Francesco

By Sister Hosea Rupprecht (CNS)
Award-winning documentarian Evgeny Afineevsky (“Cries From Syria”) issues a call for action with his film “Francesco” (Discovery+).
The unspoken summons comes through allowing viewers to witness the influence one man, Pope Francis, has succeeded in having over the many social and other issues of our time.
Rather than present a linear biography, the movie takes its form from the Holy Father’s own agenda. As depicted here, the pontiff’s primary goal is to bring the message of human dignity to the world by shining a light into some of the darkest corners of the globe, where political, social, economic and religious injustices have taken – and, in some cases, are still taking – place.
Afineevsky, for instance, brings his audience to the Philippines, ravaged by Typhoon Haiyan in 2013, as Francis talks about climate change and the call to protect our common home.
The plight of refugees is highlighted through the pope’s visit to Lampedusa, a modern-day Ellis Island in the Mediterranean Sea through which thousands of Tunisian and Libyan migrants have passed, fleeing political upheaval in their home countries. The passage from the North African coast to Lampedusa is considered one of the world’s deadliest migration routes.
The pontiff also visits the island of Lesbos in Greece to which many Syrian migrants fled in the wake of their nation’s civil war. One interviewee calls the Syrian refugee situation “the greatest humanitarian crisis since World War II.” Pope Francis not only gave words of comfort to refugees – he followed them up with action, sponsoring the immigration to Italy of three Muslim families.
“Francesco” also address other hot-button topics such as clergy sexual abuse, homosexuality and the building of walls between peoples.
Where does the pontiff get the inspiration to do all he does? Afineevsky takes us back to the life of young Jorge Bergoglio, especially stressing the influence that his grandmother, Nonna Rosa, had on his growing faith and spirituality.
From his decision to become a priest, to joining the Jesuits, to becoming the archbishop of Buenos Aires and a cardinal, Pope Francis has been consistent in his action on behalf of others. In other words, the film shows that what Francis has done since his 2013 election to the papacy is just a continuation of what he had done up to that time.  
With a running time just under two hours, “Francesco” is quite long for a documentary. The film contains mature themes and some scenes of war violence. The Catholic News Service classification is A-II – adults and adolescents. Not rated by the Motion Picture Association.

(Sister Rupprecht, a Daughter of St. Paul, is a guest reviewer for Catholic News Service.)

