Cardinal O'malley Spills No Secrets

By Rev. Alexander Santora
Jersey Journal
March 27, 2014

http://www.nj.com/jjournal-news/index.ssf/2014/03/cardinal_omalley_spills_no_sec.html

PANELISTS AT the program held in honor at Pope Francis’ first anniversary are, from left, R.R. Reno, editor of “First Things” magazine; Cardinal O’Malley; Mollie Wilson O’Reilly, associate editor of “Commonweal,”and Jesuit Rev. Matt Malone, editor-in-chief of “America” magazine. (REV. ALEXANDER SANTORA PHOTO)

SEAN CARDINAL O'??MALLEY greets a woman at the American Bible Society event in Manhattan.

The panelists were pumping the Prince of the Church about the Pope.

How will the Pope incorporate more women in the Vatican? What is one disagreement you have had with Pope Francis? What is one thing the Pope will do that will outlast him?

Sean Cardinal O’Malley of Boston wasn’t taking the bait. Even when asked whom will the Pope appoint to the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, O’Malley was tight-lipped. Then three days later, Pope Francis appointed O’Malley as the only cardinal and U.S. resident on the eight-member board. It’s almost certain that O’Malley knew that bit of information last Wednesday, March 19, when he addressed an overflow crowd of 200 at the American Bible Society in Manhattan talking about the first anniversary of Francis’ pontificate.

“Pope Francis has embraced the vocation of being a follower of St. Ignatius who wants to be a saint like St. Francis,” O’Malley said. For 45 minutes he analyzed Francis’ Ignatian roots as a Jesuit, which has shaped his papacy, but also how he has blended his affection for St. Francis by not only taking his name but also emphasizing the saint’s love for the poor.

St. Ignatius founded the Society of Jesus, commonly called Jesuits, in the 16th century as a means of responding to the Reformation several hundred years after Francis convened a band of Friars who became Franciscans. O’Malley said when Ignatius of Loyola, a Spaniard, was wounded in battle, he could only obtain reading material about the lives of the saints while he convalesced, and he became enamored of St. Francis of Assisi. He quoted Ignatius as saying, “I want to be a saint like St. Francis.”

Pope Francis, the first Jesuit to become Pope in the history of the papacy, appears to have appropriated that Ignatian dream. O’Malley’s insight into Francis’ lifestyle is so reliable because they are both religious order priests – O’Malley is a Capuchin Franciscan – and Francis appointed him as one of the eight members on the Council of Cardinals, dubbed Super Cardinals. They are advising the pope how to reorganize the Vatican departments. “He lives his Jesuit vocation with intense missionary spirit, a love for community that supports the mission and a disciplined life that does not want to waste anything, especially time,” said O’Malley.

O’Malley noted how Francis lives in two rooms of the guest house of the Vatican and not the Apostolic Palace. He celebrates Mass and dines with the gardeners, cooks and other employees of the Vatican. When he walks the halls, he shakes the hands of the Swiss Guards, he noted. “I can see him turning off the lights in the Vatican.”

Ten years before Francis, O’Malley sold his mansion residence in the leafy suburb Brighton to Boston College and moved into a modest rectory. O’Malley noted that Mario Cardinal Bergoglio was known to many of the Cardinals who would elect Benedict’s successor but perhaps fewer North American and European cardinals. He said that the pope is on a learning curve about the church in the U.S.

O’Malley took over the Boston Archdiocese in 2003 following Cardinal Bernard Law, who resigned and moved to Rome after mishandling the worst clerical abuse scandal in the U.S. O’Malley has been credited with healing the wounds there, which makes him a natural member of the papal commission.

He also pioneered work among Hispanic Catholics and would have crossed paths with Bergoglio. The pope’s discernment “frees him from doing some things in a certain way because it was always thus” and he is comfortable enough that he is “not restrained by practices of pontificates in the past,” O’Malley said.

Labeling the pope, “collegial,” which means he consults widely and reaches out to a more international group of advisers, O’Malley said Pope Francis could be expected to change pastoral practice, but not doctrine.

O’Malley took a swipe at the media for elevating dissent in the church that he said was not there. But I think this is precisely why Francis is so popular: he has heard the people clamoring for a more humane church. And it’s taking a very human pope to win over people’s hearts and minds to at least listen, once again.

Santora is the pastor of The Church of Our Lady of Grace & St. Joseph, 400 Willow Ave., Hoboken, 07030, fax (201)659-5833, e-mail: padrealex@yahoo.com.