{"id":6696,"date":"2025-04-22T15:29:32","date_gmt":"2025-04-22T07:29:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/world.350.org\/philippines\/?p=6696"},"modified":"2025-04-24T19:03:38","modified_gmt":"2025-04-24T11:03:38","slug":"the-pope-who-spoke-my-language","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/world.350.org\/philippines\/the-pope-who-spoke-my-language\/","title":{"rendered":"The Pope Who Spoke My Language"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"35db\" class=\"pw-post-body-paragraph mf mg gx mh b mi mj mk ml mm mn mo mp mq mr ms mt mu mv mw mx my mz na nb nc gq bk\" data-selectable-paragraph=\"\"><strong>Chuck Baclagon<\/strong><br \/>\nBy all accounts,\u00a0<strong class=\"mh gy\">Pope Francis had impeccable timing<\/strong>. He passed from this world on the eve of Earth Day \u2014 a date freighted with symbolism, a secular feast day for the sacred theme that defined much of his pontificate:\u00a0<strong class=\"mh gy\">the care for our common home<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p id=\"0740\" class=\"pw-post-body-paragraph mf mg gx mh b mi mj mk ml mm mn mo mp mq mr ms mt mu mv mw mx my mz na nb nc gq bk\" data-selectable-paragraph=\"\">It was the kind of divine choreography that Francis himself might\u2019ve winked at \u2014 a reminder perhaps, that the Spirit has a sense of irony, or at least, a schedule.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_6697\" style=\"width: 1034px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/world.350.org\/philippines\/files\/2025\/04\/Screenshot-2025-04-22-at-3.27.21\u202fPM.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-6697\" class=\"size-large wp-image-6697\" src=\"https:\/\/world.350.org\/philippines\/files\/2025\/04\/Screenshot-2025-04-22-at-3.27.21\u202fPM-1024x619.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"619\" srcset=\"https:\/\/world.350.org\/philippines\/files\/2025\/04\/Screenshot-2025-04-22-at-3.27.21\u202fPM-1024x619.png 1024w, https:\/\/world.350.org\/philippines\/files\/2025\/04\/Screenshot-2025-04-22-at-3.27.21\u202fPM-496x300.png 496w, https:\/\/world.350.org\/philippines\/files\/2025\/04\/Screenshot-2025-04-22-at-3.27.21\u202fPM-768x464.png 768w, https:\/\/world.350.org\/philippines\/files\/2025\/04\/Screenshot-2025-04-22-at-3.27.21\u202fPM-430x260.png 430w, https:\/\/world.350.org\/philippines\/files\/2025\/04\/Screenshot-2025-04-22-at-3.27.21\u202fPM-20x12.png 20w, https:\/\/world.350.org\/philippines\/files\/2025\/04\/Screenshot-2025-04-22-at-3.27.21\u202fPM-1280x774.png 1280w, https:\/\/world.350.org\/philippines\/files\/2025\/04\/Screenshot-2025-04-22-at-3.27.21\u202fPM.png 1356w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-6697\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Pope Francis, cloaked in a yellow raincoat, stands resolute beneath stormy skies in Tacloban \u2014 offering Mass amid wind and rain, a shepherd among the suffering.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h1 id=\"399a\" class=\"nv nw gx bf nx ny nz oa ob oc od oe of og oh oi oj ok ol om on oo op oq or os bk\" data-selectable-paragraph=\"\">A Faith That Lingered When Mine Was Fractured<\/h1>\n<p id=\"6773\" class=\"pw-post-body-paragraph mf mg gx mh b mi ot mk ml mm ou mo mp mq ov ms mt mu ow mw mx my ox na nb nc gq bk\" data-selectable-paragraph=\"\">When Francis became pope, I was drifting through a quiet crisis of faith. I had long left evangelicalism, unable to reconcile its narrowness with the wideness of Christ. I wasn\u2019t sure where I belonged anymore. And then came Francis.<\/p>\n<p id=\"b413\" class=\"pw-post-body-paragraph mf mg gx mh b mi mj mk ml mm mn mo mp mq mr ms mt mu mv mw mx my mz na nb nc gq bk\" data-selectable-paragraph=\"\">He spoke of grace in a register I hadn\u2019t heard in years. He wept over the poor, thundered against the greed of the powerful, and \u2014 shockingly \u2014\u00a0<strong class=\"mh gy\">blessed the Earth like a sacrament<\/strong>. And even before his now-famous encyclical\u00a0<em class=\"oy\">Laudato Si\u2019<\/em>\u00a0came out, his words were already working their way into my bones.