Shameless Popery

           “Miserando atque eligendo” [lowly, yet chosen]

 

Like a lot of Roman Catholics, I am pretty excited about our new pope, elected yesterday. Pope Francis seems to come from a background of intense social outreach and also real humility that is sometimes overlooked in those with powerful positions in the Church. His humble spirit may best be described in his clerical motto, listed in Latin above.

When white smoke escaped the chimney of the Sistine Chapel, signifying that a new pope had been selected, I clicked on a live Internet feed of the Vatican to see when the new pope would make his appearance and address the crowd.

I was moved by the scene I saw on my computer screen – the outside of the Vatican filled to the brim with people, despite the late hour and disagreeable weather. Their excitement and joy was noticeable and superseded the rain and chill that were obviously present. The people were enclosed in the courtyard of the Vatican – the pristine white and inarguable royalty of the place crated a picturesque scene for me. I was frankly awed as the camera switched between several broad and wide shots of the crowd, waiting on the announcement.

Someone watched over my shoulder and asked if the pope had been announced yet. I said that he wasn’t yet, and in the silence that followed I commented, mostly to myself, that the beauty of the scene made me proud to be Catholic.

“You’re proud to be a Catholic, when you see all the money they spend on that place?” he asked me.

I didn’t say anything, allowing me to process the comment for a while. Of course, my snobbyness erupted at first, wanting me to say something like, “Well, if you’re going to spend money, might as well spend it on God.” Even though that’s true, it’s not sufficient. Like Justin Bieber without the Wizard of Waverly Place girl, that response feels incomplete and lacking something important.

Thanks to THIS TED speech, I’ve noticed my own and society’s in general, I guess, inconsistency when it comes to any non-profit organization. (I know this definition doesn’t fit the Church completely, but I’ll get to that later, baby baby baby ooooh.) A nonprofit organization gets criticized for taking, say, 30% of the funds they raise for their own sustaining purposes. The Catholic Church is known as the largest charitable organization in the world. In 1999, the Church took only 12% out of the money raised for charity to sustain itself. (source) Juxtapose that – giving 88% to charities, with, say, some celebrity, who gives less than 5% of his income to charities. However, if the 5% is big enough, the celebrity is labeled a “philanthropist” while nonprofit organizations are “money-grubbing.”

But, you may object, you can’t compare non-profits with regular organizations! I do. Deal with it.

Now, like the Biebs to the Wizard girl, we need to move on from that idea. It’s nice to see the Catholic Church as a nonprofit organization, and true in effect, but incomplete. The Catholic Church is the God-appointed entity that shows His presence to the world. If an entity’s primary role is to BE the presence of God in the world, whether to spend its income on its own beautification (making, in essence, God the center of great works of art and works of beauty in the world) or to spend income on helping others, the children of God becomes an important question. Social outreach is an inseparable part of the Catholic, but up-keeping the vessel of God is an important duty of the Church.

Aside from the snobbyness that hit me when I heard someone criticize the money spent on the Vatican, I have to acknowledge that the wealth of the Church has disconcerted me a great deal, especially a few years ago. In the double-agenda of serving others and building its own appearance, I tend to side with the fact that the Church should focus more on serving others. (Blame it on my naive idealism.)

However, on a purely aesthetic level, the conduit of God should be appealing to the senses. Check out the specifics of the Ark of the Covenant or the immensity of Solomon’s temple. God, from whom beauty comes, deserves to be associated with what is beautiful, inspiring, awesome. In that, He is. And that is why I’m proud to be a Catholic.

 

P.S. Some concern is given over Catholics honoring this person – a human – too much. To deny humanity as important is to deny that Jesus was both FULLY God and FULLY man. So the selection of the new head of His Church is, in fact, honoring a man. But to believe that we only pay attention to what is spiritual and ignore what is physical is at best, silly and worst, heretical. After all, it’s like Pope Francis says about himself-

“Miserando atque eligendo”