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A Soul Clad in Silk:
A Pope with the Sensibilities of a Sikh

SARBPREET SINGH

 

 

 

"The ones dressed in rags, with souls clad in the finest silks, they are the truly kind. For they are attached to The Lord and constantly seek to commune with Him."

These words, written five hundred years ago by a gentle prophet who was moved by the poverty, suffering and institutionalized discrimination he saw in the world he lived in, elegantly capture the ethos of the egalitarian faith that he was to found.

The words, uttered by Guru Nanak appear in the Asa di Vaar ('The Ballad of Raag Asa'), a masterpiece of social commentary from the Sikh canon.

These words have always been profoundly meaningful to me personally, and in a certain sense, underpin the commitment to social justice which is an essential component of the Sikh world-view.

What a joy then, it was, to hear echoes of these very words from the Vatican in Pope Francis' Apostolic Exhortation, titled "The Joy of the Gospel," his first written work after assuming the papacy, released in late November of this year. The document focuses on a number of causes that Pope Francis has emphasized in speeches and homilies delivered after his election in March.

Most notably, in Pope Francis’ own words:

“… I intend to concentrate on two great issues which strike me as fundamental at this time in history. I will treat them more fully because I believe that they will shape the future of humanity. These issues are, first, the inclusion of the poor in society, and second, peace and social dialogue.”

There were clear indications, right after his election that the papacy of Pope Francis was going to be rather different from that of his predecessors. The Washington Post reported in March :

“Pope Benedict XVI’s love for the Renaissance church caused him to revive some of the papal styles of that period. His successor, Pope Francis, is turning out to be a sartorial minimalist, reflecting his more humble, understated approach to the papacy. After his election, Pope Francis -- following the prescribed ritual -- changed his cardinal red cassock into the official papal “uniform,” a white wool cassock, white sash and white skullcap. Then the master of ceremonies offered him the mozzetta, the historic shoulder-length, velvet cape trimmed with (synthetic) ermine brought back by Pope Benedict. A dozen pontiffs have sat for Old Master portraits in their mozzettas. But when papal master of ceremonies Monsignor Guido Marini tried to place the mozzetta on Pope Francis at his debut this month, the new pope, with a polite “I’d prefer not to,” declined --  a strong hint of what he thought of all the pomp and circumstance that surrounds the papacy.”

Early cynics might have dismissed the Pope’s ‘sartorial minimalism’ as window dressing, a clever way of deflecting attention from the issues that had roiled his predecessor’s papacy, but this was just the beginning!

The following news story appeared in the March 29, 2013 edition of The Telegraph:

Pope washes feet of young Muslim woman prisoner in unprecedented twist on Maundy Thursday. Pope Francis continued his gleeful abandonment of tradition by washing the feet of a young Muslim woman prisoner in an unprecedented twist on the Holy Thursday tradition. While popes have for centuries washed the feet of the faithful on the day before Good Friday, never before had a pontiff washed the feet of a woman. That one of the female inmates at the prison in Rome was also a Serbian Muslim was also a break with tradition. “

In a brief homily, Pope Francis explained what the ritual he was about to perform meant and what Jesus was teaching his disciples when he washed their feet at the Last Supper.

“To wash your feet, this is a symbol, a sign that I am at your service,” the Pope said.

Pope Francis presides over a church that has 1.2 billion followers all over the world. Such humility in a leader who wields such power is, simply stated, staggering. The simplicity of dress and lifestyle that the Pope has exhibited is not an exercise in public relations by any means!

He lives in a small suite at a simple hostel on the Vatican grounds rather than the opulent Vatican apartments overlooking St. Peter’s square. He uses Fiat cars instead of the armored Mercedes favored by his predecessors. As Archbishop of Buenos Aires, he lived in a tiny apartment, cooked his own meals and traveled by public transport.

Radical as Pope Francis’ simple lifestyle might seem, it pales in comparison with his egalitarian and compassionate ideology, as reflected in his Apostolic Exhortation.

John Allen, a well-known Vatican expert, writing in the National Catholic Reporter says:

“Dreams can be powerful things, especially when articulated by leaders with the realistic capacity to translate them into action. That was the case 50 years ago with Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous ‘I Have a Dream’ speech, and it also seems to be the ambition of Pope Francis' bold new apostolic exhortation, ‘The Joy of the Gospel.’ ”

According to Allen, the document is a “vision statement about the kind of community Francis wants Catholicism to be: more missionary, more merciful, and with the courage to change” and represents the Pope’s ‘I Have A Dream’ moment.