<\/p>\n<p id=\"54da\" class=\"pw-post-body-paragraph mf mg gx mh b mi mj mk ml mm mn mo mp mq mr ms mt mu mv mw mx my mz na nb nc gq bk\" data-selectable-paragraph=\"\">And yet, my belief never quite landed anywhere, really. I still live in that unsettled space between reverence and doubt, where faith is less a doctrine than a direction. What I\u2019ve clung to \u2014 maybe the only thing I\u2019ve truly trusted \u2014 is the belief that life is a struggle for justice in the world and for wholeness within the self. Pope Francis didn\u2019t give me certainty \u2014 but he gave me a language for that struggle.<\/p>\n<h1 id=\"399a\" class=\"nv nw gx bf nx ny nz oa ob oc od oe of og oh oi oj ok ol om on oo op oq or os bk\" data-selectable-paragraph=\"\">A Faith That Lingered When Mine Was Fractured<\/h1>\n<p id=\"6773\" class=\"pw-post-body-paragraph mf mg gx mh b mi ot mk ml mm ou mo mp mq ov ms mt mu ow mw mx my ox na nb nc gq bk\" data-selectable-paragraph=\"\">When Francis became pope, I was drifting through a quiet crisis of faith. I had long left evangelicalism, unable to reconcile its narrowness with the wideness of Christ. I wasn\u2019t sure where I belonged anymore. And then came Francis.<\/p>\n<p id=\"b413\" class=\"pw-post-body-paragraph mf mg gx mh b mi mj mk ml mm mn mo mp mq mr ms mt mu mv mw mx my mz na nb nc gq bk\" data-selectable-paragraph=\"\">He spoke of grace in a register I hadn\u2019t heard in years. He wept over the poor, thundered against the greed of the powerful, and \u2014 shockingly \u2014\u00a0<strong class=\"mh gy\">blessed the Earth like a sacrament<\/strong>. And even before his now-famous encyclical\u00a0<em class=\"oy\">Laudato Si\u2019<\/em>\u00a0came out, his words were already working their way into my bones.<\/p>\n<p id=\"54da\" class=\"pw-post-body-paragraph mf mg gx mh b mi mj mk ml mm mn mo mp mq mr ms mt mu mv mw mx my mz na nb nc gq bk\" data-selectable-paragraph=\"\">And yet, my belief never quite landed anywhere, really. I still live in that unsettled space between reverence and doubt, where faith is less a doctrine than a direction. What I\u2019ve clung to \u2014 maybe the only thing I\u2019ve truly trusted \u2014 is the belief that life is a struggle for justice in the world and for wholeness within the self. Pope Francis didn\u2019t give me certainty \u2014 but he gave me a language for that struggle.<\/p>\n<p id=\"9f36\" class=\"pw-post-body-paragraph mf mg gx mh b mi mj mk ml mm mn mo mp mq mr ms mt mu mv mw mx my mz na nb nc gq bk\" data-selectable-paragraph=\"\"><a class=\"ag ir\" href=\"https:\/\/world.350.org\/philippines\/may-pope-francis-light-the-way\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener ugc nofollow\">I remember the first action I ever coordinated with 350.org<\/a>. It was tied to his 2015 visit to the Philippines, months before\u00a0<em class=\"oy\">Laudato Si\u2019<\/em>\u00a0would be published. He chose to celebrate Mass in Tacloban, ground zero for Typhoon Haiyan\u2019s devastation. Rain slashed the runway. The sky wept. And there stood this gentle old man in white, clutching his wind-blown cape, holding liturgy for the lost.<\/p>\n<p id=\"a510\" class=\"pw-post-body-paragraph mf mg gx mh b mi mj mk ml mm mn mo mp mq mr ms mt mu mv mw mx my mz na nb nc gq bk\" data-selectable-paragraph=\"\">That image has stayed with me. In that moment, I didn\u2019t see just the head of the Catholic Church \u2014 I saw someone trying, in his own way, to show up for a broken world.<\/p>\n<h1 id=\"87c2\" class=\"nv nw gx bf nx ny nz oa ob oc od oe of og oh oi oj ok ol om on oo op oq or os bk\" data-selectable-paragraph=\"\">The Prophet Who Named the Idols<\/h1>\n<p id=\"26f7\" class=\"pw-post-body-paragraph mf mg gx mh b mi ot mk ml mm ou mo mp mq ov ms mt mu ow mw mx my ox na nb nc gq bk\" data-selectable-paragraph=\"\">Francis did something few religious leaders dared: he\u00a0<strong class=\"mh gy\">called out the gods of our age<\/strong>\u00a0\u2014 unfettered capitalism, technological hubris, consumerism dressed as freedom.\u00a0<em class=\"oy\">\u201cThe earth, our home,\u201d<\/em>\u00a0he wrote in\u00a0<em class=\"oy\">Laudato Si\u2019<\/em>,\u00a0<em class=\"oy\">\u201cis beginning to look more and more like an immense pile of filth.