The new shepherd

Among Roman Catholics, there’s greater reason for jubilation this Christmas: Pope Francis.

I know a number of Catholics estranged from their Church, who haven’t been to mass for ages except to attend weddings, baptisms and funerals. Thanks to Pope Francis, they are again paying attention to their faith.

The other day the estranged flock surely applauded again when the pontiff bemoaned “spiritual Alzheimer’s” among the clergy and enumerated “15 ailments of the Curia” running the Vatican. And that was supposed to be his Christmas greeting to his team.

Clergy behaving badly have been among the biggest reasons for disaffection with the Church among the Catholic flock. Sex scandals, financial and administrative mismanagement, corruption – you name it, the Church has had it, even right within the Vatican.

The scandals were widely seen to have forced Benedict XVI to quit as pope – the first to do so in 600 years. The voluntary retirement of the hardliner has been a boon to the faith.

From eschewing a residence fit for royalty and bulletproof popemobiles to the choice of his papal name, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, former archbishop of Buenos Aires, has been a refreshing breeze in the dim, dusty halls of the Roman Catholic Church.

And the change goes beyond cosmetic, beyond his dressed-down style and refusal to wear screaming red shoes. Pope Francis is winning the hearts of the devout – and more importantly for the Church – winning back lost sheep through his modern take on Catholic teachings.

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Previous popes stood firm on Catholic positions on the raging issues of modern life: contraception and abortion, homosexuality, divorce and the role of women.

Catholics threatened with eternal damnation for going against those teachings simply stopped going to church and listening to God’s middlemen, though not necessarily losing their faith in a Supreme Being. The child sex abuse scandals, covered up by the Catholic hierarchy, further eroded the moral authority of the Church.

A number of Catholics simply ignored the teachings. Women took pills; men wore rubbers. Kids had premarital sex. Gays went on with their gay lifestyles. In the Philippines, the only country without divorce, the joke is that Muslims can have up to four wives; Catholics can have five or more. Filipino men keep several families, with some of the wealthiest (and biggest Church donors) and most powerful philandering openly.

Couples separate in this country and find new loves, living together without bothering to seek annulment or a Church divorce, which is reserved only for those who can afford the arduous and expensive process of obtaining Vatican dispensation.

Even with church attendance dwindling, the Vatican refused to budge. Benedict believed faith should not be practiced cafeteria-style, obeying only teachings that you like. He had a point, but it turned the faith into a remote one, inaccessible to those who had to live with the realities of modern life.

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Faith, hope, charity and compassion – all the virtues that made the Church a refuge for the faithful, including lost souls – these were seemingly buried in a hail of condemnation for those who went against Catholic teachings.

Even in the time of Pope Francis, we saw an example of this last July, in that priest who publicly scolded and embarrassed a teenage girl in the Visayas for being an unwed mother. The girl was having her child baptized.

A video of the incident showed Redemptorist priest Fr. Romeo Obach telling the teenage mom: “How shameful. You come here to have your child baptized without a husband. You slept with a man who is not your husband. Do you hear me, girl? Aren’t you ashamed?”

Of course the girl was shamed – by the priest.

Amid a public outcry, Obach publicly apologized and met with the girl and her mother, who accepted the apology. But people wondered whether the priest would have done so if the video recording his behavior had not surfaced.

Pope Francis will have to save his Church from such insensitive behavior. Already his simple ways are putting to shame many shepherds of the flock who believe being princes of the Church entitles them to the trappings of royalty. It’s a message that should resonate in this country where several bishops came under fire for receiving (and requesting) SUVs from the Arroyo administration.

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 “Feeling immortal, immune or even indispensable” tops Pope Francis’ “15 ailments of the Curia.”

The others include vanity, the desire to accumulate things, a “hardened heart,” sucking up to superiors (OK, that wasn’t the wording), having a “funereal face” and being too “rigid, tough and arrogant” particularly toward underlings. He also believes all work and no play makes Juan a dull boy; Francis says it’s good to have a healthy sense of humor.

Some people in the Vatican bureaucracy, he said, lust for power at all costs and suffer from “spiritual Alzheimer’s,” forgetting that they are supposed to be joyful shepherds of the flock.

The Curia may be frowning but the flock is smiling broadly. It’s an inspiring message in this season of joy.

A merry Christmas to all!