UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter
Michael Sean Winters | Oct. 1, 2013 Distinctly Catholic
Pope Francis delivered another bombshell interview, this time with Eugenio Scalfari of La Repubblica. It is, in its way, even more stunning than the longer interview with the Jesuit journals in part because the pope is here speaking with a man who does not share the faith of the Church yet that fact does not once produce a breakdown in communication and Francis displays in his dialogue exactly what he means by a culture of encounter.
Scalfari writes:
And here I am [at the pope’s apartment]. The Pope comes in and shakes my hand, and we sit down. The Pope smiles and says: “Some of my colleagues who know you told me that you will try to convert me.”
It’s a joke I tell him. My friends think it is you want to convert me.
He smiles again and replies: “Proselytism is solemn nonsense, it makes no sense. We need to get to know each other, listen to each other and improve our knowledge of the world around us. Sometimes after a meeting I want to arrange another one because new ideas are born and I discover new needs. This is important: to get to know people, listen, expand the circle of ideas. The world is crisscrossed by roads that come closer together and move apart, but the important thing is that they lead towards the Good.”
“Solemn nonsense.” It is a phrase I wish I had coined myself. It is certainly an experience many of us have shared, listening to a priest or deacon preach who is one hundred percent certain he has all the answers, the world is going to hell in a handbasket because it does not listen to his answers, etc. One suspects that Francis has had the experience too. Indeed, a few questions on he states: “It also happens to me that when I meet a clericalist, I suddenly become anti-clerical.”
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