Humble Francis

A memory of transcendent humanity in Rome

The one time I was to meet Pope Francis, I had to wait. Others, more knowledgeable than me, will write memorials today. I want to share a single detail from one day in Rome, in January 2018.

The site was a Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, St. Sophia; the occasion was the conferring of the honors of the Blessed Martyr Omelian Kovch.

The namesake of this distinction was a Greek Catholic priest who rescued Jews during the German occupation, and who himself died inside the Majdanek concentration camp. While in Majdanek, Kovch wrote that he did not wish for anyone to intervene on his behalf, since he wished to minister to the needs of the dying: "They die in different ways, and I help them cross this bridge into eternity. Is this not a blessing? Is this not the most splendid crown that God could place on my head? Precisely so. I thank God a thousand times each day that He sent me here. I ask nothing more of Him. Do not be troubled, and do not lose faith on my part. Instead, rejoice with me. Pray for those who created this concentration camp and this system. They are the only ones that need prayers."

The award was for courage in ecumenical understanding, and it was a great honor to be among a small group of distinguished east Europeans that day, Ukrainians and a Pole. I was moved by the golden beauty of the interior of St. Sophia, and overwhelmed by the occasion. Perhaps naturally, I was thinking of myself, of what I would say to the pope when he arrived. Our common language was Spanish, which I speak very poorly, and I was rehearsing in my mind what I wanted to say, which was to thank him for recent statements about ecology, and to describe the little book I wanted to give to him. As I understood over the course of the morning, everyone wants to give something to the pope.

Awaiting Francis, I was sitting with the other honorees in a pew towards the front and on the left. The church was very full of people, sitting and standing. I noticed, though, that the people with disabilities were led carefully to the first pew on the right. In this setting, I was reminded of the practices of the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv, which is dedicated to the "martyrs and the marginalized," including the service of the disabled. I do not know whether Francis would have expected this particular arrangement when he entered the church. I can only report on what he did.

Francis was led down the aisle, resplendent in white, very erect, walking slowly and greeting people along the way. Just before he reached the sanctuary, he halted suddenly and turned to his right, noticing that pew. Then, as the rest of us waited, he walked to its far end, and bent himself to speak. He greeted each person in turn, touching them. As the people with whom he was conversing could not rise, he had to lower himself. So, over and over, Francis knelt down to look someone in the eye and to hold both of their hands in his. This took about fifteen minutes. It was a moment to think about others, and in that sense, for me, a liberation, from my own anxiety and selfishness.

Many words and much grandeur followed. But that moment is what I remember. None of us is perfect. Even Father Omelian Kovch was not perfect. Pope Francis was not perfect. The institution they represented has much to answer for. But imperfection can represent itself as service, in the acknowledgement that we can transcend ourselves when we see others first.

“Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” When Francis made the rest of us wait so that he could greet the less fortunate, of course he was doing something symbolic. But such symbols matter, because in them we can glimpse something higher through something human, something that remains even as the memory of white garments and golden artifice fades.