Well, we didn’t get to share a pizza pie with the Pope in Ozone Park as we had hoped for, but The Forum did get a fleeting view of his motorcade as it slowly arrived at St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Fifth Avenue last week.
Throngs of people waited in line for hours to enter designated sections on the route, first turned away by polite NYPD at various points and asked multiple times over to “go around” several blocks — then waited along the barricades again for hours for the Holy Father’s arrival. Some passed the time by chatting with U.S. Senator Charles Schumer and Mayor Bill de Blasio, whose Italian pronunciation when greeting an Italian-New York transplant was a bit rusty, if not earnestly spoken. Both politicians took photos with students of Monsignor Farrell High School in Staten Island and greeted the crowds, stacked 10 deep, in a manner that honored Pope Francis’ magnetic and kind persona.
If you weren’t Dikembe Mutumbo- or Penn Jillette-height, right in front, or wearing lifts, you probably had difficulty seeing Papa Francis, even in his elevated vehicle, as the cavalcade passed by. Nonetheless, the crowd was stunned by the undeniably warm aura he exuded, practically aglow in his white robes. People of all faiths were touched by his mere presence, some of them to tears, many of them to the point of utter silence. It felt odd to cheer loudly, as if Pope Francis were some sort of rock star, yet polite applause didn’t seem quite enough either. Mentally, though, he surely felt the love. The crowd was simply in awe.
Pope Francis has broken numerous barriers in his espousing of forgiveness, acceptance, and dialogue and has become one of the most popular Popes in world history. Among American Catholic churchgoers, according to a Pew Research poll, 95 percent give him favorable ratings. Seventy percent of Americans like him regardless of their religion, and two thirds of Americans with no religious affiliation (to include agnostics and atheists) have a positive opinion of Pope Francis. And certainly it must be because he likes them back. “The issue for those who do not believe in God is to obey their conscience. Sin, even for those who have no faith, exists when people disobey their conscience,” he said. In other words, people who don’t believe in God might still be able to get to Heaven — literally an unorthodox concept.
Francis is known for his concern for impoverished people, opting to live in the Vatican’s guest quarters rather than the papal residence. His twitter handle, @Pontifex, regularly issues messages of hope for the poor, like this one of September 14, “God loves the lowly. When we live humbly, he takes our small efforts and creates great things.” On August 25, “A Christian who is too attached to riches has lost his way.”
In fact, if you’re not following the Pope on Twitter, maybe you should. We at the Forum, diverse in our beliefs, agree with a great many of his wise observations, such as this one from July 2: “A great challenge: stop ruining the garden which God has entrusted to us so that all may enjoy it.” We have, unfortunately, covered a great many stories on littering and graffiti in south Queens. And we’ve reprimanded you in our editorials on this subject. But, hey, don’t listen to us. Maybe just heed your faith.
