By Francis X. Maier
Rome, while not entirely the «Eternal City», is nearly 2,800 years old and still adding to it. I first met her in the 1970s, visiting my wife’s uncle, a priest who served in the Congregation (now Dicastery) for the Doctrine of the Faith. What I remember most vividly from those few days is a nighttime performance of the opera Aida, very much in the style of Fellini, with live elephants at the Baths of Caracalla, followed by a heart-stopping ride back home through Roman traffic. The city was then an electric mix of the sacred and the profane: a cocktail of religious piety, astonishing beauty, shrill energy, and opiate nostalgia; strange and intoxicating at the same time. I loved it.
Over the years I have returned many times, always with the same mix of feelings. On all those visits, the living Catholic soul of the city redeemed its vulgarity and its pornographic graffiti—a venerable Roman tradition—and offered a clean and fresh joy for the spirit, capable of countering the narcotic aroma of the past and its ruins.
I am old enough to remember, as a child, the recorded voice of Pius XII. In the pontificates from John XXIII to Benedict XVI, evangelical zeal, pastoral service, and brilliant intellect coincided and reinforced each other. They converted my adult heart. Rigorous Catholic thought mattered. It was the fertile ground for Christian action.
I visited Rome twice in the last years of Francis’s papacy. The atmosphere of the place had changed. Part of my disillusionment with the city undoubtedly came from age; mine, not the city’s. Skepticism tends to grow with the years. But it was also something more than that.
There were days, then, when Catholic Rome felt like Constantinople in the last and sclerotic years of the Palaiologos emperors: a museum in the midst of the hostile and indifferent, guarded by the mediocre. For the believer who looks too closely and reflects too long, Rome can sometimes be more of a scab on the spirit than a spring of refreshment. This is not new, of course. Quite the contrary. Martin Luther had the same reaction. It didn’t end well.
It was new, however, for me and for many others who entered adolescence when Vatican II was inaugurated; years later blessed by a series of intellectually gifted Popes who had suffered and survived the worst years of the last century. Francis came from very different roots. He was a defender of the poor, and his pontificate had important strengths, but not in the same category. His death, a year ago this week, left a series of internal Church conflicts unresolved.
Easter is a time of celebration and renewed hope. In a few weeks we will have to carry those qualities into the liturgical season of «Ordinary Time». A question we face looking to the future is this: How can we heal the frustrations and divisions that naturally arise with ecclesial conflict in an era of profound changes? Worries and resentments can strip the heart of joy like a plague of locusts on the harvest. So I return, again and again, to three things.
First, we need to remember and pray for Pope Francis, and also for our own conversion regarding the role we ourselves play in the current ecclesial conflicts. And we must do so sincerely, with good will. Second, we need to remember the history of the Church because it is a lesson in hope. Reading Reformations by Carlos Eire, or The Unintended Reformation by Brad Gregory, or Hubert Jedin’s great History of the Council of Trent, or any similar record of the medieval or ancient Christian Church, is both sobering and encouraging. Sobering, because division in the Church is a chronic human virus. Encouraging, because Nero (and so many others like him) would be surprised that we are still here.
There has never really been a golden age of tranquility in Christian life because our nature does not allow it. We are imperfect creatures. We—and «we» means everyone, from Popes to plumbers—do bad things that have great consequences. That’s why Golgotha and Easter had to happen. But we are also capable of heroism, virtue, sacrifice, and nobility, and God never abandons us. That’s why we are still here.
Finally, every summer I reread Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy. It’s a kind of therapy. Peter Jackson’s movies of the story are good, but the books are immensely better. And the lesson in all its hundreds of pages is this: we must do the best we can with the time that is given to us. None of us can see the full picture of the world around us. But God can. And we can trust Him.
On that question of trust, I will close with a story.
Suann (my wife) and I returned to Rome earlier this month. The atmosphere of the place had changed once again; this time in a different direction. Leo’s barely one-year pontificate has brought a fresh and hopeful spirit to the city and the Church without disparaging any of his predecessors. Time will tell its consistency. But two details from our visit will remain in the memory for a long time.
The first was an award dinner by the Rector at the Pontifical North American College in Rome, in honor of Michaelann and Curtis Martin, co-founders of the Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS), an astonishing apostolic success in a difficult time and challenging environment. The hall was packed with hundreds of clerics, lay Catholic leaders, and donors. Many were young. All were committed to the Church and its mission. None of them was afraid of the future, the world, or the work ahead.
The second detail, easy to overlook and unrecognized, was a talented young laywoman in the audience. A year ago, on her own, she moved to Mongolia to serve in the Apostolic Prefecture of Ulaanbaatar. It is a mission Church par excellence for the poor, serving 1,500 Catholics scattered across a vast rural territory.
I have never had that kind of courage. But she does. So maybe Rome is not «eternal», but the Gospel of Jesus Christ clearly is.
As I said: Nero would be astonished.
About the author
Francis X. Maier is a senior fellow in Catholic studies at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. He is the author of True Confessions: Voices of Faith from a Life in the Church.