Elisabetta Piqué, author of the biography Pope Francis: Life and Revolution, spent a rainy afternoon with Pope Francis in an exclusive interview for La Nación. A few excerpts:
I don’t like the word “strategy,” I’d much rather speak about the Lord’s pastoral call, otherwise it sounds like an NGO. It’s the Lord’s call, what the Church is asking from us today, not as a strategy, because the Church isn’t into proselytism. The Church doesn’t want to engage in proselytism because the Church does not grow on proselytism, it grows on attraction, as Benedict said. The Church needs to be a field hospital and we need to set out to heal wounds, just as the good Samaritan did.
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EP: It was an intense year, with many significant trips, the extraordinary synod, the prayer for peace in the Middle East in the Vatican gardens. What stands out as the best moment and what as the worst?
PF: I wouldn’t know. Every moment has something good and something not quite as good, isn’t that so? (silence). For instance, the meeting with the grandparents, the elderly, there was amazing beauty in that.
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As we move toward the end of the year and look to review it, the pope’s example gives great perspective.
Read this full section of the interview: “Pope Francis: ‘God Has Bestowed on Me a Healthy Dose of Unawareness.’”
And for a behind-the-scenes peek at the interview, read “Humour, Anecdotes and a Laid-Back Pope on a Rainy Afternoon at the Vatican.”
Image by Tânia Rêgo/ABr (Agência Brasil) under CC-BY-3.0-br.
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