Beyond Politics, There Is Real Joy

I ’m confident that the highlight of Pope Francis’s recent meeting with members of the Papal Foundation at the Vatican was a little foster boy named Noah. Fresh off his baptism into the Catholic Church, he and his soon-to-be forever family were invited to join the pilgrimage of members of the charitable organization that responds to the pope’s desires for meeting urgent needs in the world. Right now, that includes Ukraine, so he offered his thanks to members of the Papal Foundation, which gives at least $1 million for the pope’s charitable use.

The foundation has not been without scandal, having been previously led by two bishops who turned out to be better friends of evil than God — one of them the notorious Theodore McCarrick, no longer a priest. I was actually a guest at a Papal Foundation dinner years ago where McCarrick talked about how Roe v. Wade wouldn’t be ending in our lifetimes — urging us, as I recall, to give up the fight. Mercifully, that might not be true at all, as we await the Supreme Court’s decision in the Mississippi case now before it, as we watch more states decide for themselves to protect unborn human life.

In his brief remarks, Pope Francis focused on the heart of the Foundation’s pilgrimage — Easter, the life of Christ in the world and for eternity. When we look at so many crises in the world — and in our own lives and the lives of our families and others close to us — it is so easy to be tempted to despair. Suicide is on the rise, especially among young people. Headlines tell of a mental-health crisis and a rising level of depression, though we really have no idea how many are suffering from these. It has all been exacerbated by Covid. The shutdowns and the social-distancing isolation, albeit often born of the best of intentions, have always sounded to me as exactly what the Devil would want: humans isolated from one another.

Pope Francis said:

As we celebrate the Lord’s victory over sin and death and his gift of new life in this holy season of Easter, it is my hope that the joy of the resurrection will always fill your hearts, and that your visit to the tombs of the apostles and martyrs will enhance your fidelity to the Lord and his Church.

One doesn’t even have to go to Rome to find the tomb of saints and martyrs. Just a few hours from New York City are the grounds where Jesuit martyrs were killed for giving all they had to give for God and sharing Him with others. You don’t have to leave the City, though, to encounter a holy one. Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini’s earthly remains are at a shrine dedicated to her near the George Washington Bridge, where the missionary from Italy — known as the patron saint of immigrants — once lived.

At a conference where we both spoke a few years ago, Los Angeles’s Archbishop Jose Gomez said of Dorothy Day, the social activist and apostle of hospitality: “I don’t know if she’s a saint, but I know she makes me want to be one.” She’s on Staten Island — and recently, New York City even named one of the ferries after her. You can map out quite the pilgrimage if you want to around the United States — Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton in Emmitsburg, or Blessed Solanus Casey, another witness of Christian hospitality, in Detroit. The list goes on. One makes a pilgrimage as a reminder that being holy in the world is possible, and it’s not about being righteously indignant on Twitter, but about living the Beatitudes. Dorothy Day is known as radical. But the most important aspect of that was not her politics; it was her perseverant prayer to live the love that Christ showed on the cross.

Little Noah in a little suit in the Clementine Hall in the Vatican was a living icon of the reality of Easter. The Bible tells Christians to be childlike. Noah’s soon-to-be forever family is a couple who longed for children. But without that gift, they gave by service to the Church, which included a lot of travel. Covid, of course, slowed things down — it also made possible the miracle of their first encounter with Noah at a neighbor’s home.

In the year that Noah has been with John and Kristin, he has been on the road, and he is joy to everyone he meets. He is this beacon of the love of God. His early life was not anything a baby should have to face, and yet many do. Given the circumstances, he really shouldn’t be alive. And yet, despite everything, today he lives as an encounter with hope. I’m biased — Noah is my godson — but holding him in your arms is like holding the Baby Jesus. Noah is no longer an infant; he’s moving toward his toddler stage, but if Christianity is to believed, Jesus was a toddler and innocents have the touch of the Divine.

I don’t know what was going through the mind of Pope Francis walking into the hall to meet with the Papal Foundation. There’s reason to believe that wealthy Catholics, and many of them from the United States, aren’t his favorite people to hang out with. And yet, I wonder whether seeing Noah reminded him of why we are here. To love. And what is better than a joyful child to remind us of that and to make us want to love and believe joy is possible — and the best way to live?

On Easter Tuesday morning, after his baptism at the parish church of Mission San Juan Capistrano founded by St. Junipero Serra in Orange County, Calif., Noah was — amazingly — all smiles and giggles. (I needed caffeine to deal with the time difference!) There is no reason to believe, of course, that he knew what we were doing with all those people smiling at him at church, but goodness, his demeanor sure reflected the rejoicing that Easter and the life of Christianity ought to be if Christians really believe it is all true! (And what’s the point if it’s not?) And how the world might come to love God if we showed a little of Noah’s uncontrollable joy that day. Pope Francis talks about the joy of the Gospel a lot — incessantly, even. As he was leaving his meeting with the Papal Foundation and friends, he gave an enthusiastic smile and wave to little Noah. He was acknowledging the beauty of the pure heart of a child. And one, in Noah’s case, who has experienced resurrection in more than one way already.

This column is based on one available through Andrews McMeel Universal’s Newspaper Enterprise Association.