“Fatima” – condemned to death and the Scrutiny of Life

Theology at the movies
By James Tomek, Ph.D
Seventeenth Century philosopher Blaise Pascal describes the tragedy of the human condition. Imagine that we are in a prisoner room of people and each day a guard comes in and picks one of us to be executed. That is our fate – we know that one day our turn will come. Our tragedy is not that we will die, but that the thought of death will cause us to seek divertissement so as not to think about what life is.
Marco Pontecorvu’s 2020 film “Fatima,” about the apparitions of the Blessed Mother to three peasant children, starts with a weekly roll call of dead soldiers in the 1917 war torn town of Fatima, Portugal. “Fatima” is a Pascalian answer to Jessica Hausner’s 2012 film “Lourdes.” Mary, appearing to Lucia and her cousins Jacinta and Francisco, is asking them and us to pray for peace. In this review, I will establish a comparison of the two films, highlight Fatima’s emphasis on prayer, and conclude with an answer to the Lenten scrutiny of life and what it might mean to be religious.
“Lourdes” concentrates more on the miracle healing aspect of religious prayer while Pontecorvu’s film focuses on the need for prayer, in general, to promote peace. “Fatima” takes place in 1917 Portugal, at war with Germany and guided by a recently secular government. This is Pascal country. The film is framed by a 1980s’ interview of Lucia by a professor who wonders why God would choose to speak to a common farm girl. This frame establishes Lucia as a sane, intelligent, and witty person who can be believed. However, is she a “seer” who has “prophet” status? Some peasants visit Lucia’s home to be a witness of the “seer.” A “seer” is a prophet who can see the truth in certain situations. Our biblical prophets sometimes predict futures, but their real message is the truth of the times that they are witnessing, especially the social injustices. “Lourdes” focuses on the reality of the miracle and how to pray when afflicted with a malady. Fatima goes elsewhere.
While the crowds of peasants in Fatima are looking for some miracle in their lives, the film concentrates more on Mary’s insisting that they pray for peace. The historical sections of the film show how the children have to stand up to the protests from their parents, church, and government, always with the background of the repeated roll calls of the dead and missing.
Lucia’s mother, Maria Rosa, is the strongest character. She is the most educated in the family and the most skeptical, insisting that Lucia recant her story so as not to have her be seen as crazy. The country has recently become a republic with a wish to have a secular government. Thus, the children are confronted by the priest, then the mayor, then the bishop and finally a government psychologist who pressure them to recant their positions so that the country will remain more at ease in a secular environment.
While the mother is pictured as an antagonist, we see that she really does love and support her daughter. The film sticks to reality. The original theme of “1917 Fatima,” of praying for the conversion of Russia, has been replaced/updated to a general prayer for peace and social justice. This air is seen in the beginning when Lucia has a vision of a woman in a cave who calls herself the Angel of Portugal. This premonition will be transformed into a vision of the Virgin Mary later. She is still simply dressed. These visions could be general “feelings,” but are they not still miraculously showered on the young Lucia in the form of heavenly Mariological signs?
My mother and I would have deep religious conversations. I remember her mentioning an apparition of the Blessed Mother in Medjugorje, Yugoslavia. I responded that I did not believe in that “junk” (I used a heavier word). To which she got angry. But, a few weeks later, she called me asking for my advice on some matter because she said that I was more religious than she. I realized that believing in so called apparitions really had nothing to do with being religious to her (no way I was more religious than she was for sure). I was like the skeptical mother of Lucia talking to my mother about the Blessed Mother.
We are all in that roll call of the dead and will be reported dead sooner or later. Can this thought bring us to think about what is important? That is the third scrutiny of Life that catechumens go through during Lent (5th Sunday and the Lazarus reading) – and also the theme of the recent Divine Mercy Sunday. The film opens with a vision of the Angel of Portugal, the Angel of Peace to Lucia in a cave. We hear the bombings of a plane. The angel says that they just don’t seem to want to stop. I pray the rosary frequently. Why? We have the persecution of African Americans and now Asian Americans, not to mention all the violence done by haters to those of different faith traditions. They just don’t seem to want to stop.

(James Tomek is a retired language and literature professor at Delta State University who is currently a Lay Ecclesial Minister at Sacred Heart in Rosedale and also active in RCIA at Our Lady of Victories in Cleveland.)

IN EXILE
By Father Ron Rolheiser, OMI
Whatever energy we don’t transform, we will transmit. That’s a phrase I first heard from Richard Rohr and it names a central challenge for all mature adults. Here’s its Christian expression.
Central to our understanding of how we are saved by Jesus is a truth expressed by the phrase: Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. How are we saved through Jesus’ suffering? Obviously, that’s a metaphor. Jesus is not a sheep, so we need to tease out the reality beneath the metaphor. What prompted the first generation of Christians to use the image of a suffering sheep to explain what Jesus did for us, and how does Jesus’ suffering take away our sins? Was there a debt for sin which only God’s own suffering could cancel? Was the forgiveness of our sins some kind of private, divine transaction between God and Jesus?

