Reflections on a Term at the Gregorian University

Those in attendance at my lecture included a leader from the Chemin Neuf community as well as the Associate Director of the Focolare Movement, Maria Wienken. Fr. Etienne Veto, S.J. invited us to dinner with one of the two Chemin Neuf houses in Rome. We spent a delightful evening over a fine meal, and with good fellowship. I have spoken several times for Chemin Neuf events, written articles for them, and appeared in a couple of videos they have made. As a special treat for us, they brought in Mrs. Julia Torres, an old friend of Pope Francis who had attended a meeting in 2016, where I spoke. She regaled us with stories about her years with Pope Francis in Argentina, which we thoroughly enjoyed.

Maria Wienken invited us to visit the headquarters of the Focolare Movement at Rocca di Papa for a day. Chiara Lubich founded Focolare in 1943, led by her reading of John 17:21. Today Focolare is a global reality, with over 140,000 members around the world. It is a movement of women and men, who volunteer their time to work for greater Christian unity. Their international headquarters and a large hotel and conference facility are in the hills outside of Rome. Popes have traditionally spent their summer holiday in this area at Castel Gandolfo, and the conference center across from Lake Albano is where Pope John XXIII used to hold his summer audiences. Pope John Paul II, however, donated the hall to the Focolare Movement, and today it is used for large conferences (up to 3000) among lay Catholics. We toured the grounds, and enjoyed a very nice lunch. A large conference was dismissing at that moment, but it was not difficult to see the joy on the faces of the thousand or so guests, who had come to worship and learn together. We spent a good part of the afternoon engaging with their leadership hearing the history of Focolare and discussing the challenges related to Christian unity.

The Easter season is an amazing time to be in Rome. Churches throughout the city are full of worshippers day after day. From Palm Sunday through the first week following Easter, there are many services and celebrations. We began that time at the church in the Irish College. People carried olive branches as they entered the church that morning. I was surprised to find one of my students leading worship, preaching, and celebrating the Eucharist that morning. Throughout the week, Patsy and I attended about half a dozen services. One of these was at the Church of the Four Martyrs, the home of an Augustinian convent. Much of this Maundy Thursday service was conducted in the dark and all in Italian. The bishop proceeded to wash the feet of about a dozen people, one of whom was a Brazilian student from the Lay Centre. At the end, we each received a candle and proceeded to walk together in a slow procession outside, around a central colonnade in back into the church, where we laid our candles on the altar and then left. The Roman tradition is to visit seven churches following that Mass, saying prayers in each of them.

The time between Good Friday and Easter is called the Triduum, a period of three-days dedicated to prayer. It seemed as though the population of Rome took this period very seriously. On Good Friday evening, Pope Francis led a huge crowd through the Stations of the Cross at the Coliseum. By that time, we were exhausted, but we could hear his voice on loud speakers because we were so close to the Coliseum. Many, but not all stores were closed during these days. We celebrated Easter at the Irish College church, largely because it was near the Lay Centre. It was a very nice service in which the priest lifted up the risen Lord Jesus and the congregation celebrated the resurrection with enthusiasm.

The university hosts many conferences. Most of them are free to whoever can gain entrance. A young Chinese woman at the Lay Centre told us that a conference on Christianity in China would begin the next day. Patsy and I decided we would attend two afternoon lectures. I was surprised to find Dr. Kim-Kwong Chan, an old friend and a specialist on the Church in China, serving as chair of the two lectures we attended. We had a very nice visit with Dr. Chan during the break, and promised to remain in contact with each other. The first lecture was on how to count Christians in China. The Chinese government purposely report low numbers, while Christian organizations estimate high numbers, each for its own constituencies. The first speaker was a social scientist who has introduced new questions into census material in several provinces. His findings demonstrate that the true numbers lie somewhere in the middle, between 40-50 million people. The second speaker explained how the alignment of the poor with Christian missionaries, in part through their treatment of various illnesses with western medications, but often including opium, led to the charge that their medications were addictive, making the people subject to these Western “spies”. Such claims allowed the upper classes to popularize an anti-western ideological position that ultimately gave rise to Mao Tse Tung and a takeover of the country by the Communists.

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Category: Ministry, Spring 2018