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p id=\"9445\" class=\"pw-post-body-paragraph mf mg gx mh b mi mj mk ml mm mn mo mp mq mr ms mt mu mv mw mx my mz na nb nc gq bk\" data-selectable-paragraph=\"\">And yet, his message was never doom. He was a practitioner of what I would call\u00a0<strong class=\"mh gy\">resurrected realism<\/strong>\u00a0\u2014 fully awake to collapse, yet clinging to hope. In\u00a0<em class=\"oy\">Laudate Deum<\/em>, his final climate exhortation, he warned that\u00a0<em class=\"oy\">\u201cthe world may be nearing the breaking point,\u201d<\/em>\u00a0but urged multilateral, justice-rooted action. This was not hand-wringing. This was\u00a0<strong class=\"mh gy\">faith with its sleeves rolled up<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p id=\"832a\" class=\"pw-post-body-paragraph mf mg gx mh b mi mj mk ml mm mn mo mp mq mr ms mt mu mv mw mx my mz na nb nc gq bk\" data-selectable-paragraph=\"\">As an activist, I drew strength from this. Because while Francis sat on Peter\u2019s chair, he was also\u00a0<strong class=\"mh gy\">walking beside us in the streets<\/strong>, calling investors to divest from fossil fuels, praising bishops and laypeople who dared to step away from extractive wealth. His words armed our movements with theological firepower. He made it clear:\u00a0<strong class=\"mh gy\">what we fund reveals who we worship<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_6700\" style=\"width: 1034px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/world.350.org\/philippines\/files\/2025\/04\/Screenshot-2025-04-22-at-3.29.57\u202fPM.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-6700\" class=\"size-large wp-image-6700\" src=\"https:\/\/world.350.org\/philippines\/files\/2025\/04\/Screenshot-2025-04-22-at-3.29.57\u202fPM-1024x680.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"680\" srcset=\"https:\/\/world.350.org\/philippines\/files\/2025\/04\/Screenshot-2025-04-22-at-3.29.57\u202fPM-1024x680.png 1024w, https:\/\/world.350.org\/philippines\/files\/2025\/04\/Screenshot-2025-04-22-at-3.29.57\u202fPM-452x300.png 452w, https:\/\/world.350.org\/philippines\/files\/2025\/04\/Screenshot-2025-04-22-at-3.29.57\u202fPM-768x510.png 768w, https:\/\/world.350.org\/philippines\/files\/2025\/04\/Screenshot-2025-04-22-at-3.29.57\u202fPM-430x285.png 430w, https:\/\/world.350.org\/philippines\/files\/2025\/04\/Screenshot-2025-04-22-at-3.29.57\u202fPM-20x13.png 20w, https:\/\/world.350.org\/philippines\/files\/2025\/04\/Screenshot-2025-04-22-at-3.29.57\u202fPM-1205x800.png 1205w, https:\/\/world.350.org\/philippines\/files\/2025\/04\/Screenshot-2025-04-22-at-3.29.57\u202fPM.png 1362w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-6700\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Faith groups and climate activists held a candlelight vigil at Bantayog ng mga Bayani, urging Pope Francis to lead on climate by divesting the Vatican Bank ahead of his visit to the Philippines. Photo: LJ Pasion<\/p><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h1 id=\"0e78\" class=\"nv nw gx bf nx ny nz oa ob oc od oe of og oh oi oj ok ol om on oo op oq or os bk\" data-selectable-paragraph=\"\">A Table Wider Than Dogma<\/h1>\n<p id=\"67a6\" class=\"pw-post-body-paragraph mf mg gx mh b mi ot mk ml mm ou mo mp mq ov ms mt mu ow mw mx my ox na nb nc gq bk\" data-selectable-paragraph=\"\">Francis also opened the Church\u2019s heavy doors a little wider. I still recall the astonishment in the voices around me when he said:\u00a0<em class=\"oy\">\u201cWho am I to judge?\u201d<\/em>\u00a0about LGBTQI persons. It wasn\u2019t policy change \u2014 but it was a\u00a0<strong class=\"mh gy\">gesture of welcome<\/strong>, an echo of Christ stooping to draw in the sand.<\/p>\n<p id=\"8e09\" class=\"pw-post-body-paragraph mf mg gx mh b mi mj mk ml mm mn mo mp mq mr ms mt mu mv mw mx my mz na nb nc gq bk\" data-selectable-paragraph=\"\">In time, he blessed same-sex couples, called for the decriminalization of homosexuality, and affirmed trans Catholics with quiet dignity. It wasn\u2019t doctrinal revolution. But it was\u00a0<strong class=\"mh gy\">a revolution in tone, posture, and heart<\/strong>\u00a0\u2014 and that matters, especially to those long exiled from the fold.