Smoke Signals

Long before the white smoke emerged from the small chimney in Rome the Roman Catholic church was already suffering from a thousand cuts. The occasion of papal succession served as a global lightning rod for the church's many sins and its army of critics. And who can deny the troubling revelations that made their way into the public discourse over recent decades? Nobody seeking the truth of humanity and history, God-fearing or not, desires to gloss over the findings or put such failures back in the box.Yet I observed in mild alarm as contributors to both social and mainstream media alike took to trouncing the Roman Catholic church beyond all reasoning or charity. To the church's sin were now added the iniquities of those seeking to cast the stones.I've lived some six decades and witnessed the flaws in more institutions that I care to count - business, entertainment, the military, media, centres of education, and, yes, politics of all persuasions. But rarely did observers call for their dissolution. One of the reasons is likely that we yet know our need of such organizations whereas houses of faith, especially in the West, face a clear exodus.When I witnessed the white smoke I thought back to my time in Bangladesh, where political and military mayhem, coupled with tropical monsoons, played havoc on a population at war. Millions died. Disease was rampant. Hope appeared futile. I was a young Canadian attempting to make a difference but got swamped by the sheer loss of life. But in every devastated place priests and sisters from the Catholic church bound wounds, buried the dead, succumbed to disease, and ministered despite their own broken hearts.Or I think of our work in South Sudan, where the people gather every Sunday to pray to a God they trust hasn't forsaken them. There at the front of run-down church stands the statue of the Virgin Mary, shot full of holes from when raiders overran the village, killing as they went. The priests and sisters refused to leave when the others fled and stood guard over their people in the sanctuary. They discerned at that moment that if they sincerely desired to be close to God then they had no choice but to stand with the oppressed. They did and thousands of southern Sudanese yet believe in God from the brave example they witnessed. They still believe because they have little else. God remains their refuge and strength and to belittle the church is to denigrate this essential and abiding faith of some 1.2 billion Roman Catholics.And then there was our children's mother. Trapped in slavery, she prayed with Ater, Abuk and Achan every night that God would free them for a better life. God did, but not before she was cut down by bullets. The deliverance of her children to Canada was the remarkable answer to her prayers. Jane and I aren't Roman Catholic, but we teach them the principles of their mother's faith. She even named her youngest daughter (Achan) after the first southern Sudanese saint - Bakhita.This is real stuff, lived out every day by hundreds of millions of people who don't have the luxury of disposing of God - their faith is essential to their very survival. I thought of their mother as I witnessed the smoke coming from the chimney and realized that, along with all those in St. Peter's Square, she would have wept over the sign that God was still present. In that crowd she would have found Canadian school children visiting the Vatican over March Break and their tears would have flowed together in a common hope. I wish she would have been alive to see it, surrounded by her marvellous three children.In any exercise where human failure is manifest, it materializes in two different fashions - the failure of those who sin and the unwillingness of those desiring to cast stones to acknowledge their own fragility. Of course leaders in the church have failed and of course they should be disciplined. But they are not the institution and our willingness to throw the baby out with the bath water might say more about us than those we condemn. I believe that women should be priests, bishops, cardinals and even pope, and I disagree with some of the stands taken by the church.  But such things call for reform not refusal.I admit to being a man of faith, feeble though it is. I have been occasionally lauded for leading the food bank or freeing slaves. But nothing I have done, even in my most noble moment, can match the endurance and inspiration that the servants of the Roman Catholic church live out each and every day, as they minister to the poor and oppressed, the captive and the starving. The day we arise to take their place in the most remote regions of humanity is the day we can begin to cast the stones. Except that by then we could never do it because we ourselves would be transformed by a simple faith that put others before ourselves, teaching us a firm grace in the process.The white smoke above St. Peter's isn't a symbol but a sign - a reminder that for all who seek God and the alleviation of suffering, they stand with billions on this planet seeking inward renewal and outward depths of compassion. I didn't weep when I saw the smoke; I merely asked God to make me a better man. Hope remains.