Pope Francis’ clear and unequivocal advocacy for the poor and downtrodden is highlighted in the following excerpt from his Apostolic Exhortation:

“Today’s economic mechanisms promote inordinate consumption, yet it is evident that unbridled consumerism combined with inequality proves doubly damaging to the social fabric. Inequality eventually engenders a violence which recourse to arms cannot and never will be able to resolve. It serves only to offer false hopes to those clamouring for heightened security, even though nowadays we know that weapons and violence, rather than providing solutions, create new and more serious conflicts. Some simply content themselves with blaming the poor and the poorer countries themselves for their troubles; indulging in unwarranted generalizations, they claim that the solution is an “education” that would tranquilize them, making them tame and harmless.”

Students of history could see this as a clear condemnation of US foreign policy, as practiced by every US President from Harry Truman to Barack Obama, his personal liberal propensities notwithstanding!

(As an aside, I must pause to highly recommend a ten part documentary that is currently playing on Showtime, made by Oliver Stone. It has an interesting take on the consequences the US foreign policy has had on the rest of the world over the last seven decades.)

Pope Francis’ compassion for the poor has elicited sharp criticism from the rabid right in the US, led by none other than the indefatigable Rush Limbaugh, that paragon of good taste and restraint. In his usual sanguine manner, Limbaugh, the self-styled protector of traditional American values, branded Pope Francis a Communist over his comments decrying hyper-capitalism and global inequality.

History has shown us time and time again that the courage of conviction that is underpinned by compassion and a love of humanity is more than a match for both bluster and tyranny.

The gentle prophet Guru Nanak who spoke of the soul clad in the silk of love within the body clad in the rags of humility, showed the world that he would not be cowed down. Not by the sword of the tyrant. Not by the weight of centuries of social oppression. Not by the rigid strictures of a reactionary and cruel order that boasted divine origin and sanction.

It certainly seems that the soul of the man who now stands in the shoes of the Fisherman -- Pope Francis -- is clad in that same silk of compassion and love for all of humanity.

May he never be cowed down!

 

December 22, 2013

 

 

Conversation about this article

1: Baldev Singh (Bradford, United Kingdom), December 22, 2013, 9:55 AM.

Guru Nanak is way beyond any pope or priest or clergy of any ideology! He delivers the message in awesome simplicity and practicality!

2: Bhai Harbans Lal (Dallas, Texas, USA), December 22, 2013, 12:21 PM.

Well put, Sarbpreet ji. The Vatican leader Pope Francis walking in the foot-prints of Guru Nanak to shape the future humanity is heartening news, not just for the followers of Guru Nanak alone but for all humanity. You did a good job in putting the Pope's perspectives in the global context. Whereas there is no denying that the Pope is taking a bold step in the realm of his church's religious mission, and the followers of Guru Nanak may take pride in that step, conversely we Sikhs can also learn from the Pope on organizational issues. Harvard Divinity School Professor Francis X. Clooney recently told the Harvard Gazette reporter how the new Pope was changing the composition, ladders of authority, and definitions in the Catholic Church's administration. Let me quote from the Harvard Gazette issue of September 23, 2013: "GAZETTE: In the interview the pope seemed to say that he looks at the Catholic Church as a top-down as well as a bottom-up institution. Is that a major break from tradition? How will that thinking impact his papacy? CLOONEY: I think if you had had a private conversation with John Paul or Benedict, they would have agreed with this larger sense of church. It's in the language of Vatican II that the church is fundamentally the people of God, and that the people of God is not just the Vatican or the bishops. They believed this too. But the truth of this wider reality of church really hasn't, in the decades since the council, been wholeheartedly embraced and implemented as the ordinary practice of the church. Figures at the top have still taken the lead and kept control of so much of what goes on, and caution won out over creativity, again and again. There was no 'bottom-up' energy affecting the Vatican, as far as most of us could see. Even at higher levels, consultation seemed more an ideal than a reality. In the interview, Francis points out how Vatican II called for a process of consultation with the various bishops' conferences from around the world, but the synods that have happened, regularly, seem to have been encumbered by a highly stylized formality in which little that is truly new has been really allowed to be said, as if the outcomes were planned in advance. The fact that Francis is genuinely saying that the church can be the church only if people at all levels and all places have a role is an important step forward -- and back to the council. But how that translates into practice will be the key issue." If he does truly make room for these multiple voices, that's going to be a big change. Cpming back to Sikh Panth, all of us can learn from Pope Francis' directions that warn us to dangers if we do not reconsider. The world is telling us to come to the basics that our Gurus showed us to bring our own home to order with respect to our panthic organizations and its management. Much discussion is called for in the area of the definitions, panthic organizational structures and modes of selecting our panthic leadership. In the near future I may write more about it but like to get feedback from our readers in the light of what the Pope is saying about the organization and leadership of the Catholic church, the world's largest religious organization.

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A Pope with the Sensibilities of a Sikh"









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