THE TRAVAILS OF A POPE: Homily on the Feast Day of St Gregory the Great, Pope and Doctor of the Chur

My dear brothers and sisters,

I know that today’s gospel [Luke 4: 16-30] is very attractive and demands a worthy homily as it presents once again the drama of a struggle which Our Lord Jesus Christ often engaged with his kinsmen and women from Nazareth. The Nazarenes were a very stubborn people. In today’s parlance, the Nazarenes were ultra conservatives regarding the interpretation of the Book of the Torah or the five Books of Moses in the Old Testament. They demonstrated their stubbornness again today by going toe-to-toe with Jesus who was making what had become his customary homecoming to Nazareth where he had been raised. Jesus who was a resident of Capernaum during the period of his public ministry usually came home to Nazareth every once in a while perhaps to see his parents who continued to live there.

However, I have chosen to focus my homily for this mass on a statement from the first reading from St Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians [1Corinthians 2:1-5]. Paul tells his Corinthian audience that when he came preaching the gospel to them for the first time he did not come with the wisdom and erudition of the wise and the philosophers [vv. 1-2]. Rather he came focused on Jesus Christ who was crucified. All through his ministry, Paul had a singular focus. And that was on Our Lord Jesus Christ hanging on the cross. Paul never removed the cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ from his view.

This is an instruction to us in this period of turbulence in the Church. In this strangest of times we have found ourselves in the Catholic Church, it is important to remind Christians and Catholics everywhere around the world to focus exclusively on the crucified Jesus Christ. He is the one we are following and no other person else. Ironically, Jesus Christ is being crucified again in our time. The sexual crisis rocking the Church is nothing but Jesus Christ walking the road of Golgotha all over again. Let us see the crisis from the prism of our Lord Jesus Christ hanging and suffering on the cross. As His body suffers the pains of sexual scandals so does the head suffer once again on the cross!

Our exclusive focus on Jesus crucified will help us see in a proper light what is happening in the Church of our day regarding the sex abuse crisis. This monster crisis that has engulfed the Catholic Church since the beginning of the 21st century is now threatening the very foundation of the Church with some high-ranking Church officials calling on the Vicar of Christ on earth, Pope Francis, to resign. This sounds very much like a mini- or a full blown apocalypse in the Church founded by Jesus Christ on earth to serve as the seed of his kingdom pending his return.

The celebration of the feast day of Pope St Gregory the Great helps throw some light on what it means to be a pope in every age especially in our time of turbulence. Being the Pope, the Vicar of Jesus Christ on earth, is not an easy job by any stretch of the imagination. In the second reading of the Divine Office marking the feast of St Gregory the Great, we see the great Pope Gregory almost in tears about what had become of him since assuming the office of the Vicar of Christ on earth.

We may call that Pope Gregory was first a monk, and a multi-talented one for that matter. He composed most of the beautiful liturgical hymns [the Gregorian chant] we still enjoy today from the quietness of his monastery. He wrote most of his great works as a monk. But then he became a pope. His office demanded that he juggle the hydra-headed affairs of the Church. He now deals with civil affairs, issues of defense of the Church against foreign invaders, the turbulent issues in governing the clergy and the bishops, the laity and their own problems as well. Because he had much on his plate, he appeared to lose some focused and lamented it in today’s second reading in the Divine Office. He was nostalgic about what he had and was which he had lost by becoming a pope in the Catholic Church.

This informs us that the work of a pope is not easy in any way. A pope is usually a distracted person. He struggles to regain focus as he is pulled in different directions while trying to navigate turbulence in the Church. The pope is usually not a saint. He is not even the best among his peers. He is just another Peter who could at times become a Satan in his sincere effort to understand what the ministry of Jesus means in his own time. The pope is someone who could be under the attack of the devil. And that was what the first pope was. Peter was constantly failing even while Jesus was still with him and leading him on. It got to a point that Jesus told Peter that he had prayed for him that his faith might not fail and that when he had been strengthened he likewise should strengthen his brethren.

