Leaden Doors, Latin, Luminous: Reminiscences of a Former Catholic after Francis Became Pope

By Vincent R. Pozon

The other day, I saw a post running down my newsfeed that talked about the mysteries of the rosary, and there was a reference to a set called Luminous. I was schooled and brought up Catholic—Catholic enough that my father, one very hot and windy afternoon, brought me to a place in Cebu called St. Alphonsus. When we got there, I found out it was a seminary, and that my father hoped they would take me in, make me a seminarian, and, I presume, that I would grow up to be a priest. (A curious story, fading memory coughs up, how I was denied. But never mind.)

I was intrigued by this luminous set of mysteries—a rather significant change in how they pray, I thought. I used to go to church daily, though I must point out that going to church is very different from attending mass. In my second year in high school, Eiffel’s San Sebastian steel church was a comforting place, with dark, welcoming corners. I had just been yanked out of Cebu and dropped into the friendless maelstrom called the University Belt. I would duck into the church early in the morning, every day, and watch three priests silently hold mass: one at the main altar, and the other two at smaller corner altars.

There were few people, and those who were there were inattentive, like myself—but quiet. Probably in their thoughts, probably steeling themselves for the day ahead, like myself.

It would occur to me much later that those priests, celebrating strange, quiet masses (strange because they did not involve the audience), had their backs to the people—acting like the tip of a phalanx paying obeisance to a king. Today, the priest faces the people, a major change, I would later learn, credited to Vatican II.

While I now understand the sense behind the change, I was a child in love with the comfort of the old and the known. Later, I would miss the old mass and its many rituals. I missed the Latin—because I understood it. I had two years in San Carlos Boys’ High on Mango Avenue, Cebu, learning the language from stern SVD missionaries who saw corporal punishment as normal—and as frequently meted as prayers before meals.

Decades later, and no longer a Catholic, I had a chance to visit a church—I think it was to be godfather to a friend’s child—and I noticed the ceremony had undergone more changes. I was startled when the people next to me turned, smiled, and wished me peace. Quaint, I thought. But it should be a good change for them.

I see changes only because my contact with this old church is infrequent—as infrequent as decades apart. As it is when one sees an old friend or relative, one notices alterations in girth, expression, gait; and the longer the absence, the larger the changes noticed.

Now the winds of change this pope brings have not just flung open the leaden doors of his church—they’ve shaken its beams, rattled its furniture, and thrown open long-shuttered rooms. Francis has not been content to offer warmth or welcome alone. Francis did not trade in vagueness. He once remarked that “it is better to be atheist than hypocritical Catholic,” a line that must have burned in many pews.

He warned against “pagan Christians”—those who warm church benches on Sundays but spend the week in worship of money, power, and pride. ​

When he turned to economics, the language grew earthier still. Speaking in Bolivia, he quoted St. Basil the Great, “Money is the dung of the devil! When money becomes an idol, it rules over a person’s choices".

He believed that faith, if it was to be real, had to be palpable. He stated, “when the faith doesn’t reach the pocket, it is not a genuine faith.” 

It is a church I do not belong to. But it is the church of many in this country; it is the default church. While I wish him sturdiness of spirit and spine, I wish for more shaking. More noise. More movement. I pray for changes more frequent and more powerful than before. I pray they be palpable and mind-changing, so they may become country-changing.

UPDATE:

Francis has since passed. The tree he shook so forcefully will be looking for someone to tend to it. I hope his touch lingers in the branches.