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While it was a brief encounter, Bishop Anthony B. Taylor has had the opportunity to meet then-Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio.
During a Mass of Thanksgiving at the Cathedral of St. Andrew in Little Rock March 19 to mark the installation of Pope Francis, the bishop shared memories of his 2010 meeting with the cardinal at his residence in Buenos Aires.
In 2010 Father Ruben Quinteros of Catamarca, Argentina, was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Little Rock. Because his family was not able to attend his ordination Mass May 22 in Little Rock, Bishop Taylor and Father Quinteros traveled to the new priest’s hometown for Mass.
While in Buenos Aries, Father Quinteros suggested it would be good to pay a “courtesy call” to Cardinal Bergoglio. Bishop Taylor and Father Quinteros visited the residence without an appointment and were told to come back later when the cardinal would be available.
“We rang the doorbell and the cardinal opened the door,” he said. “The pope walked us in to his office and we made small talk about 20 minutes and left. I got an impression of him of being very welcoming and very simple, not fancy or anything like that … So I got to meet the pope before he was the pope.”
When the bishop mentioned he had met the pope, the congregation broke into applause.
In his homily, Bishop Taylor said he has noticed that Pope Francis in his previous roles was not afraid to speak the truth and not be a “pleaser.”
“Pope Francis has already given ample witness to this as archbishop of Buenos Aires in his difficult relations with the current president of Argentina on the very topics that are also points of controversy here in the United States: for instance the right to life from conception to natural death, artificial contraception and the inadmissibility of homosexual marriage,” he said, “And his message regarding the economy and the obligation to care for the poor is the opposite of what Wall Street and many in American politics want to hear.”
Bishop Taylor said the same Gospel reading for the feast of St. Joseph March 19 is used on the feast of the Holy Family the Sunday after Christmas.
”Just as St. Joseph was given the care of the Holy Family of Mary and Jesus whom God had entrusted to him, so Jorge Mario Bergoglio has been given the care of the Holy Family of the Church,” he said. “And just as Jesus grew up calling Joseph “abba” — papa — and Joseph’s faithfulness led Jesus to his true Abba, God the Father, so also we call the successor of Peter “pope” — papa — and his faithfulness leads us to our true Papa, God the Father as well.”
Bishop Taylor suggested Catholics follow the example of the Holy Family in how to be a holy church family.
”If we are to be a holy family — meaning also a happy family and a happy Church — Jesus, Mary and Joseph show us that the only way is to put God first in everything we do,” he said. “For parents this means really living your faith and doing all in your power to nurture the faith of your children, accepting and treasuring even the hard-to-understand ways that God is working through and in them. For children this means really opening yourselves up to receive the gift of faith from your parents and others, which will require of you humility and obedience, especially when you think you know more than your parents, which of course, is pretty debatable.
“And for us as Church today, this means praying for Pope Francis, that he does everything in his power to proclaim the Good News to a world that is often closed to Jesus’ message and that we open ourselves up fully to receive his fatherly guidance, especially in matters of faith and morals. This will require of us humility and obedience, especially when we think we know more than the pope does, which is also pretty debatable.”
Joining the bishop at the Mass were seven priests and eight members of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, whose grand master is a cardinal appointed by the pope.