Dear Pope Francis…

In a new book published this week Pope Francis answers questions from children around the world, Mags Gargan reports

If you could ask Pope Francis one question, what would it be? “How can you settle conflicts in the world?” was a question by Michael from Nigeria (9). William (7) from the USA asked “If you could do one miracle what would it be? And Thierry (7) from Australia asked “Why are lots of people so poor and have no food?”

Children have questions and struggles just like adults, but they are rarely given the chance to voice their concerns and ask the big questions that are on their minds or resting in their hearts. In Dear Pope Francis, the Pope’s first book for children, he personally responds to 30 questions from children all over the world, both Catholic and non-Catholic, including Clara O’Gorman (11) from Galway who asked her question as Gaeilge. Some questions are fun. Some are serious. Pope Francis’ own instinctive response on first reading the letters was to smile and say “These questions are tough!”

In answer to William’s question about his choice of a miracle, Pope Francis said he would heal children. “I’ve never been able to understand why children suffer. It’s a mystery to me. I don’t have an explanation. I ask myself about this, and I pray about your question. Why do children suffer? My heart asks the question. Jesus wept, and by weeping, he understood our tragedies. I try to understand too. Yes, if I could perform a miracle, I would heal every child.”

The book is a project by Loyola Press, the US Jesuit publishing house, and is published by Messenger Publications in Ireland. Jesuits from around the world were asked to collect questions from children aged 6-13 and the children also illustrated their questions with drawings which are included in the book. They received 259 questions from 26 countries in 14 languages and a committee then had the difficult task of choosing which questions to give Pope Francis.

Responses

Last August, Fr Antonio Spadaro SJ, Director of the Jesuit journal La Civiltá Cattolica, brought the chosen letters to Pope Francis and recorded his responses. The Pope pondered each question carefully and answered honestly from the heart, often reacting to the drawing as much as the words of the question. Fr Spadaro said the Pope would often look off into space as he thought about his answers, as if he was trying to imagine the child who asked the question.

When he finished Pope Francis seemed happy, but expressed regret he could not meet the children in person. “It’s beautiful to answer the questions of these children, but I should have them here with me, all of them!” he said.

In an off-the-cuff speech at the Festival of Families in Philadelphia last September, Pope Francis mentioned the question  from eight-year-old Ryan in Canada. “A child asked me – you know that children ask difficult questions – he asked me ‘Father, what did God do before creating the world?’” the Pope said. “Believe me, I had a hard time answering the question. I told him what I am going to tell you now. Before he created the world, God loved, because God is love.”

Some of the personal questions made Pope Francis laugh and the Pope’s answers to those questions made Fr Spadaro laugh. The Pope admits in the book that when he was small he wanted to be a butcher because the butcher his grandmother bought meat from had an apron with a big pocket that seemed to be full of money!

Prajla (6) from Albania asked if the Pope liked to dance when he was a child, and received a very enthusiastic response that he liked to play ‘Ring a Rosie’ as a child and then as a young man he loved the tango. “Dance now, children, so you won’t be too serious when you grow up,” he said.

Affection

Pope Francis “loved the project right from the beginning,” according to Tom McGrath, who co-edited the book with Fr Spadaro. “He has this great affection for children, who have a great affection for him. He was surprised at the depth of the questions.”

“Dear Pope Francis,” 10-year-old Mohammed writes from a Jesuit-run school for refugee children in Syria, “Will the world be again as it was in the past?” Pope Francis explains that when Jesus returns everything will be new and far better than in the past. He goes on to discuss the great suffering in the world, which he says unfortunately Mohammed knows first-hand.

“There are those who manufacture weapons so that people fight each other and wage war. There are people who are interested only in money and would sell everything for it. They would even sell other people. This is terrible. This is suffering,” he says.

“But, you know, this suffering is destined to end. It is not forever. Suffering is to be lived with hope. We are not prisoners of suffering.”

“Dear Pope Francis,” writes Maximus (10) from Singapore, “Why did God create us even though he knew that we would sin against him?” Pope Francis replies that God created us to be free, including the freedom to choose sin, and that was his greatest gift to us.

“Many people are afraid of their own freedom and of other people’s freedom,” the Pontiff says. “That’s why some people prefer interacting with a pet that can give great affection, but it does not have the freedom another human being has. Freedom can scare people because it can’t be programmed like a machine. And exactly for this reason, freedom is beautiful and God’s greatest gift.”

Tom (8) from the UK asks Francis what was his hardest choice and the Pope responds that it is when he has to let someone go from a particular job of responsibility because they are not right for the role.

Our own Irish entry from Clara, who was among a group of children quoted in the book who had the opportunity to meet Pope Francis in a private audience last week, was a question on whether Pope Francis felt like a father to everyone. This led to a wonderful, warm response.

“Every priest likes to feel that he is a father. Spiritual fatherhood is truly important. I feel deeply: I couldn’t think of myself in any other way except as a father. And I very much like your drawing with a big heart in which there’s a dad with two little girls. Are you the one with the teddy bear? Yes, Clara, I like being a dad.”

Dear Pope Francis is published by Messenger Publications priced €14.99 and is now on sale at Veritas and all good bookshops or from www.messenger.ie