Two other voices express prayers for Francesco...

One of the writers from inside the Roman Catholic Church that I listen to is Sr. John Chittister.  Her contemporary interpretation of the Rule of Benedict for our age, Wisdom Distilled from the Daily, has been one of my spiritual guides since its publication in 1990.  I have found her commentary on the Rule of Benedict and her insights into the church calendar (The Liturgical Year) equally satisfying.  Along with Fr. Richard Rohr and Fr. Thomas Keating, the words of Sr. Joan Chittister are key for this Protestant clergy person - and her recent commentary on the election of Pope Francesco I is important.

In this week's reflection in the National Catholic Reporter, Sr. Joan notes that there is a weariness within the American Roman Catholic Church - a weariness that is soul numbing and faith wounding.  She observes that "the problem is that weariness is far worse than anger. Far more stultifying than mere indifference. Weariness comes from a soul whose hope has been disappointed one time too many. To be weary is not a condition of the body -- that's tiredness. No, weariness is a condition of the heart that has lost the energy to care anymore."

Then she lays all her cards on the table:

People are weary of hearing more about the laws of the church than the love of Jesus.

People are weary of seeing whole classes of people -- women, gays and even other faith communities again -- rejected, labeled, seen as "deficient," crossed off the list of the acceptable.

They are weary of asking questions that get no answers, no attention whatsoever, except derision.

They suffer from the lassitude that sets in waiting for apologies that do not come.
There's an ennui that sets in when people get nothing but old answers to new questions.

There's even worse fatigue that comes from knowing answers to questions for which, as laypersons, they are never even asked.

More false news of a priest shortage drains the energy of the soul when you know that issue could easily be resolved by the numbers of married men and women who are standing in line waiting to serve if for some reason or other, some baptisms weren't worth less than others.

They get tired watching of Anglican converts and their children take their place at the altar.

It gets spiritually exhausting to go on waiting for a pastor again and instead getting a scolding, reactionary church whose idea of perfection is the century before the last one rather than the century after this one.

They're weary of seeing contraception being treated as more sinful than the sexual abuse of children.

All in all, they're weary of being told, "Don't even think about it." They're weary of being treated as if they are bodies and souls without a brain.

It's weariness, weariness, weariness. It's not an angry, violent, revolutionary response. It's much worse than that. It's a weary one, and weariness is a very dangerous thing. When people are weary, they cease to care; they cease to listen; they cease to wait.

These are the kind of people who waited for a new pope, whatever kind of man he might be. At first sight, Jorge Mario Bergoglio -- Pope Francis -- is a quiet and humble man, a pastoral man and as a Latin American, a leader of 51 million Catholics, or the largest concentration of Catholics on the planet, which is not business-as-usual as far as papal history goes.

But perhaps the most profound and memorable moment of his introduction is that he presented himself on the balcony in front of thousands of people from all parts of the world not in the brocaded fashion of a pope, but in a simple white cassock.
And then came the real shock: He bowed to the people. Bowed. And asked them to pray a blessing down on him before he blessed them. Francis, I remembered, was the Christian who reached out to Muslims. Francis, the one who listened to every creature in the universe and dialogued with it.

Indeed, if this Francis, too, is a listener, there is hope for reconciliation, hope for healing, hope for the development of the church.No doubt about it: We know who the people are who have been waiting for a pope and why they are weary. The question now is, Does he know how weary they are? And does he care? Really?

From where I stand, something has to change. Maybe, just maybe, this time ...

Fr. Richard Rohr, of the Center for Action and Contemplation, just posted these important comments that are helpful, too:

Let's look at his non-verbals in the first hours of his papacy, which experts believe are much more truthful than language, anyway. All of Pope Francis' early actions tell me that this man is first of all a man who knows who he is, before he is a churchman, a man fulfilling a role, a celebrity or a man taking an office. Here are some of Pope Francis' early non-verbal give-aways:

• According to insiders, he did not ascend the throne to greet the new cardinals who elected him, but stayed at their ground level. This made bowing, groveling and ring kissing very difficult. His self image is grounded, if this is true.
• He wore simple white in his first presentation of himself to the world, without a golden cross, red cape or priestly stole. In fact, he wore a plain wooden cross. He accepted the stole for the official blessing, but then, with a reverent kiss, immediately took it off for his personal "good night" to the people. (Any priest knows that this is a calculated decision.) I am told that he is still wearing his ordinary black shoes, having eschewed the three sizes of Prada red that had been crafted to fit any possible papal shoe size.
• He immediately called the people "brother and sister," and stood before them without the smiles or exaggerated hand waving of a celebrity. Rather, he presented himself in an almost "Ecce Homo" (John 19:5) way: "Here I am, as I am," it shouted to the world. Not much ego inflation for someone in his first moments of international exposure.
• The fact that almost every account of him uses the word "humility" or "humble" to describe him, is indicative of how we pick up people's actual energy much more than their words, clothes or precise actions. It might also reveal how we have not come to expect this from those who hold the papal office. Apparently, most were surprised, and also drawn to, this ordinariness and accessibility. I believe I would go to him for confession.
• We hear that the next morning he returned to the hotel where he stayed the previous night to pick up his own luggage and pay his own bill! I wonder how he got away with it. Only by insisting, I would think. This sounds like one who "came to serve and not to be served" (Mark 10:45).
• Perhaps most striking to any Catholic who has received many magnanimous blessings from priests and prelates, we have a pope first asking the people to bless him -- and bowing down before them to receive it! He had just asked for a moment of silence, which stunned the crowd into exactly that. Those of us who teach contemplative prayer were given hope that our church might move beyond its largely exclusive use of memorized and recited prayers in public. But even there, he recited the three memorized prayers that every Catholic child first learns: the Our Father, the Hail Mary, and the Doxology to the Trinity (also called the Glory Be). He might just know how to do things "both ways," which is the only way he can be a pontifex, a "bridge builder."

I am sure there will be things we disagree with in this papacy. I have had personal contact with the former Jesuit, now living in Germany, whom he apparently "persecuted." His quoted statements on gay adoption sound highly uninformed and fear-based. But my hope is that his love for the poor and the excluded will win out; now he has no higher-ups to please or placate. Let's hope and pray that this will allow Pope Francis to be a man of the Gospel more than a mere churchman. Then the world will be forever grateful, and grace will flow more freely in what has been a dry stream for some time.

Both Sr. Joan and Fr. Richard are faithful participants who know the challenges of raising hard and systemic questions about a church too top heavy with tradition and rules - as well as hierarchy - and often too short on compassion for the "least of these my sisters and brothers."  That's why I take their words of critique and solidarity to heart in my prayers.