The parish community of Exaltation of the Holy Cross Church, 420 Main Road, Buttonwood section of Hanover Township, invites all faithful to participate in a Polish Lenten service on Sunday, March 26, the Fifth Sunday of Lent.

The 11th annual presentation of “Gorzkie Zale” (Bitter Lamentations), a moving Lenten service more than 300 years old, will be held in the church beginning at 3 p.m. The devotion will conclude with benediction of the Blessed Sacrament.

The service, which recounts the Passion of Jesus –– from his arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane to his redeeming death on the cross –– will be conducted by Father Richard Cirba, host pastor, and Father James McGahagan.

Musical accompaniment will be provided by Dominick Costantino Jr. and the music ministry of Exaltation of the Holy Cross Parish, assisted by singers throughout the Diocese.

Incorporating prose and verse, chant and reading, prayer and meditation, the inspirational devotion reflects on the mystery of Christian redemption.

The Lamentations highlight the emotional nature of Polish spirituality, inviting all to share in the Lord’s Passion as seen through the eyes of his Mother Mary.

The devotional service can be experienced by all through the use of bilingual booklets, with both Polish and English lyrics. A light social will follow the devotion.

Anyone wishing to participate with the choir may contact Mr. Costantino at (570) 706-6951. For more information, call (570) 899-5080.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – To evangelize well, the faithful need to dialogue with God, let the Holy Spirit renew their hearts and lives, and then dialogue with today’s world, Pope Francis said.

The Holy Spirit is “the protagonist of evangelization. Without the Holy Spirit we will only be advertising the church,” he said during his weekly general audience in St. Peter’s Square March 22.

Pope Francis prays during his general audience in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican March 22, 2023. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)

The church, too, always must be “evangelizing herself” or else “it remains a museum piece,” he said.

The pope continued his series of talks about “the passion for evangelization: the apostolic zeal of the believer” by reflecting on St. Paul VI’s apostolic exhortation “Evangelii Nuntiandi” (On Evangelization in the Modern World) and its emphasis on witnessing to Christ.

“You cannot evangelize without witness — the witness of the personal encounter with Jesus Christ, the incarnate Word in which salvation is fulfilled,” he said.

“Witness also includes professed faith, that is, convinced and manifest adherence to God the father, son and Holy Spirit, who created and redeemed us out of love,” he said.

And, he said, it is a faith “that transforms us, that transforms our relationships, the criteria and the values that determine our choices. Witness, therefore, cannot be separated from consistency between what one believes and what one proclaims.”

“A person is credible if there is harmony between what they believe and live, how they believe and live,” the pope said. Anything else is hypocrisy.

“Every one of us is required to respond to three fundamental questions, posed in this way by St. Paul VI: ‘Do you believe what you are proclaiming? Do you live what you believe? Do you preach what you live?'” the pope said.

“We cannot be satisfied with easy, pre-packaged answers,” he said. “We are called upon to accept the risk, albeit destabilized, of the search, trusting fully in the action of the Holy Spirit who works in each one of us, driving us ever further: beyond our boundaries, beyond our barriers, beyond our limits, of any type.”

St. Paul VI, he said, “teaches that the zeal for evangelization springs from holiness which springs from a heart filled with God. Nourished by prayer and, above all, by love for the Eucharist, evangelization in turn increases holiness in the people who carry it out.”

“Without holiness, the word of the evangelizer ‘will have difficulty in touching the heart of modern man’ and ‘risks being vain and sterile'” because it is just a string of empty words, he said, quoting St. Paul’s exhortation.

Evangelization is addressed not only to others “but also ourselves, believers in Christ and active members of the people of God,” Pope Francis said. “We have to convert every day, receive the word of God and change our life each day, this is how you evangelize the heart.”

The Catholic Church, “which is the people of God immersed in the world,” is often tempted by many idols, therefore, “she always needs to hear the proclamation of the mighty works of God,” to pray and feel the power of the Holy Spirit, which changes people’s hearts, he said.

“A church that evangelizes herself in order to evangelize is a church that, guided by the Holy Spirit, is required to walk a demanding path of conversion and renewal,” he said.

