I'm staying in Philadelphia when the Pope visits. In fact, I’m going to Mass on the Parkway. My neighbors think that I am crazy. In fact, one told me that she’s going to her sister’s place in the suburbs when she and her sister only get along for about a day. Now that’s crazy.
I was 6 months old the last time that a Pope visited Philadephia. Sure the Catholic Church in the United States was in better shape back then, but Iran was holding 52 Americans hostage and the Cold War wasn’t even over yet. More than a million gathered to hear Pope John Paul II preach what the Inquirer described as “straightforward Christian doctrine.”
If that was the Pope’s message then, who wouldn’t want to hear what the current wildly-progressive Pontiff has to say after swinging by a prison earlier that morning. Could he suggest that women become priests? Could he finally quit disparaging the homosexuals? Might he just reference his namesake and ask the Lord to make us an instrument of His peace? I could see Pope Francis continuing: “Where there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy.”
Couldn’t our city use all of that? I’d more than excited to wait around in a security zome for a few days to see if Pope Francis can help us do a little better.