Ministering on Death Row - and Feeling a New Confidence in Rome

[UrbScotty]

This week, trailing a group of men walking through a prison, Sister Helen Prejean overheard bits of what they were discussing. “I heard one saying, ‘He is so honest,’ but I didn’t catch who they were talking about at first,” said Sister Prejean, a member of the Congregation of St. Joseph, an order of Roman Catholic sisters.

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Then she figured it out from fragments that floated back to her, hearing mention of a man who admitted to having been excessively authoritarian as a boss, who washed the feet of women and prisoners and Muslims, and who had called for the Catholic Church to find a “new balance” in its teachings of moral concerns. The subject was Pope Francis.

The people talking about him were 12 bishops who were visiting California’s death row in San Quentin prison, the home to more than 700 condemned men.

“Francis’ whole style is so honest and forthright,” Sister Prejean said. “He just really says what he thinks. That’s what the bishops were commenting on. They’re not used to it.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/02/nyregion/ministering-on-death-row-and-feeling-a-new-confidence-in-rome.html?_r=0

[TommyCelt]

1. "They’re not used to it.”

“Francis’ whole style is so honest and forthright,” Sister Prejean said. “He just really says what he thinks. That’s what the bishops were commenting on. They’re not used to it.”


Particularly from a fellow bishop!

[demosincebirth]

2. Pope Francis is speaking in a new language, foreign to the Bishops. They better learn it, quick.

Only the rank and file can understand him.