a point of pride for me, knowing that someone from Pascal's had become the leader of Chicago's Catholics. I'd always wanted to see him, as the cardinal, perform a mass at that church. I didn't take my chance, figuring it would come again. It didn't, or at least if it did, I wasn't aware of it.
Unlike Cardinal Bernadin, Cardinal George got to choose to leave. While ill, he will not die as the archbishop. He hasn't been looking well and clearly this was the best choice for him and the community at large, but it still makes me sad. I hope he's able to live out his life in a way that he finds meaningful, and is more restful to him than the daunting task of being a cardinal in the 21st century. And I hope the new cardinal is able to move forward the way Pope Francis seems to be moving Catholicism, being more open to people than the church has been in the past. If you believe the teachings, then God created everyone, even people who don't fit into the strict little boxes religion would like to put everyone in. People have colors. People have differing beliefs. People fall in love in nontraditional ways. That doesn't make them bad. And if everyone could be embraced equally, that would go a long way. So we'll see what happens.