BY TONI CASHNELLI

It is late afternoon on a day that is far from over for Fr. Federico Lombardi, SJ.

Yet he has made time to welcome a group of Franciscan communicators who can’t quite believe their good fortune. As part of their ESC gathering, they are sitting down in Rome with Lombardi, Director of the Holy See Press Office, to talk about his work for Pope Francis. Among the guests is Fr. Joseph Magro, the OFM Communications Director who arranged the meeting.

Lombardi greets visitors in the press room of Vatican Radio, where rows of chairs for media personnel face a mural-sized portrait of popes from recent memory. The unfamiliar face in the painting is that of Guglielmo Marconi, the Italian inventor who launched Vatican Radio as a short-wave station in 1931 with a message from Pope Pius XI. Nowadays its programming is beamed around the world in 45 languages.

“Can we make a circle?” Lombardi suggests, pulling chairs into an informal arrangement. “The Vatican has a system of communications that is complex.” That’s an understatement. Lombardi’s office – he is the director of both Vatican Radio and the Vatican Television Center – is occupied by people from 59 countries speaking 40 languages. “There are 600 journalists accredited for the written press” to cover the Vatican; thousands show up for special events. “Not all of them come every day; they receive communications from us about what happens. We give press conferences, briefings for journalists.”

Appointed in 2006 by Pope Benedict, 72-year-old Lombardi is identified in news stories as Vatican spokesman or Director of the Press Office. “Most of my life has been dedicated to communications. I like to be challenged,” says Lombardi, a native Italian who is familiar with six languages. On call around the clock, he is often the point person for reports that require a response.

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‘A profound message’

As we saw the day he was elected, “Pope Francis has a charism for direct and immediate and spontaneous communication,” Lombardi says. “You feel immediately the direct presence of him to you without distance. He comes to you in a personal encounter and is very present. He embraces children. If someone says, ‘Please, can I do a selfie?’ he says, ‘You can do.’ This is not something constructed of strategy. This is his way to be. This gift is something concrete and profound, a profound message for all.”

For Lombardi, the election of fellow Jesuit Francis was “an incredible surprise. The first thing I saw was the choice of name. For me it was an act of incredible courage to take the name of Francesco; no one had done [it]. It is something historical, a substantial message” embraced by the world in general and Franciscans in particular.

“Obviously he [the pope] is a very good Jesuit,” says a friar in the communications group. “We think he’s a very good Franciscan, a better Franciscan than many of ours.” When the laughter subsides, Lombardi sounds intrigued. “This is very interesting,” he says, filing it away for future reference.

‘A life of service’

Asked how his life has been impacted by Francis, Lombardi considers this. “My life has always been and continues to be a life of service,” he says. The satisfaction comes “in taking part in a new wave of the presence of the spirit of evangelization in the world today with hope and enthusiasm and creativity in the sense of something new that can happen.”  Obviously, “Pope Francis has brought a great dynamic in this world, has great popularity. Many people desire to see him,” including the media who clamor for comments.

Reaching young adults takes energy, creativity

BY HENRY BECK, OFM

• Last week Catholics on Call, a program of The Bernardin Center at Catholic Theological Union, Chicago, hosted their annual Partners Conference. The conference reaches out to young adult Catholics to encourage them to consider ministry in the Church as laypersons, religious, and as priests. Our province is one of the supporting sponsors, so I went to represent our community.
• This day and a half of prayer, talks, and small group work was full of energy and creativity.  This year’s theme was: “Vocation from Within – Finding Grace in Young Adult Culture.”  The keynote presenter was Jonny Baker, the Team Leader for “Pioneer Leadership” in England.  Jonny, a married man and a member of a lay-religious community, has developed a leadership program that encourages creative ministry ventures in reaching out to young adults.
• Key to his insights was to see the approach of “cross-cultural mission” as an inspiration for approaching young adult culture as graced and full of God’s presence.  Several of the activities were to look at young adult culture (from YouTube videos, music, poetry, night club life, etc.) with “appreciative eyes and ears,” trusting that God is present there just as we trust God is deeply present before we enter a new mission area.
• Steve Bevans, SVD, also reminded us that a key Vatican II passage is in the “Decree on the Church’s Missionary Activity,” Paragraph 11.  He reminded us that we are called to a “sincere and patient dialogue” with the cultures we enter.  Thus we will learn “what gifts God has given to others and at the same time add the light of the Gospel.”  Most of all, we are to approach one another and other cultures with an “appreciative inquiry” perspective.

• Steven Leach, an Anglican seminarian as well as a DJ, witnessed to some of the projects they have tried, for example, having an Anglican Church open through the night on Saturdays in a seaside village that is full of nightclubs.  This “Church at Night” had various “stations” with food, lighting, music, artwork, etc., to create a place for prayer, conversation and spirituality.  They had 600 persons stop by the first night.
• Jonny and Steven also led us in a multi-media and interactive evening prayer that challenged all of us to name “where we are afraid to go” and pray for the grace to cross over into “new dangerous lands.”
• I encourage all to look at www.catholicsoncall.org for creative ideas in working with young adults and to consider encouraging young adults in your communities to make their annual Young Adult Conference in the summer at CTU.  Craig Gould, who directs Catholics on Call, and Birgit Oberhofer, the program assistant, are great resources!
• (The book The Pioneer Gift, edited by Jonny Baker and Cathy Ross, is available through amazon.com.)

New group tackles ‘selfies’

The format was familiar – “Theology on Tap” – but the conversation revolved around a trending concept, the “selfie”.  At the first gathering of St. Clement Parish’s Young Adult Ministry Group, Sept. 19 at Meiners Café in St. Bernard, Ohio, Fr. Richard Goodin talked about “The Selfie: Self-Image, Self-Worth and God”.  The evening was billed as an opportunity for “good company, interesting voices and lively conversation”, all of which proved true, says Richard, who had hoped to help launch the group before he leaves for his ministry in Jamaica. Initially, he says, “The object is to have a core group of ‘pseudo leaders’ who will minister to others,” inspiring those in the 19-39-year-old age range to better understand and practice their faith. Richard and co-animator Sarah Pounder dubbed the group “Y.A.C.H.T.”, Young Adult Catholics Hanging Together.

–Toni Cashnelli

Proclaiming the Gospel with our lives

A good number of us from the “Catholics on Call” Partners Conference at CTU traveled to the Felician Sisters’ Center in Chicago last Friday for the start of the “Religious Formation Conference 60th Anniversary Gathering.”

Conference members spoke of the present and future in terms of looking to new ways to help prepare all in the Church to live out our common call to “witness to the Gospel” as religious, single, and married persons in the Church.  We also talked about how we might collaborate more with one another as religious, single, and married persons in the Church.  We were greatly aided in these reflections by presentations made by Dr. Richard Gaillardetz, PhD, and Sr. Caroljean Willie, SC, PhD.

Dr. Gaillardetz’s theme of “From Center to Periphery: Relocating the Prophetic Witness of Religious Life” challenged us to move away from the “center” as “heroic center,” as “power center,” and as “obedient center.”  In letting go of the “temptations” around these models to stay there, he invited us to be re-energized by the common call to all the baptized to proclaim the Gospel with our lives.  Sr. Caroljean, who is completing an appointment as NGO representative for the Sisters of Charity at the United Nations, shared a rich visual presentation of where religious are involved in ground-breaking projects around the world.

This program will be repeated Oct. 10-11 in Kansas City, Kansas, and Oct. 17-18 in San Antonio, Texas. I encourage other friars to participate. Visit https://www.relforcon.org/2014-programsﾠfor information.

 – Henry Beck, OFM

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