These questions have no easy answer, but this much must be said: while some of this is mystery, none of it is magic. Admittedly, there’s mystery here, something that lies beyond what we can adequately explain by rational thought, but there’s no magic here. The deep truths that lie somewhat beyond our rational capacities do not negate our rationality; they only supersede it, analogous to the way that Einstein’s theory of relativity dwarfs grade school mathematics.
Thus, allowing for some mystery, what can we tease out of the metaphor that presents Christ as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world? Moreover, what’s the challenge for us?
Here’s the historical background to this image. At the time of Jesus, within Judaism, there were a number of atonement (reconciliation) ritual practices around lambs. Some lambs were slaughtered in the temple as offering to God for our sins, and some others were employed as “scapegoat” lambs.
The scapegoat lamb ritual worked this way. A community would gather with the intention of participating in a ritual to ease the tensions that existed among them because of their weaknesses and sin. They would symbolically invest their tensions, their sins, on to the lamb (which was to become their scapegoat) with two symbols: a crown of thorns pushed into the lamb’s head (making it feel their pain) and a purple drape over the lamb’s back (symbolizing its corporate responsibility to carry this for them all). They would then chase the lamb out of the temple and out of town, banishing it to die in the wilderness. The idea was that by investing the lamb with their pain and sin and banishing it forever from their community, their pain and sin were also taken away, banished to die with this lamb.
It is easy to see how they could easily transfer this image to Jesus after his death. Looking at the love that Jesus showed in his suffering and death, the first generation of Christians made this identification. Jesus is our scapegoat, our lamb. We laid our pain and sin on him and drove him out of our community to die. Our sin left with him.
Except, except, they did not understand this as some magical act where God forgave us because Jesus died. No. Their sins were not taken away because Jesus somehow appeased his Father. They were taken away because Jesus absorbed and transformed them, akin to the way a water purifier takes the dirt, toxins, and poisons out of the water by absorbing them.
A water purifier works this way. It takes in water contaminated with dirt, impurities, and poisons, but it holds those toxins inside itself and gives out only the purified water. So too with Jesus. He took in hatred, held it inside, transformed it, and gave back only love. He took in bitterness and gave back graciousness; curses and gave back blessing; jealousy and gave back affirmation; murder and gave back forgiveness. Indeed, he took in all the things that are the source of tension within a community (our sins), held them within and gave back only peace. Thus, he took away our sins, not through divine magic, but by absorbing them, by eating them, by being our scapegoat.
Moreover, what Jesus did, as Kierkegaard so wonderfully says, is not something we should admire; it’s something we need to imitate. N.T. Wright, in his recent book Broken Signposts, sums up the challenge this way: “Whether we understand it or not – whether we like it or not, which most of us don’t and won’t – what love has to do is not only to face misunderstanding, hostility, suspicion, plotting, and finally violence and murder, but somehow, through that whole horrid business, to draw the fire of ultimate evil onto itself and to exhaust its power. … Because it is love that takes the worst that evil can do and, absorbing it, defeats it.”
Whatever we don’t transform, we will transmit. There’s a profound truth here regarding how we need to help take tension out of our families, communities, churches, and societies.

(Oblate Father Ron Rolheiser is a theologian, teacher and award-winning author. He can be contacted through his website www.ronrolheiser.com.)

GUEST COLUMN
By Reba J. McMellon, M.S., LPC
People who abuse children are not aware or concerned with their own mental health or the mental health of others. That is why abuse of a child is considered a crime and not a mental health issue that can be treated with psychological services alone. Most people who abuse children grossly lack the insight it takes to gain anything from counseling.

