The Catholic Leader - 22 April

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28 Humans of the Church
The Catholic Leader, April 22, 2018
AFTER circling a massive, crum-
bling public housing complex on
the outskirts of Rome, Pope Francis
had an emotional encounter with the
neighbourhood’s children.
Question-and-answer sessions with youngsters
are a standard part of Pope Francis’ parish visits.
And, at St Paul of the Cross parish on April
15, there were the usual questions like, “How did
you feel when you were elected pope?”
But then it was Emanuele’s turn.
The young boy smiled at the pope as he ap-
proached the microphone.
But then froze. “I can’t do it,” Emanuele said.
Monsignor Leonardo Sapienza, a papal aide,
encouraged the boy, but he kept saying, “I
can’t.”
“Come, come to me, Emanuele,” the Pope
said.
“Come and whisper it in my ear.”
Msgr Sapienza helped the boy up to the plat-
form where the Pope was seated.
Emanuele was sobbing by that point, and Pope
Francis enveloped him in a big embrace, patting
his head and speaking softly to him.
With their heads touching, the Pope and the
boy spoke privately to each other before Ema-
nuele returned to his seat.
“If only we could all cry like Emanuele when
we have an ache in our hearts like he has,” the
Pope told the children.
“He was crying for his father and had the
courage to do it in front of us because in his
heart there is love for his father.”
Pope Francis said he had asked Emanuele if
he could share the boy’s question and the boy
agreed.
Emanuele asked: “A little while ago my
father passed away. He was a non-believer, but
he had all four of his children baptised. He was a
good man. Is dad in heaven?’”
“How beautiful to hear a son say of his father,
‘He was good,’” the Pope told the children.
“And what a beautiful witness of a son who
inherited the strength of his father, who had the
courage to cry in front of all of us. If that man
was able to make his children like that, then it’s
true, he was a good man. He was a good man.
“That man did not have the gift of faith, he
wasn’t a believer, but he had his children bap-
tised. He had a good heart,” Pope Francis said.
“God is the one who says who goes to
heaven.”
The next step in answering Emanuele’s ques-
tion, he said, would be to think about what God
is like and, especially, what kind of heart God
has.
“What do you think? A father’s heart. God
has a dad’s heart. And with a dad who was not a
believer, but who baptised his children and gave
them that bravura, do you think God would be
able to leave him far from himself?”
“Does God abandon his children?” the Pope
asked.
Crying boy asks Pope if his non-believing dad could be in paradise
‘Is my dad in heaven?’
“Does God abandon his children when they
are good?”
The children shouted, “No.”
“There, Emanuele, that is the answer,” the
Pope told the boy.
“God surely was proud of your father,
because it is easier as a believer to baptise your
children than to baptise them when you are not a
believer. Surely this pleased God very much.”
Pope Francis encouraged Emanuele to “talk to
your dad; pray to your dad.”
Earlier, a young girl named Carlotta also asked
the pope a delicate question: “When we are bap-
tised, we become children of God. People who
aren’t baptised, are they not children of God?”
“What does your heart tell you?” the Pope
asked Carlotta.
She said, they were too.
“Right, and I’ll explain,” the Pope told her.
“We are all children of God. Everyone. Eve-
ryone.”
The non-baptised, members of other religions,
those who worship idols, “even the mafiosi,”
who terrorise the neighbourhood around the par-
ish, are children of God, though “they prefer to
behave like children of the devil,” he said.
“God created everyone, loves everyone and
put in everyone’s heart a conscience so they
would recognise what is good and distinguish it
from what is bad,” the Pope said.
The difference, he said, is that “when you
were baptised, the Holy Spirit entered into that
conscience and reinforced your belonging to
God and, in that sense, you became more of a
daughter of God because you’re a child of God
like everyone, but with the strength of the Holy
Spirit.”
CNS
True shepherd:
Pope Francis
embraces
Emanuele, a boy
whose father
died, as he visits
St. Paul of the
Cross Parish in
Rome on April
15.
Pastoral: Pope Francis greets the youngest parishioners, including Emanuele, of St Paul of the
Cross Parish in Rome. Photos: CNS