At Inaugural Mass, Pope Francis says Church must be a servant

Pope Francis is greeted by a crowd of 200,000 as he arrives in St. Peter’s Square for his Inaugural Mass at the Vatican. The crowd Tuesday ranged from kings to beggars, including dignitaries from more than 130 nations.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Pope Francis is greeted by a crowd of 200,000 as he arrives in St. Peter’s Square for his Inaugural Mass at the Vatican. The crowd Tuesday ranged from kings to beggars, including dignitaries from more than 130 nations.

VATICAN CITY — As Brother Sun beamed on St. Peter’s Square, the Pope with the name of the saint who composed the Canticle of the Sun, called for the protection of all creation and said the church must be the servant of the poor and the weak.

“Let us never forget that authentic power is service, and that the Pope too, when exercising power, must enter ever more fully into that service which has its radiant culmination on the cross,” Pope Francis told a crowd of 200,000 that ranged from kings to beggars.

His soft voice grew strong and emphatic as he said that the Pope “must open his arms to protect all of God’s people and embrace with tender affection the whole of humanity, especially the poorest, the weakest, the least important, those whom Matthew lists in the final judgment on love: the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick, and those in prison!”

It drew the strongest applause of the homily.

He repeatedly spoke of an obligation on all humanity to protect the environment, though his references to nature could also be interpreted as church teaching on the “natural law” of both human rights and heterosexual marriage.

Surrounded by dignitaries from more than 130 nations, including Vice President Joe Biden, the Pope said, “Please, I would like to ask all of those who have positions of responsibility in economic, political, and social life, and all men and women of good will, let us be protectors of creation, protectors of God’s plan inscribed in nature, protectors of one another and of the environment. Let us not allow omens of destruction and death to accompany the advance of this world.”

Pope Francis is greeted in St. Peter's Square by flags from every inhabited continent: Australia, Indonesia, Sweden, the United States, the People’s Republic of China, as well as countless blue-and-white banners from his native Argentina.

He spoke beneath a brilliant blue sky after days of cold rain. Only after the Inaugural Mass had ended did clouds swiftly return to the skies. People remarked on it, noting that on the night of March 13 a steady, cold rain had ceased soon after his election was announced from the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica.

Flags flew from every inhabited continent: Australia, Angola, Indonesia, Sweden, the United States, the People’s Republic of China, and countless blue-and-white banners from his native Argentina. The former Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio is the first pope from the Western Hemisphere, and the first to take the name of Christianity’s most beloved saint, Francis of Assisi.

One of many makeshift banners said in Italian, “Francis, Go repair my house.”

Those are the words that Jesus is said to have spoken to St. Francis from the cross in a dilapidated chapel, which the medieval saint began to rebuild. Only in time he realized that it was a call to revive the universal church, which had fallen into malaise and corruption.

As his white Jeep circled St. Peter’s Square before Tuesday’s Mass, he told the driver to stop. With the crowd cheering, he climbed down and blessed a severely handicapped man whose whole body seemed rigid and contorted. After getting back on the vehicle, he took what the Vatican Press Office speculated was the longest ride a pope had ever taken around St. Peter’s Square, going to people far in the rear of the crowd.

About two hours before the Mass, Pope Francis placed a surprise phone call to the dean of his former cathedral in Buenos Aires and asked him to broadcast it to people camped overnight in the city’s central square, Plaza de Mayo.

So shortly after 3:30 a.m. in Buenos Aires, Pope Francis delivered a condensed version of his homily on St. Joseph, in which he said that strong men should not be afraid of goodness and tenderness.

In Rome, the opening rituals took place inside the basilica as the heads of the Eastern Catholic Churches, surrounded by the cardinals, accompanied Pope Francis to the tomb of St. Peter to retrieve important symbols of his office that had been placed there for him. All of the others were robed far more impressively in gold vestments. The new Pope wore a simple cream-colored chasuble with a stripe down the center and around the border.

The crowd in the square burst into laughter when the Jumbotrons showed Pope Francis checking his watch as he prepared to exit the basilica for the open air Mass.

At his direction, the Mass for the Inauguration of Petrine Ministry had been simplified and shortened. It lasted less than two hours, which is brisk for a papal event.

Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran vested him in the pallium, a small stole-like vestment made of lambs wool that symbolizes the good shepherd who carries the lost sheep home. Cardinal Angelo Sodano presented him with the ring commemorating Peter the fisherman, whom Jesus called to be a “fisher of men.”

When a symbolic delegation of six cardinals knelt before him to pledge their obedience, the 76-year-old Pope helped some of them back to their feet as if he was uncomfortable with such deference.

The Pope drew applause when he expressed “affection and gratitude” to Benedict XVI, emeritus pope, whose Feb. 28 abdication opened the way for his election.

The new Pope will visit his predecessor on Saturday at the papal summer residence, Castel Gandolfo.

The readings and homily honored St. Joseph, who married the pregnant Mary at the command of an angel and raised Jesus. The Mass fell on his feast day. Pope Francis’ message urged everyone to follow the example of St. Joseph in protecting and caring for others.

“To protect creation, to protect every man and every woman, to look upon them with tenderness and love, is to open up a horizon of hope. It is to let a shaft of light break through the heavy clouds, it is to bring the warmth of hope,” he said. “It is a hope built on the rock which is God.”

Seated in places of honor were representatives of other Christian traditions and non-Christian faiths. Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, the spiritual head of Eastern Orthodoxy, was the first in his office to attend the inauguration of a pope since 1054. Metropolitan Hilarion of the Russian Orthodox Church also attended.

Representatives of many Protestant traditions and some Christian parachurch organizations were also present, as were Jewish, Muslim. Sikh, Jain, and Buddhist leaders.

Mariana Szajbely, an Argentinian who lives in Rome, was among those waving the Argentinean flag. She noticed the he repeatedly referred to himself as the “Bishop of Rome” rather than “Supreme Pontiff.”

“I think he will work for the unity of all the churches,” she said, noting that the title he emphasized was something that other Christian traditions could accept, and that he also built strong interfaith relationships.

“In Argentina he is very close friends of Jews and Lutherans.”

The new Pope came from the Jesuit order, but it’s the Franciscans who have been highlighted at the opening of his pontificate, because he is the first pope to take the name of their founder

“Taking the name Francis is like a baseball player taking the name Babe Ruth. It sets the bar high. But this guy can meet it,” said the Rev. Terence Henry, a Franciscan friar and president of the Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio.

The Block News Alliance consists of The Blade and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Ann Rodgers is a reporter for the Post-Gazette.

Contact Ann Rodgers at: arodgers@post-gazette.com, or 412-263-1416.