A Year of the "Francis Effect"

One year ago today I stood with my little family under the left arm of Bernini's colonnade, squinting through the rain and craning my neck to keep the solitary smoke stack jutting from the roof of the Capella Sistina in my line of sight. As the crowd continued to surge, Romans and tourists alike pouring in from all directions in the dark night, mounting barricades and hopping over wrought-iron railings to secure a spot, I hushed my wailing 11 month old, fumbling in the stroller basket beneath him for the bottle of prosecco we'd brought along 'just in case.'

I had a good feeling about round 5 of the consistory's vote.

Suddenly a puff of…what was that? Was it black? No, it was grayish…it was, no, no…it was white! White smoke!

The crowd went berserk, us included. My heavily pregnant Italian friend and I shrieked and hugged each other, slapping high fives and whooping over the crowd noise. It was a roaring tidal wave of pure joy as voices in dozens and dozens of languages clamored and shouted for joy. And then there was only one language …in latin we heard those immortal words intoned for all the world to hear:

Habemus Papam.

We have a pope.

And while it would be close to an hour before he made his now famous appearance on the balcony of St. Peter's Basilica, looking more like a stunned deer in the headlights than the charismatic leader of the world's largest Church, we didn't stop celebrating for even one of those 60 minutes.

Long after the last drops of the bottle of prosecco had been emptied out, and long past the bedtimes of the squirming toddlers we'd toted with us, he finally emerged to a roaring crowd.

And the first thing he asked? Do you remember?

Pray for me.

It was unprecedented. But then, so was his choice of the moniker Franciscus. And while we'd been certain the announcement of that seraphic name meant our boy from Boston, Cardinal O'Malley (himself a Franciscan) had been tapped for the big job, we nonetheless fell swiftly in love with our very first Latin American papa as he haltingly began his papacy from a rain-drenched balcony overlooking a square teeming with humanity…and iPads.

We loved him right away. And we've spent the past year loving him, being challenged by him, being shaken from complacency by him…and falling in love with Jesus all over again, at his invitation.

So one year out under the Francis effect, I say bring it on, Papa. Bring us the Gospel message of poverty, of radical engagement, of discomfort and even, dare I say, suffering? You are a breath of fresh air in an era stifled by selfishness, by sameness, by the tiresome parade of shock and awe trotted out by the secular culture in an attempt to reinvigorate a weary and wearisome world.

Christ  and His Church is more radical than anything you're reading on Huffington Post. And while Rolling Stone may have thought they captured his essence quite nicely with their hatchet job of a cover story last month…they didn't even come close to the real thing.

So keep stirring it up. Keep calling us on. Keep making people, by fits and starts, both insanely elated and intensely concerned. It's so good for us. All of us.

Happy anniversary, Papa.

An Anniversary

One year ago today I sat staring in stunned disbelief at my computer screen, my eyes darting between the glaring announcement on my Facebook newsfeed (of all the ways to get big news…) and the glistening dome of St. Peter's basilica, looming outside the bedroom window of our apartment. As I frantically dialed my husband's number on my Italian cell phone, thus began one of the strangest and most memorable days of our stint in Rome.

Dave, can you hear me? 

I'm in the hallway outside of class, what's wrong?

The Pope just resigned.

...stunned silence…

Twelve minutes later Dave arrived back at the apartment, breathlessly giving orders into the phone he held in one hand while using the other to pull his suit coat on in the world's fastest costume change. A moment later he was out the door, and I looked over the balcony to see him running in pursuit of a bus headed east, towards the Tiber, and the basilica that loomed on the horizon. I wouldn't see him again until well after midnight.

The day passed in a strange haze, similar to the feeling after 9/11, but lacking in the horror. It was still a deep feeling of unease though, as if the foundations of reality had tilted, somehow, and we were sliding off into an unknown place.

I fielded Skype calls and emails from home all afternoon. "Yes, it was true." "Yes, he's really resigning," "No, it hasn't happened in a really long time," "Yes, the Pope can do such a thing."

That night after dinner the sky darkened and a serious thunderstorm rocked the Eternal City, cutting short our evening trip to the Square to pray a Rosary and hold vigil under the still-lit window in the papal apartments (Francis doesn't live there, so once Benedict vacated the See, we never saw those windows lit again).

As Tia (my little sister) and I trudged homeward with the stroller, dodging fat drops of rain and picking up speed as the weather deteriorated, we were mostly quiet, still very much in shock over the day's events. Maybe a half-hour after we'd arrived home, the now-famous lightening bolt hit the dome of the Basilica, marking the day in the eyes of the world as one of strange and unsettling infamy.

We had our chance to say a very special goodbye to Pope Benedict about 2 weeks later, standing in that same Square on a sun-drenched Wednesday morning, tears in our eyes as he held my youngest son in his arms and gently kissed his forehead. We wept with gratitude and sorrow as his eyes found us in the crowd, and for a moment, as the guard handed my baby back into my arms, I locked eyes with the successor to Peter and simply mouthed the words Thank You.

My heart is filled with the same gratitude today, and just a touch of the grief, as I sit 5,000 miles away,  nursing a new baby in a living room whose wall is graced with our family's most prized image.

What an incredible 12 months it has been. For the Church, and for our own little domestic church. What a wild ride. Who could have imagined?

May God bless Pope Emeritus Benedict, and his holy successor Pope Francis. I'm so grateful to have had a front row view.

A Little Homework

Yes yes yes...times a million.

And that wraps up my last post about Papa F, at least for this week.

Be sure to check out CNA's nuanced exploration of the "controversial" comments here (written by my dear friend Alan Holdren, who is one Roman I really miss) and Kathryn Jean Lopez' excellent-beyond-words summary of the whole thing.

And then pray...for our Holy Father, for the Church, and for conversion in your own heart. God knows I need more of it in mine. God knows we all do.

Dear Secular Media

Thanks for carrying my water. People who have never considered Jesus or who have rejected the Church outright are now considering, for the first time, what it means to be a Christian.

You're adorable when you think you're stirring the pot.

Love, Papa Francesco.

Dear pro-choice women everywhere, Pope Francis loves you AND your unborn babies. Signed, God.

Newsflash: God loves everybody...

...And we're all bound by moral law to follow our conscience, out innate barometer for discriminating between good and evil. And it's breaking news? Way to play the media at their own game, Papa. We have a mighty evangelizer on the Chair of Peter.