From Peter to Francis: Faith, Sacrifice, and the Weight of Leadership…

Fr. William/Conswater is an Anglican Priest in England, but was born and educated in Belfast.

The death of the Holy Father has dominated the news and saddened many of our hearts. The set church reading for the other day was from Acts and reports words from St Peter and of course, the Pope, any Pope, is regarded by many as the successor of Saint Peter.

In Acts we read of St Peter speaking these words:

Repent and be baptised, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins

St Peter in this reading is not holding back, this is typical of the biblical characterisation of Peter, outspoken and quick to act. Jesus reined Peter in, corrected him and even reprimanded him many times. He for his part denies Christ and then ultimately, according to tradition, he is martyred under Nero, crucified upside down. And yet, though we might find St Peter at times too brash, who can say that baptism, repentance and forgiveness, in the recognition of sin, is not what Christians hold to?

In today’s full reading, Acts 2 36-41, Peter is possibly shockingly blunt, and is essentially, despite himself having been born Jewish, perhaps accidently, and historically dangerously, suggesting collective guilt on the Jewish people for the death of Jesus. St Peter ultimately would prove no great theologian and his role in establishing what the early church believed and taught, proved very secondary to that of St Paul.

Like Peter, Pope Francis could be a shocker.

My own favourite is when he suggested conservative opponents to his papal leadership were, in their pompous words and extravagant clerical attire, demonstrating mental instability.

Trump’s tactless suggestion was that the future Holy Father should be Cardinal Raymond Burke, despite or perhaps because of the Cardinal’s harsh words and his taste for clerical cloaks, some thirty feet long. Trump is himself rather fond of what many of us regard as the flash. But Trump is not a Roman Catholic, and in my view, neither is he a Christian; he should remain silent on such matters. It is widely inappropriate for him to express a view. I am not a Roman Catholic and my church tradition is cautious and moderate and progressive but more importantly the Conclave exists to try and fathom what is the will of God for this time, the decision is weighty and few of us know the minds of the prospective candidates, the depths of their experiences and the fullness of their Christian love for others.

But of course, much as many of us might like Christian faith to be a mix of spirituality, ecological concern, social justice and sexual tolerance, it isn’t. No matter what I might think about what needs to be done to reverse the heating of the planet, it is not a core feature of the inherited faith, it is an expression of concern based on more general principles in the faith, based on humility, honesty, thanks and stewardship.

We can sometimes wonder what Donald Trump thinks constitutes Christianity? Jesus was not after all an American, of course Pope Francis was, Argentinian (though he never returned ‘home’), and guns and bibles seem incongruous to the Jesus we read of in scripture, with his reprimand for St Peter for drawing the sword or the words of criticism Jesus had for the teachers of the law, the Pharisees.

But St Peter in today’s reading focuses on sin and the sacrifice of Jesus, they are what is central to ‘the Way’.

Unfashionable as it is to talk of sin, baptism and sacrifice, that is the basis of our faith.

What sin actually is and what the sacrifice of Jesus really meant in terms of atonement are matters for the theological seminar not for us in this piece. But without recognition of sin and the importance of sacrifice we are wasting our time, and despite the most intense arguments over ritual and authority between the main traditions, there is recognition of the validity of each other’s baptismal rite.

Do Christians have to subscribe to what we might call ‘supernatural’ ideas? Do we have to hold conservative or liberal opinions?

It seems to me that broadly most atheists tend to see Christians as childish, or ‘medieval’ in their mindset, what might be characterised as ‘superstitious’, yet often, it is atheists who hold simplistic and over dogmatic views on what constitutes the faith.

Atheists often seem so willing to forget metaphor, to demand, what we might call a blasphemy, asking Christians to turn God into a big man in the sky, and to demand of Christians, that above all, that we follow fashionable ideologies, when of course, Christians have always had, and will have, two overarching implacable moral demands. These moral demands do not compel Christians to be liberal or conservative, but rather to be of a ‘good heart’, to seek the common good, to be humanitarians: to love God and to love our fellow human beings. And Christians might ask, what is it so many of our political leaders love?

Three quick points on Christianity, on what constitutes lived Christian experience, stretching across hundreds of decades, from Roman ruled territories, to medieval villages in the so-called ‘dark ages’, to deprived inner city estates in our present century: community, sacrifice and prayer.

Christians know what the body of Christ is, the faithful are the body of Christ, that is for Christians the first point of community. We know that ego and selfishness must be set aside, that in the Mass Christians are the sacrifice and Christians are called to carry that sacrifice out into the world, Christ made his sacrifice, his followers are called to take up their cross. And Christians know that prayer is often the only appropriate response, even if judged by Christians themselves as often inadequate, it is still the only honest and proper reaction to our powerlessness, and, that prayer must be honest and modeled on the Lord’s prayer and that like Jesus on the Cross, all Christians can do in so many awful circumstances, is cry unto the Lord.

And finally, during his 12-year papacy, Francis was attentive to the model of Christ, Jesus was a relatively poor man, as a child he had been a refugee and as an adult man he lived a simple life, and despite being born a Jew and male, living in a deeply sexist and xenophobic society, he demonstrated nothing but kindness to sinners, women, prostitutes, Samaritans and Romans. Francis was a vocal champion of the world’s poor, dispossessed and disadvantaged, and a blunt critic of corporate greed and social and economic inequality. Within the Vatican, he criticised extravagance and privilege, calling on church leaders to show humility.

The views of Pope Francis riled significant numbers of cardinals and powerful Vatican officials and some politicians, just as Jesus riled the leaders of the Synagogue and the political elites.

Amen to that, and may his soul rest in peace and rise in glory.