<\/p>\n<p id=\"0424\" class=\"pw-post-body-paragraph mf mg gx mh b mi mj mk ml mm mn mo mp mq mr ms mt mu mv mw mx my mz na nb nc gq bk\" data-selectable-paragraph=\"\">He took sides, too. Not in the easy way of politics, but in the way of the Beatitudes. He grieved with \u201cmartyred Gaza\u201d and \u201cmartyred Ukraine.\u201d He named occupation, militarism, and the machinery of death for what they are.<\/p>\n<p id=\"bc1b\" class=\"pw-post-body-paragraph mf mg gx mh b mi mj mk ml mm mn mo mp mq mr ms mt mu mv mw mx my mz na nb nc gq bk\" data-selectable-paragraph=\"\">When bombs fell on Palestinian homes and children became rubble-statistics, he didn\u2019t look away. He called for ceasefires, for peace built on dignity, not domination.<\/p>\n<p id=\"a087\" class=\"pw-post-body-paragraph mf mg gx mh b mi mj mk ml mm mn mo mp mq mr ms mt mu mv mw mx my mz na nb nc gq bk\" data-selectable-paragraph=\"\">It was a stark contrast to the deafening silence \u2014 or worse, the theological justifications \u2014 offered by many American evangelicals, whose dispensationalist theology saw the suffering in Gaza not as a moral outrage, but as a necessary prelude to prophecy. Where their gospel bent toward empire and end-times spectacle, Francis\u2019 gospel leaned low, toward the wounded. Toward the ones forgotten by history, but not, it seemed, by the divine.<\/p>\n<h1 id=\"2ec6\" class=\"nv nw gx bf nx ny nz oa ob oc od oe of og oh oi oj ok ol om on oo op oq or os bk\" data-selectable-paragraph=\"\">Francis, My Accidental Spiritual Director<\/h1>\n<p id=\"8527\" class=\"pw-post-body-paragraph mf mg gx mh b mi ot mk ml mm ou mo mp mq ov ms mt mu ow mw mx my ox na nb nc gq bk\" data-selectable-paragraph=\"\">What I loved most about Pope Francis is that he never claimed moral high ground. He preferred the margins. He believed God speaks from there. And that conviction has shaped the very way I move through the world \u2014\u00a0<strong class=\"mh gy\">not just as an activist, but as a person of flimsy faith still searching for home<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p id=\"3384\" class=\"pw-post-body-paragraph mf mg gx mh b mi mj mk ml mm mn mo mp mq mr ms mt mu mv mw mx my mz na nb nc gq bk\" data-selectable-paragraph=\"\">He once said,\u00a0<em class=\"oy\">\u201cGod loves us as we are.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0Not as we should be. Not as our campaigns perform. Not as our credentials pretend. But as we are. That single sentence offered me more stability than a thousand dogmas.<\/p>\n<p id=\"cbd4\" class=\"pw-post-body-paragraph mf mg gx mh b mi mj mk ml mm mn mo mp mq mr ms mt mu mv mw mx my mz na nb nc gq bk\" data-selectable-paragraph=\"\">So here we are. The Pope is gone. The Earth is still groaning. But somewhere between the storm-battered Mass in Tacloban and the pages of\u00a0<em class=\"oy\">Laudato Si\u2019<\/em>, a seed was planted in me. It continues to grow.<\/p>\n<p id=\"b5a1\" class=\"pw-post-body-paragraph mf mg gx mh b mi mj mk ml mm mn mo mp mq mr ms mt mu mv mw mx my mz na nb nc gq bk\" data-selectable-paragraph=\"\">At a time when my own language of grace had fallen silent, his words offered a kind of echo \u2014 a reminder that to care for the Earth is, perhaps, to care for something sacred, whatever name we give it.<\/p>\n<p id=\"87a2\" class=\"pw-post-body-paragraph mf mg gx mh b mi mj mk ml mm mn mo mp mq mr ms mt mu mv mw mx my mz na nb nc gq bk\" data-selectable-paragraph=\"\">Even in death, he leaves us with a kind of timing that feels less like coincidence and more like a final benediction.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"ng nh ni nj nk nl nd ne paragraph-image\">\n<div class=\"nm nn fm no bh np\" tabindex=\"0\" role=\"button\"><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At a time when my own language of grace had fallen silent, his words offered a kind of echo \u2014 a reminder that to care for the Earth is, perhaps, to care for something sacred, whatever name we give it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1187,"featured_media":6700,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - 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