By Joseph Tulloch
It was an unusual community night at The Lay Centre March 29. Rather than having one speaker, as usual, we had three – all journalists. They had come to participate in a discussion on the pontificate of Pope Francis, from the perspective of their respective media outlets.
First up was Christopher White, Vatican correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter, a lay-led U.S. newspaper. He stressed Pope Francis’ efforts to weave processes outlined in the Second Vatican Council into official Church structures, offering the Synod on Synodality as one example.
Next to speak was Lay Centre resident Mirticeli Medeiros, who, in addition to her PhD studies in church history at the Pontifical Gregorian University, reports on the Vatican for the Brazilian television channel Globo News and other media outlets. She described Pope Francis as “a reformer,” pointing to his recent reform of the Roman Curia – only the fifth, she pointed out, in the Catholic Church’s 2,000-year history.
Finally, Lay Centre residents heard from Sister Bernadette Reis, an editor at Vatican News, the Holy See’s official media network. She emphasized Pope Francis’ ability to speak to people’s everyday experience, referring to his “theology of the ordinary person.” While Pope John Paul II was a philosopher, she said, and Pope Benedict XVI a theologian, Pope Francis is above all a pastor.
These three interventions were followed by a lively Q.-and-A. session.
One questioner raised the topic of Pope Francis’ catechesis on old age, saying she had found it very moving and was saddened it had not received more attention.
In response, White suggested that the elderly have been a key priority of Pope Francis from the outset of his pontificate, noting that he has regularly spoken of the importance of intergenerational ties.
Sister Bernandette added that the pope was extremely affected by the many grandparents who died alone during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Recently, she said, he told an interviewer that he feels most at home when spending time with fellow elderly people.
The evening drew to a close with a question concerning the resistance to Pope Francis found in some sectors of the Church today. Here, Medeiros stressed that Pope Francis’ reforms ought not to be interpreted as a radical break with the past, but rather as an effort to make the Church more faithful to its ancient tradition.