Eugene Kennedy

“The whole world feels that it knows Francis, not so much because he follows Francis of Assisi but because he is always himself. We have seen him pay his own hotel bill and heard that Francis called Buenos Aires for a pair of ordinary black shoes, like John XXIII, who preferred stout peasant shoes to the traditional papal footwear.”

“Facebook may not only propagate cyber-loneliness but exacerbate the pain of loss that estranged family members feel when they hear only indirectly, through a third-party posting, news of a child or parent with whom they have not spoken in years.”

“Pope Francis reminds us of Pope John XXIII because both men share the same lack of self-consciousness, and neither needs to keep his guard up through the use of psychological defenses such as rationalization, projection or intellectualization.”

“As in the Divine Right of Kings, hierarchies invest those who preside at the top of their pyramidal structure with absolute power to rule over the lesser ranks that spread down like a marble staircase to the broad foundation stones of those with no power at all.”

“St. Pope John XXIII called for the Second Vatican Council because he understood, as no Holy Father had in a long time, religion spoke to and found its language and symbols - its entire sense of the sacramental nature of existence - in the imagination that reveals not just the penalties of living, but the wonder and awe of our existence.”

“The seminary of the future must relate itself to flesh-and-blood men, or it provides a framework that only talks about the people of God but never really shares life with them.”

“We not only romanticize the future; we have also made it into a growth industry, a parlor game and a disaster movie all at the same time.”

“Human experience resembles the battered moon that tracks us in cycles of light and darkness, of life and death, now seeking out and now stealing away from the sun that gives it light and symbolizes eternity.”

“Benedict's spending down his energy was a function of his fighting against the Space/Information Age's relentless pressure on the concept of hierarchy, the restoration of which he had, following John Paul II, made a central part of the program that has come to be known as the reform of the reform.”

“The priesthood is not dying, but the clerical state is dead. It needs to be buried, preferably with a Viking funeral in Boston Harbor so nobody can miss the spectacle of its passing.”

“If you ask people what attracted them to the person they love, they never tell you of some perfect feature that focused them on sheer surfaces but rather an imperfection that allowed them to see into their uncharted depths.”

“From his first hours as pope, Francis has re-enacted or spoken of the great pastoral transformation of Vatican II as his own agenda.”

“Bishops may often feel but cannot express the sting and throb of submitting themselves to Roman commands because the latter are always presented as tests of their loyalty to the Pope and of their absolute acceptance of his teaching authority, or Magisterium.”

“Wherever you find 'men together' - writing the rules, as at exclusive golf or other men's clubs, businesses, and lodges where they wear elaborate robes and funny hats - women are kept completely outside if possible and, when grudgingly admitted, to highly restricted areas or token status.”

“The perception of the horizon is an earthbound event; all horizons disappear in space, and we are left shorn of the sweet roots that have held us to the earth, challenged to imagine what is truly present just before us, a unified and seemingly limitless universe.”

“The world, more suffering than sinning, turns toward Pope Francis as in a conversation people turn to the person who is making sense of things.”

“There would be no need for love if perfection were possible. Love arises from our imperfection, from our being different and always in need of the forgiveness, encouragement and that missing half of ourselves that we are searching for, as the Greek myth tells us, in order to complete ourselves.”