This is who anyone elected pope is. He is another Peter. He is someone in constant need of prayers of the faithful. Jesus is always praying for His Vicar on Earth that his faith may not fail. The prayer of Jesus should be the prayer of all Christians for the Holy Father, the Pope. The Holy Father needs our prayer especially now he is under a barrage of attacks from all sections of the world, especially from the western ideological media and their satanic patrons. The Holy Father needs our prayers. Everybody should join the crusade of praying for the Holy Father Pope Francis rather than enlist with the gangs that are attacking him for a sin he did not personally commit. He needs our prayers now more than ever before. Let us not delay in helping him out through our unceasing prayers. That is the much we can do for him in this turbulent time.

Also, the Pope needs to be defended from people with malicious agenda. There is no doubt that a whole lot of the attacks against Pope Francis today is coming from individuals with an agenda. They do not have a holy agenda. It is all politics of victimization they are pursuing. I have spent quite a big chunk of my time in the last two weeks or so reading and rereading the Testimony of Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano against Pope Francis. I have also read extensively the critics of Archbishop Vigano. And there are quite a good number of them.

My conclusion is that while Archbishop Vigano may be acting in sincerity of purpose sort of; while he may also have some truthful knowledge of what he is testifying to, his terrible bias or agenda is barely hidden in his whole testimony. Archbishop Vigano is not coming to equity with clean hands. The saying is he who comes to equity must come with clean hands. Archbishop Vigano has not done that! This is my personal conviction and is evident from his Testimony. You are not called to share my conviction but to listen to another perspective on the matter.

Moreover, Archbishop Vigano has history that must be factored into his testimony. From his history Archbishop Vigano appears to be one who courts controversy. He seems to have controversy written all over him. As a Nigerian, I cannot forget easily his tenure as Papal Nuncio to Nigeria in the mid 1990s. Archbishop Vigano was literally run out of Nigeria by the Nigerian bishops. He appeared to be in support of a brutal dictator called Sani Abacha. The then secretary general of the Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria, the irrepressible and intelligent Fr Matthew Hassan Kukah, now the Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, could not countenance Vigano’s apparent toleration of the antics of the Abacha brutal regime. Kukah engineered something like a mutiny among the Nigerian bishops that resulted in Vigano being literally run out of Nigeria.

Then Vigano returned to the Vatican where he was given a prominent office and placed in charge of the Nuncios of the world. But his controversy would yield some positive results when he helped reform the crisis-ridden Vatican Bank. The furor generated from his reform agenda at the bank would result in his being transferred to the USA as a nuncio, a post which was interpreted as a demotion sort of by the Venerable Pope Benedict XVI.

While in the USA, another controversy dogged him. He was now in charge of the US Church that had not recovered fully from the pedophilia crisis of 2002. While some of his allies in the USA are crediting him with some achievements in the efforts to solve the enormous problems in the US Church, many others are critical of his role in handling the whole pedophilia crisis. He is being accused of torpedoing an investigation into the alleged sexual sins of the former Archbishop of Minneapolis-St Paul. Video clips have emerged of his hobnobbing around both Cardinal McCarrick and Pope Benedict XVI without having any qualms of conscience about the sins he is now complaining about in his testimony. Why he did not speak out publicly against Cardinal McCarrick while he was still in the USA serving as Nuncio remains a million-dollar question as one examines the credibility of his Testimony.

Archbishop Vigano alleges that Benedict XVI sanctioned Cardinal McCarrick and kept it secret. This is an utterly ridiculous accusation. You sanction somebody and keep it secret. Of what use is that? Or, is Archbishop Vigano claiming that Pope Benedict is also a part of the cover-up he is alleging against Francis? I do not get his point here.

For Archbishop Vigano’s allegation to be credible the script of the sanction must be produced and made public, or Pope Benedict XVI who is, thanks goodness, still alive speaks up and claims or disclaims his allegation. If there is a document regarding the so-called secret sanction against Cardinal McCarrick, let it be made public as well as the document annulling the sanction by Pope Francis. Nobody should give Archbishop Vigano the benefit of the doubt as he is engaged in a high-stakes game that could bring down the Supreme Pontiff. He must be taken to task in every detail or claim he makes in his Testimony. Anybody who swallows his Testimony hook, line and sinker is obviously deluded!

