A "civil" Papa

Yesterday afternoon, the networks burned - and not precisely because of a doctrinal heresy - but by an image that seemed taken from another universe: an old bald man, with oxygen, wrapped in a blanket (or was it an Andean poncho?), With dark pants and white t -shirt ... that turned out to be nothing less than Pope Francis.

Yes, the Pope. Without cassock, without a pectoral cross, without solide. No shield, without armor, without throne. A "civil" pope, like your grandfather who goes out to buy bread after nap. The Holy See took to confirm the image, as if costing them to process that the Vicar of Christ can also dress as a common Christian. And while that happened ... in some corner of the Catholic orb, a group of clergy with black cassock and with a museum mentality probably murmured the rosary of the modern scandals: a pope without cassock! The sacred signs are frayed!

The preconciliary priests, those custodians of the Tridentine elegance, still walk with the cassock waving in the wind as we can see in the movie "Rome" Federico Fellini, anyone can see the scene on the Internet. They get up every morning as if it were still 1958, convinced that salvation passes through the length of the sleeve and the thickness of the Alzacuello. Meanwhile, the Pope goes out without warning, without a storm or incense layer, to pray with oxygen in the nose and a striped blanket on the legs. Iconoclasia? No. Only humanity.

The scene has more power than a thousand homilies of golden pulpit: the leader of the Catholic Church appears as a fragile, sick, simple man. It does not renounce the ministry, but yes - with small gestures - to the show. There is no need for a high throne or a tiara of three crowns. A blanket is enough. And yet, in the sacristies, groans are heard: "The habit makes the monk," they say, as if Jesus had used Clergyman.

In 1981, Juan Pablo II appeared in Pajama in his Gemelli room after the attack. Today, Francisco does it by choice: because he wants to pray like anyone, walk like anyone, and live - in the measure of the possible - without surrendering to the scenographies of ecclesiastical power.

The contrast is brutal: on the one hand, the priests who still see in the black cassock a shield in front of the world, as if holiness dressed in buttons to the feet. On the other, a Pope who seems to say: "Yes, I'm fragile. Yes, I'm old. And yes, I'm still dad even if I don't look white."

Sometimes, cassock is a symbol; Others, a alibi. And at this time when the Church seeks to rebuild its credibility, perhaps what most needs is not a return to the Pius XII wardrobe, but gestures like Francisco's: unarmed, real, almost uncomfortable of how sincere they are.

It was not a calculated photo, but it ended up being more eloquent than any pontifical document. Not that Francisco is "ceasing to be potato" for dressing like any man. It is that, precisely because of that, it is more than ever.

Because in the end, Jesus also did not wear clothing to distinguish himself from the rest. He did not have embroidered robes or walked with priestly galas. He walked with his own, with dust on the feet and clothes of any. He didn't need a Clergyman to teach a cassock to heal. Francisco's gesture - Humilde, human, real - reminds us of that: that the force of the gospel does not dress in a gala. It is embodied, wrinkles, tired ... and keep walking. Source: Proudly Powered by WordPress | Theme: Recent News by Candid Themes.