I’m with Pope Francis: silence as imitation of Christ when facing discord, hatred, division

2068 words, 11 min read

The Viganò claims have been investigated and commented on extensively,¹ as has Pope Francis’ response of silence to them. Instead of adding a voice to the already rich and plentiful landscape, I would here like to look at Pope Francis’ response to Viganò in terms of the potential that it has to serve as an example to me personally.

First, let’s take a look at what Francis said, when asked about Viganò’s allegations aboard his return flight from Ireland around ten days ago, which were published that same day, on the morning of the second day of his two-day visit there:

“I read the statement this morning.  I read it and sincerely I must tell you, and all those who are interested: read it yourselves carefully and make your own judgment.  I will not say a single word on this.  I believe the memo speaks for itself, and you are capable enough as journalists to draw your own conclusions.  This is an act of trust: when some time has passed and you have drawn conclusions, perhaps I will speak.  But I ask that you use your professional maturity in doing this: it will do you good, really. That is enough for now.”

Having read the 11-page “statement” earlier that day, I immediately got Pope Francis’ refusal to engage with that vague, handwaving rant, which plainly was a coordinated attack by his ideological opponents.² If he had responded to it as if it were a serious claim, he would have given it a level of credence that it did not merit and he would have made himself part of an irrational argument (the likes of which are hard won, given the ingenuity of those who tend to weave them - see also Viganò’s repeated “yes, buts” after the initial statement, as it gave way to scrutiny³). What is also noteworthy here is Pope Francis’ invitation to the journalistic community to be the one who weighs up Viganò’s claims - a smart move that demonstrates openness, which is crucial in this context, where it has been the Church’s internal coverups that have fuelled unspeakable suffering and damage. The invitation was accepted broadly and now, just over a week later, there seems to be little doubt that Viganò’s central claims of Pope Francis being involved in a coverup are false.⁴

On Monday this week (i.e., a week after the story broke), Pope Francis then gave a homily at the Santa Marta, the Vatican guest house where he stays, that provided a glimpse into the basis on which he chose to respond to Viganò’s statement with silence. He reflected on the Gospel of the day from Luke (4:16-30), where Jesus’s return to Nazareth and preaching in its synagogue is met with opposition when he comments on a passage from the prophet Isaiah and where he identifies himself with the promises it made. There, Jesus’ response to his critics is one of silence:

“When Jesus arrived at the synagogue, he aroused curiosity. Everyone wanted to see the person they had heard was working miracles in other places. Instead of satisfying their curiosity, the Son of the Heavenly Father uses only the Word of God, an attitude that he adopts also when he wants to defeat the Devil. And it is precisely this approach of humility that leaves space for the first “word-bridge”, a word that sows the seeds of doubt, that brings about a change of atmosphere from peace to war, from amazement to fury.

They weren’t people, but a pack of wild dogs instead that drove him out of the city. They did not reason, they shouted. Jesus was silent. They took him to the brow of a mountain to throw him off it.

This passage of the Gospel ends like this: ‘But he passed through the midst of them and went away’. The dignity of Jesus: with his silence he defeats the wild pack and walks away. Because the hour had not yet arrived. The same then happens on Good Friday: the people who on Palm Sunday had cheered for Jesus and had called to him ‘Blessed are You, Son of David’, then said ’crucify him’: they had changed. The devil had sown a lie into their heart, and Jesus was silent.

This teaches us that when there is such a way of acting, of not seeing the truth, what remains is silence.

It is silence that wins, but through the Cross. The silence of Jesus. How many times do arguments about politics, sport, money flare up in families and those families end up destroyed in these discussions where we see that the devil, who wants to destroy, is there ...

Silence. Say your piece and then keep quiet. Because the truth is gentle, the truth is quiet, the truth is not noisy. It is not easy, what Jesus did; but there is the dignity of the Christian who is anchored in the power of God. With people who do not have good will, with people who seek only scandal, who seek only division, who seek only destruction, even in families: silence. And prayer.

May the Lord give us the grace to discern when we must speak and when we must stay silent. This applies to every part of life: to work, at home, in society … in all of life. Thus we will be closer imitators of Jesus.”

Unsurprisingly, it turns out that keeping quiet in the face of unjustified accusations was not just some clever tactic, but part of Francis’ desire to imitate Jesus - i.e., to live as a Christian. But, let’s be quite specific here about what he did and what constitutes an imitation of Christ - silence in the face if unjust accusations, of arguments “[w]ith people who do not have good will, with people who seek only scandal, who seek only division, who seek only destruction.” What Francis is not saying, and what his opponents have attributed to him, is to keep quiet in the face of harm, injustice, abuse or to cover up such sins and crimes. Instead, his, and Jesus’ advice and example are about how to respond to attempts at sowing discord, hatred, opposition.