Child abuse includes body, mind and spirit. Verbal, sexual, spiritual, mental and physical abuse are sometimes in combination and sometimes separate. All abuse is harmful but sometimes the most harmful are the ones that leave no external mark one can point to in order to “prove” to oneself and others that significant harm has been done.
This column will associate mental health awareness with the prevention of child abuse. What speaks to one person will not speak to another. Being willing to read this article is a sign of psychological healthiness on your part.
• If a child or adult brings up the subject of abuse, don’t interrupt or change the subject.
• Listening and believing goes a long way toward healing.
• Keep the dialogue regarding abuse open among family and friends.
• Teach your children strong boundaries and healthy self-confidence.
• Be a role model for strong boundaries and healthy self-confidence because you can’t teach what you don’t know.
• Provide an atmosphere in your home where an abusive experience can be reported without overreaction or no reaction. Both are harmful.
• Do not hesitate to report abuse to the right authorities.
• Be brave enough to ask for details.
• Use discernment regarding the adults your child or adolescent spends time with.
• Use discernment regarding who you, as an adult, spend time with.
• Watch out for blind trust-whether it’s the chief cook, bottle washer, preacher, teacher, coach, parent, priest, friend, male, female, etc. There is no one stereotype for abusers except they’re good at fooling people.
• When discussing child abuse and mental health issues, don’t let the subject take a political bend. Politics will cloud the issue in a harmful way.
• Abuse issues can and often do come up later in life. It is possible to suppress memories for years. Suppressed memories is a way the body and mind let you know when it’s safe enough to remember.
• False memory syndrome is a term that began with defense attorneys in the 1990’s. While it happens, it is rare.
• Be vigilant about how you talk about abuse issues casually and in public. There is more than likely a survivor in ear shot. Thoughtless comments could push them back into the shadows of shame.
• God is love. Abuse is not.
Don’t walk it alone. Everyone needs a 5 a.m. friend or even at 5 p.m. Someone who listens, believes, encourages, doesn’t change the subject and can help guide you to seek healthy mental health counseling where uncovering leads to recovery allowing you to walk in the wholeness of Christ.
We’re all in this together.
“Be not overcome with evil, but overcome evil with good.” (Romans 12:21)

(Reba J. McMellon, M.S., LPC is a mental health professional and freelance writer with 35 years of experience. She is available for consultation and public speaking. Reba can be reached at rebej@bellsouth.net)

Kneading Faith
By Fran Lavelle
Several years ago, when I was still the campus minister at Mississippi State, I also had the privilege to serve as the diocesan director for the Office of Campus Ministry. In that role I was part of the Department of Formational Ministries. A change in leadership in the department came about when Sister Deborah Hughes retired, and Cathy Cook was named the Superintendent of Catholic Schools and the head of the department. When Jeanne Howard retired in 2014, I was approached by a few people and asked to consider the position. I remember meeting with Cathy at Lake Tiak O’Khata that July for an interview. It turned out to be more like a conversation between old friends although we had not known one another very long. It was then that I knew the Holy Spirit was calling me to work in the chancery. Her confidence in me was ultimately the reason I accepted the job. Her confidence in me is ultimately the reason I became the director of the Department of Faith Formation.

