Like Francis

"IT HURTS me when I see a priest or a nun with the latest model car, you can't do this…A car is necessary to do a lot of work, but please, choose a more humble one. If you like the fancy one, just think about how many children are dying of hunger in the world.”

So reported Reuters of Pope Francis telling young priests and nuns from around the world. This, in keeping with his direction of the Church in full solidarity with the poor.  

So what did Jesus drive? Asked the title of the report.

Demons – away, was my quick answer.

Jesus rode the lowly donkey, not the stately steed. So the Good Book says. 

Living by the Lord’s  example, Pope Francis’ choice “for moving around the walled Vatican City is a compact Ford Focus.”

The report instantly withdraws from the collective memory bank the Philippines’ so-called “Pajero bishops” of two years ago. 

Sometime in June or July 2011, Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office Chair Margarita Juico disclosed to media that certain Catholic bishops received luxury vehicles from the PCSO during the presidency of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

Juico backed her disclosure with the letter of Butuan Bishop Juan de Dios Pueblos personally requesting a Mitsubishi Montero Sport 4 x 4 from GMA as a “birthday gift” in 2009.

Media feeding frenzy ensued, former President Erap Estrada joining the feasting on the bishops’ (dis)honor with his minted “Mitsubishops.”

It did not matter that no Pajero was ever given to any bishop, as it later turned out. Just Juico exhibiting symptoms of foot-in-mouth disease.  

In his letter to the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee on the matter, Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines President Bishop Nereo Odchimar “categorically” denied that the PCSO donations some bishops had received during the Arroyo administration were used to purchase Pajeros and for their personal use.
Attached to Odchimar’s letter was a list of vehicles purchased by certain dioceses or vicariates from the PCSO donation, to wit:
A Mitsubishi Strada pick-up worth P1.107 million bought on Jan. 23, 2009 by the Diocese of Abra used to “transport personnel and carry needed materials for service missions to the poor and needy constituents of Abra province.”
A Toyota Grandia Hi-Ace van worth P1.4 million purchased by the Archdiocese of Cotabato on April 30, 2009 for its social action center, and used “to distribute medicines and other relief goods to disaster-hit areas in the diocese, community health programs.”
A Mitsubishi Strada pick-up worth P1.225 million bought on Dec. 29, 2009 by the Prelature of Isabela (Basilan) for “medical and health missions [and] community visitations to the indigent communities of Basilan province.”
A Toyota Grandia Hi-Ace van worth P1.518 million bought on Sept. 14, 2009, by the Archdiocese of Zamboanga partly for “medical-related services.”
An Isuzu Crosswind utility van worth P720,000 acquired by Caritas Nueva Segovia for “health, dental and medical outreach programs.”
At the Senate hearing, PCSO Director Francisco Joaquin disclosed that the Apostolic Vicariate of Bontoc-Lagawe was the recipient of a donation used to purchase a 17-seat Isuzu passenger van.
The CBCP said the Bontoc-Lagawe vicariate which allegedly received P600,000 in cash for the purchase of a Pajero, instead bought a “second-hand, 10-year-old Nissan Pathfinder pick-up for P280,000.” 
Still the “Pajero bishops” tag stuck. And, in the wake of Pope Francis’ statements, again bandied about, if only to show how far away the princes of the Philippine Church have strayed from the Franciscan standard in Rome.

Admittedly, not a few from the Filipino clergy are possessed not only of less-than-humble cars and the latest gadgets but of the effete elitism that the Pope said did not “make the route to happiness.”

That which His Holiness articulated in his first Chrism Mass last March when he urged the pastors to go out among their flocks where there is “suffering, bloodshed, blindness that longs for sight, and prisoners in thrall to many evil masters.”

Warning thus: “This is precisely the reason for the dissatisfaction of some, who end up sad — sad priests — in some sense becoming collectors of antiques or novelties, instead of being shepherds living with ‘the smell of the sheep’.”

“God’s grace,” he said, “comes alive and flourishes to the extent that we, in faith, go out and give ourselves and the Gospel to others, giving what little ointment we have to those who have nothing, nothing at all.”
Pray that our priests be like Francis.