This includes “the ability to change the ways of understanding and living its evangelizing presence in history, avoiding taking refuge in the protected zones of the logic of ‘it has always been done this way’ (which) are shelters that make the church fall ill,” he said.

“The church must always go forward, it must continually grow,” he added. “This way it stays young.”

At the end of the audience, the pope underlined the sanctity of all human life. He greeted the faithful from Poland, which celebrates the Day for the Sanctity of Life March 25.

“As a sign of the need to protect human life from conception to its natural end, the Yes to Life Foundation is giving to Zambia the ‘Voice of the Unborn’ bell, which I blessed this morning,” he said.

“May its sound carry the message that every life is sacred and inviolable,” he added.

PHILADELPHIA (OSV News) – A Philadelphia Catholic school community whose parish has historical ties to St. John Neumann is recovering after a March 21 fire devastated its building.

A three-alarm blaze broke out at Our Mother of Consolation Parish School in the city’s Chestnut Hill section just after 3:30 p.m., less than an hour after classes had been dismissed for the day.

A parent collecting her child had alerted school staff to the fire after seeing smoke coming from the roof, according to Sister of St. Joseph Christine Konopelski, pastoral associate for faith formation at OMC, speaking with local media.

Emergency equipment is pictured outside the charred structure of Our Mother of Consolation Parish School in Philadelphia March 22, 2023, following a three-alarm fire March 21 that gutted the historic building. One firefighter suffered minor injuries battling the blaze, the cause for which remains under investigation. (OSV News photo/Gina Christian)


Remaining staff and students were evacuated from the building. The fire was placed under control shortly before 5:30 p.m. and remains under investigation, Philadelphia Fire Commissioner Adam K. Thiel told local media.

One responding firefighter sustained minor injuries and was taken to the hospital for treatment.

OMC pastor Father John Fisher, an Oblate of St. Francis de Sales, told OSV News March 22 it was “a blessing to know we are not mourning the loss of life.”

He said that several agencies, including the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, or ATF, were investigating the cause of the blaze.

Students have been temporarily shifted to a remote learning plan, as damage to the school has shuttered the building “for the remainder of the year,” Father Fisher and OMC school principal Patricia Sheetz said in a joint statement issued March 21.

Father Fisher and Sheetz also noted they are “working to identify potential locations in proximity to our parish where the children can begin attending class again in person,” having already received “many offers” for space usage, including from “local churches, elementary schools and (nearby) Chestnut Hill College.”

The two also said they have been “deluged” by support, with Philadelphia Archbishop Nelson J. Pérez, Auxiliary Bishop Timothy C. Senior and vicar general Msgr. Daniel Kutys expressing concern, along with several elected officials and OMC parishioners, parents and alumni.

Father Fisher told OSV News that the school was “more than an educational building. It was a home where kids felt loved, safe and embraced, and where their faith was nurtured.”

The school, which along with the parish buildings is listed on Philadelphia’s register of historic places, was first opened in 1862 in an old tenant house donated to the Sisters of Saint Joseph by philanthropist John Middleton, a Quaker who converted to Catholicism. In 1854, Middleton had petitioned St. John Neumann (1811-1860), then bishop of Philadelphia, to create the parish that became OMC, with Middleton largely funding the church’s construction.

Amid the loss, Father Fisher said several faculty had noticed signs of hope.

“We were standing on the sidewalk, and they said through the grade four classroom window they could see the cross still hanging on the wall,” he said. “And our Blessed Mother statue outside is still going strong.”

WASHINGTON (OSV News) – A still-pending ruling by a federal judge in Texas could pull an abortion drug from the market across the United States.

A lawsuit by a coalition of pro-life opponents of the drug mifepristone, the first of two drugs used in a medication or chemical abortion, is demanding the U.S. Food and Drug Administration revoke its approval of the drug.

If U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk rules in favor of the plaintiffs, he could issue a nationwide injunction on the sale of mifepristone, as requested by the plaintiffs, which would affect even U.S. states where abortion is legal and the drug is permitted under state law.