Cathy announced earlier this Spring that she would be retiring at the end of April. She has served the church for 30 years in many roles within education and youth ministry. It is always bittersweet when colleagues of Cathy’s caliber announce their retirement. On the one hand I am so pleased that she will be able to pursue interests other than work. On the other hand, I will miss the day-to-day interactions. We both place a high premium on serving the young church.
Sharing a background in youth ministry was the source of many robust conversations. I remember after I moved my personal effects into my office at the chancery, Cathy saw a candle that I had from a diocesan youth convention many years earlier when I served as youth minister for St. Joseph in Starkville. She asked me with some urgency to follow her to her office. There she showed me the candle she had from the same convention when she was the youth minister at St. Mary’s Basilica in Natchez. It was as if our fate was sealed at that Youth Convention those many years earlier though we do not remember meeting one another there.
I was recently with one of Cathy’s former employees from the Office of Catholic Education. We talked about the many people that she empowered over the years in church lay leadership. There are no doubt countless former employees, students, educators, administrators, and other church leaders who have benefitted from her years of dedicated service. In her leadership role, she advocated for training and education for lay leaders.
Over the past six plus years Cathy has helped me keep focused on the mission of Christ and not get bogged down in the mess. She taught me the value of discerning what “hills to die on” and when it is prudent to stay the course. She knows the value of a good laugh, appreciates a good meal, and enjoys sports at all levels. Her love of sports knows no bounds as she recently cheered for my alma mater in the NCAA Basketball tournament. I am Cathy’s only connection to Ohio University, but she wouldn’t let that minor detail get in the way of watching them play and cheering when they knocked off Virginia, the defending tournament champions.
Thinking about Cathy’s retirement reminded me of something I heard in a webinar sponsored by Ave Maria Press that I watched last Summer titled, “Strengthening Your Inner Life in Challenging Times: The Simple Care of a Hopeful Heart” presented by Dr. Robert J. Wicks. Dr. Wicks is Catholic and works as a clinical psychologist. He writes and speaks about the intersection of spirituality and psychology. In his presentation he mentions the four kinds of friends everyone should have:
The Prophet … who helps name what voices are guiding you in your life;
the Cheerleader … who is sympathetic and encouraging;
the Harasser or Teaser … because on the way to taking compassion seriously sometimes we take a detour and take ourselves too seriously; and,
the Inspirational friend that calls us to be all that we can be without embarrassing us that we are where we are.
Little did I know when we first met the impact she would have on my life and the role she would play as a prophet, cheerleader, teaser, and inspirational friend. This is not good-bye. I fully expect to continue to share good laughs, tasty meals, and a sporting event or two. I also expect I’ll continue to seek her advice.
If you are lucky to have the four types of friendships Dr. Wicks identifies you are very fortunate. When they come wrapped up in one bundle of energy, joy, and laughter you are especially blessed. There’s an old Irish proverb that reminds me of Cathy: “A good friend is like a four-leaf clover: hard to find and lucky to have.”

(Fran Lavelle is the Director of Faith Formation for the Diocese of Jackson.)

IN EXILE
By Father Ron Rolheiser, OMI
The world will be saved by beauty! Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote that, Dorothy Day quoted it, and centuries before Jesus, Confucius made it central to his pedagogy. They were on to something. Beauty is a special language that cuts through and sidelines all the things that divide us – history, race, language, creed, ideology, politics, economic disparity, gender, sexual identity, and personal wounds. Beauty melts down all differences. Its speech, like that of a newborn, has no explicit words, but is a language so perfect that it can only be soiled by violating oneself. Two things in this world cannot be argued with, beauty and a baby. They also cannot defend themselves, and have only their own vulnerability as protection.