As some commentators have already pointed out, Francis’ attitude has deeper roots still, going back to a period in his life during the late 1980s when he was “exiled” from his role among the Jesuits, following false allegations that he was complicit in the Argentine dictatorship’s crimes. Writing in 1990, in an article entitled “Silence and Word”, Francis roots his response to the situation he was living in the example given my Mary, Jesus’ mother and his first and greatest disciple:

“The Gospels present Our Lady as keeping silence, meditating all things in her heart. The strongest thing about her is her silence. We contemplate the image of Mary, the Undoer of knots. Her hands are undoing a ‘mess’, a tangle that would just be made worse by anyone who’d try to fix it. What does she undo? Why does she undo it? Irenaeus of Lyons explains: “the knot of Eve’s disobedience was undone by the obedience of Mary; what the virgin Eve tied by unbelief, the Virgin Mary untied by faith”. A mess set into the thread of the life of men and of peoples, due to these two things: disobedience and incredulity. That is what Mary undoes ... and she does it with the hands of obedience and faith. The mess is rigged up by us ... it does not come from outside. In one way or another we all contribute to its entangling. I do not care so much about knots. I worry that we want to undo them ourselves by our own strength or ability. Sometimes, when a hive of knots becomes evident, it is already well entangled. Those who intend to undo the knots by themselves cannot, and entangle themselves even more. In addition to the knots there begins a confusion born of one’s own sufficiency: the Tower of Babel is repeated, and in the heart of each distinct language, war already nests, and -behind the war- the murderous cainism of the brother. And if we project the situation ahead and let it grow by itself, we are left with one more step: the sufficiency of the Giants who set themselves up as ‘supermen’ with their own project instead of God’s: it sets the “type” of all human pretensions of taking on the role of doers and sovereigns, and all their aspirations to turn themselves into supermen; and then, finally, the flood. All this is born of the virgin Eve, of her disobedience and her unbelief; and all this is what Mary undoes with her faith and obedience. No one is alien to this ‘mess’, “all sinned in Adam.” It is the moment in which one wants to consolidate one’s own project instead of God’s project. It is a matter of insolent curiosity, of indiscreet audacity, characteristic of all sin.”

Silence here is an expression of faith, of trust in God, a self-emptying, self-abandoning into God’s hands. Mary here is in a position to undo messes and entanglements, not because of any particular powers of her own, but of her supreme strength, which is her letting God act in her life. By turning to her, I invite God into my life and make space for him to act in me and through me, instead of placing myself at the centre and (wrongly) considering my own abilities and capacities as sufficient. Silence here is a “making space” for God. It is a taking away of oxygen from war, from selfishness and from delusion.

Later on in the same text, Francis speaks about the effects of such silence, drawing on the same Gospel passage as in his homily last Monday:

“It is an example to see how he acts in the Synagogue of Nazareth, when a great scandal is provoked and they want to throw Jesus down. Jesus forces [the devil] to ‘show himself’, ‘he lets him come’. In times of darkness and much tribulation, when the ‘messes’ and the ‘knots’ cannot be unraveled and things cannot be clarified, then we must remain silent: the meekness of silence will make us appear even weaker, and it will be the same devil who, emboldened, will manifest himself in the light, who will show his real intentions, no longer disguised as an angel of light but openly. Resist him in silence, “hold your ground” but with the attitude of Jesus himself.”

Finally, Francis returns to Mary as her to whom to rush in times of trial, suspicion, in-fighting ...

“In the silence of a situation that is a cross we are only asked to protect the wheat, and not to go about tearing up little weeds. On the roof of the Domestic Chapel of the Residence of the Company in Córdoba there is an image. There the Novice Brothers are under the mantle of Mary, protected; and below is written: “Monstra te esse matrem”. In times of spiritual turbulence, when God wants to fight Him, our place is under the mantle of the Holy Mother of God. This was understood already by ancient Russian spirituality when it advised, in such circumstances, to protect oneself under the Pokrov Presviatoi Bogoroditsy (the mantle of the Blessed Mother of God). Cry out to the Mother; tell Jesus what the woman of the Gospel said: “Blessed is the womb that carried you and the breasts at which you nursed”, and Mary will be present, because “[o]ne could say that the words of that unknown woman in a way brought Mary out of her hiddenness”.”

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¹ As of today (7th September 2018), I think one of the clearest accounts of their veracity is Greg Daly’s at The Irish Catholic.
² It should be needless to say the following, but given the delicacy and gravity of the matter, I will say it anyway: I am here talking solely about Viganò’s statement and not about the extraordinarily grave and serious matter of sexual abuse about which it makes allegations. The former is the noise of a fly while the latter merits all attention, serious engagement, rectification and prevention. And just like a fly in a burning house, the former is to be ignored while the latter is urgently and fully to be to attended to.
³ E.g., see here and here.
⁴ See, e.g., the Guardian.