The Tears of Pope Francis Point the Way.
The pontiff makes a heartfelt appeal for peace in Gaza, Iraq, Syria ... but is anyone listening?
PARIS — As the slaughter continues in Gaza, as bodies rain from the sky over Ukraine, as barbaric jihadists conquer swathes of Syria and Iraq, butchering their enemies and erasing the history of the Bible and of humankind, it seems empathy, sympathy, diplomacy and prayer are utterly unable to meet the demands of common humanity.
At such times, even those who are not especially religious might be moved to ask, in all seriousness, or perhaps in bitter irony, “What would Jesus do?” And as Pope Francis spoke to the multitude on Sunday in St. Peter’s Square in Rome, he came as close to answering that question as he or anyone else is likely to come.
Francis wept.
He did not wipe away the tears, but the long lenses of the television cameras showed him blinking them back behind his glasses. As Boston’s Cardinal Sean O’Malley has said, Francis is “a man who speaks in gestures.” And this was an important one. Francis wept, and it is fair to say that Jesus, too, would be weeping today.
Can something come of that? The answer, at first, is not obvious.
Some reports said that Francis was departing from his script, but that is not entirely true—he was departing from the script he gave his aides for publication, and they seemed, afterwards, unprepared and unable to explain what the pontiff had done. He had talked about the anniversary of World War I, and he had mentioned the fighting in the Middle East, in Iraq and in Ukraine. And then Francis was reading the words that moved him, it seemed, almost beyond his ability to speak:
"Never war, never war,” he said. “I am thinking, above all, of children who are deprived of the hope of a worthwhile life, a future. Dead children, wounded children, mutilated children, orphaned children, children whose toys are things left over from war, children who don't know how to smile.” This was the moment when the tears came. “Please stop,” said Francis. “I ask you with all my heart, it's time to stop. Stop, please!”
But who will listen?
Jesus wept when he saw the tears of the women in his family lamenting the death of his friend Lazarus before, finally, he brought Lazarus back from the grave. No one in this world will bring back to life more than a thousand people killed in Gaza, almost 300 killed on flight MH17 or the tens of thousands — hundreds of thousands — who’ve died in Iraq since 2003.
No. The Lazarus miracle is not there for us.
Jesus wept as well when he approached Jerusalem, knowing that the people he had worked so hard to inspire and protect would betray him and crucify him: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee; how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings, and ye would not!”
How many statesmen who have tried and failed to save Israel and the Palestinians from each other—and from themselves—must have heard the echo of those words.
No. Words are not enough. And war is not the answer. Who does not understand that fact after so many wars fought in this century for so little purpose? “Violence cannot be overcome with violence,” Francis told the multitude a week ago. “Violence is overcome with peace!”
Read on:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/07/27/what-would-jesus-do-in-gaza-the-tears-of-pope-francis-point-the-way.html