In classical Western philosophy, beauty is seen as one of the transcendental properties of being, and therefore as one of the properties of God. God is understood as having four transcendental qualities, namely, as being One, True, Good and Beautiful. Hence, beauty possesses a divine, sacred quality. Artists and everyone sensitive to aesthetics have always recognized this, not necessarily in that they affirm explicitly that beauty is a property of God, but that they recognize a godly quality in beauty; they sense a “blaspheme” whenever it is defaced, and feel the energy to create as divine.
Beauty, as we know, takes many forms. Who of us has not at times felt the stunning power of physical beauty? Who has not been momentarily transfixed by the beauty of a sunset, an ocean, a mountain range, the stars, a full moon, a desert landscape, a particular tree, a thunderstorm, fresh snow, a gentle rain, an animal in the wild, a work of art or architecture, or a human body? Physical beauty is self-justifying. It cannot be argued with and may never be denigrated by an appeal to something higher and more spiritual. It is unequivocally real and thus needs to be recognized, affirmed, and blessed.
For most of us, when we hear the word beauty, physical beauty is what comes to mind. Now, while that beauty is real, powerful, and can transform the heart, there are other kinds of beauty equally as powerful and transforming. I am not sure what language works in terms of what I am about to describe, so forgive me if my expression here is amateur and awkward, but we can speak, and need to, of beauty in the emotional and moral realm. There is something we might call emotional beauty or moral beauty.
Emotional beauty is not the beauty of a sunset or a great painting, but is the beauty of a particular expression of love, of empathy, or of compassion that, like a beautiful sunset, we are occasionally graced to witness. For example, we can be transfixed when seeing the miraculous rescue of a child, when seeing a helpless animal saved by rescuers, when seeing an elderly couple affectionately holding hands, or when hearing of a generous response by the public to a plea for help by a poor family. As with physical beauty, there is a divine quality here and, as with physical beauty, there is something here that only the most boorish of persons would dare smudge. However, whenever our emotions are involved there is always the danger of an unhealthy sentimentality also being present; but, that danger notwithstanding, our emotions, like our eyes, are also an opening to beauty.
Finally, not least, there is moral beauty, beauty of soul. The salient example here is martyrdom and every other kind of love that sacrifices its own wishes, desires, and life for something higher. While this does not always make for a beautiful body, it does make for a beautiful soul. In affirming this, I am not thinking, first, of its most salient examples, the religious martyrs who gave up their lives rather than deny their faith, or even of persons like Mohandas Gandhi, Albert Schweitzer, Martin Luther King, Dorothy Day, Maximillian Kolbe, Oscar Romero, and the many today who give up their lives for others. These are powerful examples of moral beauty, but many of us see this first-hand in our own families and circle of friends. For example, I look at my own mother and dad who for most of their lives sacrificed to provide for a large family and, especially, to provide that family with what is more important than food and clothing, namely, faith and moral guidance. There was a moral beauty in their sacrifice, though sometimes during those years, by Hollywood standards, my mom and dad looked more haggard than beautiful. Moral beauty, though, is measured by a different standard. That being said, there is also the need to be cautious here: while emotional beauty carries the risk of sentimentality, moral beauty carries the risk of fanaticism. Fanatics, serial killers, and snipers are also highly focused morally. Morality, like anything else, can be misguided.
The world will be saved by beauty! True, though I would employ the present tense, the world is being saved by beauty.

(Oblate Father Ron Rolheiser is a theologian, teacher and award-winning author. He can be contacted through his website www.ronrolheiser.com.)

            The longer I walk with discerners the more I realize that I need to stop rushing. It took two-and-a-half years from the time I heard the Lord’s call to the priesthood until I ultimately enrolled in seminary. Sometimes I am tempted to forget that fact as I witness the journey of the men who are treading that same path today. It is easy to try to rush. It is easy to try to push, prod, and pull men through the door to the seminary. Discernment in a seminary or religious house really is wonderful, and I want as many good young Catholics as possible to experience it, but God’s time is not my time and I cannot rush it!

            I know that there are many young men who are being called to the priesthood in our midst, and it is my job to help guide them along the path, but I also believe that they often know the trajectory of their journey much better than I do. A young man has to have the desire and the maturity to enter into formation fruitfully, but he also has to pick the right time. In my case, I had a contract that I needed to honor with my employer. I could have cut and run I suppose, but that course of action would not have brought the same peace as leaving the right way did. It also would not have set a great example to my employer! I began to really seriously consider entering the seminary about a year after I heard God’s call, but it took another year and a half for me to be able to leave the right way. And it was worth the wait, every minute of it.

            I see this process being born out with the men and women that I work with here in the diocese. I wish I could bring about that perfect timing myself, but this is not my task. My task is to trust that the Lord is working, and to empower our discerners to trust their prayer and the path that the Lord has put them on. I thank you for your continued prayers. I assure you that they are working in the lives of men and women who know that the Lord has called them to something great.

            I also want to take this space to let you know how hard our current seminarians are working. The six men that are studying for the priesthood right now are truly seeking after God’s will, and I am very grateful that this is the first “crop” of seminarians that I have had the opportunity to lead as Vocation Director. I know that many of you got to see our seminarians in action as they served at the altar and in parishes during their Easter break, and many of you told me how wonderful it was to have those men sharing their gifts back at home. I agree with you!

Prediscernment Prayer Nights:

Each event is from 6-7 p.m. unless otherwise noted.
Tuesday, Aprill 27 at Catholic Community of Meridian; 6-7 p.m. at St. Patrick