Figuring out Francis: Bishop says Pope can be 'difficult'
“It’s an opportunity for me,” O'Connell said of his commentating role in Philadelphia, “to make sure the right thing is said.”
It proved a telling comment, coming in the context of an exclusive interview with the Asbury Park Press in which O’Connell made it plain that it isn’t simply how the media might misinterpret the rubrics of the Catholic liturgy that concerns him.
He also feels some anxiety about what the pope himself might say.
When Francis departs from his prepared text, as he’s wont to do, O’Connell said, “buckle your seat belts, boys and girls, you’re in for a bumpy ride.”
Over the course of a more than hour-long interview, however, O’Connell, also spoke candidly and sometimes pointedly about the practical challenges of working for a mercurial, charismatic figure given to spur-of-the-moment initiatives and headline-grabbing, off-the-cuff comments, an approach that sometimes “makes life difficult” for him and his brother bishops in the U.S, he said.
“So far, everybody loves Francis, but there's no difference in the pew.”
Bishop David M. O'Connell, on the so-called "Francis effect."
"That's really where we're having at times some struggle, some confusion. And he never goes back to clarify. He just puts it out there," he said.
"He's a good Jesuit teacher. 'I'll throw it out there and let the students figure it out.' And that's the way that he approaches things."
The media frenzy surrounding the pope’s visit, the first time in his life he’s ever set foot in the U.S., would seem to provide the ideal conditions for more of these unscripted exchanges.
“If I had to give the pope advice, I would say to him, ‘Stick to what's in the paper,’” O’Connell said, referring to the pope's printed speeches.
“However, that's not him. And so he's got to be the pope that he thinks he has to be for the Church, and the Holy Spirit moves him to be for the Church,” O’Connell said.
www.app.com/…/72023166
It proved a telling comment, coming in the context of an exclusive interview with the Asbury Park Press in which O’Connell made it plain that it isn’t simply how the media might misinterpret the rubrics of the Catholic liturgy that concerns him.
He also feels some anxiety about what the pope himself might say.
When Francis departs from his prepared text, as he’s wont to do, O’Connell said, “buckle your seat belts, boys and girls, you’re in for a bumpy ride.”
Over the course of a more than hour-long interview, however, O’Connell, also spoke candidly and sometimes pointedly about the practical challenges of working for a mercurial, charismatic figure given to spur-of-the-moment initiatives and headline-grabbing, off-the-cuff comments, an approach that sometimes “makes life difficult” for him and his brother bishops in the U.S, he said.
“So far, everybody loves Francis, but there's no difference in the pew.”
Bishop David M. O'Connell, on the so-called "Francis effect."
"That's really where we're having at times some struggle, some confusion. And he never goes back to clarify. He just puts it out there," he said.
"He's a good Jesuit teacher. 'I'll throw it out there and let the students figure it out.' And that's the way that he approaches things."
The media frenzy surrounding the pope’s visit, the first time in his life he’s ever set foot in the U.S., would seem to provide the ideal conditions for more of these unscripted exchanges.
“If I had to give the pope advice, I would say to him, ‘Stick to what's in the paper,’” O’Connell said, referring to the pope's printed speeches.
“However, that's not him. And so he's got to be the pope that he thinks he has to be for the Church, and the Holy Spirit moves him to be for the Church,” O’Connell said.
www.app.com/…/72023166