What does Archbishop Vigano think Pope Francis should have done after inheriting a mess that Popes John Paul II and Benedict VI had more than 18 years to tackle? So he expected Francis to jump into it immediately and prosecute Cardinal McCarrick without investigating the allegation personally?

I think prudence demanded that there be a thorough re-examination of the whole allegation against Cardinal McCarrick before acting decisively against it. I think this is what Francis ultimately did. He perhaps allowed some wiggle room for the accused person to continue to function somehow in his capacity as a Cardinal and only acted when he became convinced that the accusation was incontrovertible. I would rather err on the side of caution than rush into accusations against individuals and make life-altering mistakes.

Also, how on earth could anyone justify Archbishop Vigano’s call on Pope Francis to resign? I do not get it at all. By such a biased call he made himself the judge and the jury at the same time. This is untenable. If Archbishop Vigano acted in good faith he could have presented his Testimony without reaching any conclusions at all. His biased call to Pope Francis to resign destroyed completely his so-called testimony.

Archbishop Vigano could have laid down the cards on the table allowing individuals to make up their minds regarding the fate of Pope Francis. But that he condemned the Pope on the strength of his own testimony alone, and would want us to believe that he is acting in sincerity and good conscience, is something no sincere person should allow Archbishop Vigano to get away with. The truth is Archbishop Vigano appeared to have acted with a vengeful conscience. He was all out for a vendetta. As a result nothing that he presented in his testimony should be judged credible. He has an ax to grind with the Holy Father. He is obviously avenging for something he is not disclosing in his testimony. He is a rabble rouser par excellence!

What are we Catholics expected to do in this turbulent period? The devil is dead set on striking the shepherd so that the sheep will scatter. Shall we let the devil have the last laugh? In view of what the devil is intent on doing in the Catholic Church, we Catholics must stand behind our Holy Father. He is juggling so many balls at the same time. He is contending with so many forces in the Church. The powerful gay-lobby that has been fortifying and amassing ammunition for most of the 20th century has unleashed a terrifying attack against the Holy Father. We must rally around him to help him defend himself.

Let us consider briefly what this simple Pope from far away Argentina is being made to contend with in our time. The radical German Episcopal Conference would want him to see things its own way. The Italian Episcopal Conference wants to have it its own way. The troubled American Church has become enfante terrible of our time and keeping him awake all night. The Latin American Church with her unending struggle to introduce a new way of thinking and ministering in the church must be of great concern to our Holy Father. The Churches of the Third World would not like to be outdone in giving this pope some headaches. The western Churches of Europe, Canada and the far away Church in Australia are a handful for him. What about the Asian Churches with China and her recalcitrant insistence on controlling the affairs of Church leading the way?

All these monstrous problems are falling on the head of one man who is acclaimed the Vicar of Christ on earth. Pope Francis is first and foremost a human being and not God. Granted he has in abundance the grace of his office, he can only do what a normal human being could do at any given time. Let us give him a break. Let us allow this Pope to do the work for which God has called him. If we were to be elected pope we are not going to do much better than he is doing at the moment.

The church of the 21st century is very complex. The sexual crisis has been building since the early part of the 20th century. It has only now gotten to a head. And we expect the present Pope to wave a magic wand and have it all resolved in one fell swoop. This is unfair. Let us give him a break! He deserves to be given a break now many have chosen to make his life very uncomfortable for him. Let us not pile up unnecessary burdens on him. It is not charity to be doing that. Let those doing that cease immediately!

A good Catholic must be in sympathy with Pope Francis. He or she must pray for him always. A good Catholic cannot be repeating the allegation of the not-so-credible Archbishop Vigano. He must rally behind his chief shepherd and help defend him against his enemies that are intent on pulling him down. We must remember the promise made to him personally and to his office. The Gate of the Underworld will never prevail against the Church of Jesus Christ. The gate of the underworld will try as it is doing right now. But it will never prevail. Yea, the storm will beat the ship of the Church. But it will never sink it. This is our faith and consolation. Let all Catholics keep the faith in this period of great trial for the universal Church. This trial will also pass away!