Catholics around the world have been mourning the death of Pope Francis and are watching the lead-up to the conclave that will elect his successor. Moments like this bring about a global consciousness of Catholicism (I’ll bet Amazon Prime were pleased they secured the rights to the movie Conclave!)
You might not think of it like this, but Canberra has, in the past, been a pretty Catholic town. Because of their church’s emphasis on service, many Catholics entered the APS and so we’ve had a catholic population above the national average. Even today, more than 1:5 Canberrans identified with the Catholic church in the most recent census and, no doubt, there are plenty of people who have grown up with Catholicism being the air they breathed, even as they no longer identify with the church.
All of this means there are going to be opportunities as we find ourselves talking about what’s going on in the world with our friends and colleagues to talk about the things raised by this global cultural moment, and from there to talk about the gospel. Let me suggest a few ways to have fruitful conversations (you might have more, and I’d love to hear them):
1. Because our media landscape finds it difficult to categorise people on anything other than a political scale at the moment, lots of people have observed Francis’s passion for justice, the poor, and interfaith dialogue and assumed, therefore, that he’s woke or something. He’s a contrast to some gruffer, less empathic, equally legalistic strands of Christianity coming out of the US.
The gospel, of course, transcends our left-right distinctions. It is a whole other plane of existence. Paul writes to Titus:
For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. It teaches us to say ‘No’ to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope – the appearing of the glory of our great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good.
The same gospel that offers you salvation teaches us to live self-controlled and upright lives (i.e conservative virtues) as well as to be redeemed and eager to do good (elsewhere equated with care for the poor) (i.e. progressive virtues). What this means is that, connected to Jesus, we hold our political preferences lighter than we hold our allegiance to Jesus.
2. I've already had a conversation in the last two days where someone has asked me the difference between Catholics and Protestants. The question was coming from a place of genuine curiosity, and so it's helpful to have that resource at hand to explain the difference. I really like this tiny little book called Freedom Movement (here’s a link to the full PDF), it’s a coffee-table book-sized explainer, which explains the difference and why it matters in a way that’s also joyful and hopeful.
3. We can expect the process of selecting a successor to be fairly quick once the meeting starts. Part of the reason the process doesn't take so long anymore is because of a papal election that started way back in 1268 and didn’t finish until 1271. There was so much arguing, and the process was so gruelling that the cardinals were eventually locked in a room, their rations were reduced to bread and water, and the roof was removed, lest the Holy Spirit find it difficult to communicate to them through it!
I'm praying over the next few weeks that the catholic roof will be removed once more, and that they will wrestle with the beauty and freedom and freeness of the gospel and turn in faith to him.
grace and peace,
Steve