Another drug used in combination with mifepristone for abortions, called misoprostol, would still be available. Misoprostol is sometimes prescribed by doctors for early miscarriage, but the FDA has not approved the drug for inducing abortion on its own.

The Catholic Church teaches that all human life is sacred and must be respected from conception to natural death. It opposes direct abortion as an act of violence that takes the life of the unborn child.

In January, the FDA eased restrictions on the sale of mifepristone, the first of two drugs used in a chemical abortion, permitting their sale at retail pharmacies for the first time. The decision followed the Supreme Court’s decision last year in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that struck down the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, after which states moved to restrict or broaden abortion access.

“The FDA approved Mifeprex (mifepristone) more than 20 years ago based on a thorough and comprehensive review of the scientific evidence presented and determined that it was safe and effective for its indicated use,” the agency said on its website.

Proponents of the use of mifepristone for abortion argue the court should keep the FDA regulations in place.

Boxes of mifepristone, the first pill given in a medical abortion, are pictured in a Jan. 13, 2023, photo. A federal judge in Texas is poised to rule on whether to suspend the FDA’s approval of mifepristone, potentially pulling the drug from the market nationwide. (OSV News photo/Evelyn Hockstein, Reuters)

“There’s zero justification for removing this medication from the market that isn’t political,” the ACLU said in a March 15 tweet. “This case should’ve been laughed out of court.”

On its website, the FDA states that mifepristone “is safe when used as indicated and directed” through 10 weeks gestation. The agency’s adverse reaction guidelines for the drug state that “serious and sometimes fatal infections and bleeding occur very rarely.”

Opponents of mifepristone say those risks are more common and more dangerous than proponents of the drug say.

Dr. Ingrid Skop, a board-certified OB-GYN and senior fellow and director of medical affairs at the Charlotte Lozier Institute, told reporters in a March 21 press call that the lawsuit is about “holding the FDA accountable to its own rules and protecting American women and girls from dangerous drugs.”

“Although like approximately 90% of obstetricians, I do not perform elective abortions, I have cared for women in emergency rooms or in my private practice who suffered complications from chemical abortions,” Dr. Skop said. “Because they have been told it’s safer than Tylenol, they are usually surprised and unprepared when complications occur.”

Dr. Skop said the abortion pill is marketed to women as more natural, and as allowing the process to take place “in her own home.” But she said that claim is for “the benefit of the abortion industry, not women.”

“Few physicians are willing to perform abortions,” she said, “so chemical abortions solve staffing problems.”

After a March 15 hearing in Amarillo, Texas, Kacsmaryk did not issue a decision, but indicated his ruling would come as soon as possible.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Pope Francis has invited Catholics worldwide to renew the act of consecrating the church and all humanity, especially Russia and Ukraine, to Mary every March 25, the feast of the Annunciation.

At the end of his general audience in St. Peter’s Square March 22, the pope recalled last year’s service “when, in union with all the bishops of the world, the church and humanity, especially Russia and Ukraine, were consecrated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.”

Pope Francis burns incense in front of a Marian statue after consecrating the world and, in particular, Ukraine and Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary during a Lenten penance service in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican March 25, 2022. A year later, he asked Catholics worldwide to renew the consecration and pray for peace. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)

“Let us not tire of entrusting the cause of peace to the Queen of Peace,” he said, asking that people not forget “troubled Ukraine, which is suffering so much.”

The pope invited “every believer and community, especially prayer groups, to renew every March 25 the Act of Consecration to Our Lady, so that she, who is mother, may preserve us all in unity and peace.”

As Russia’s violent invasion of Ukraine entered its second month Pope Francis pronounced the Act of Consecration after leading a Lenten penance service in St. Peter’s Basilica March 25, 2022. He had asked bishops around the world to join him the same day in consecrating Ukraine and Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

In his homily during the Lenten penance service, Pope Francis had said the Act of Consecration was “no magic formula but a spiritual act” of trust by “children who, amid the tribulation of this cruel and senseless war that threatens our world, turn to their mother, reposing all their fears and pain in her heart and abandoning themselves to her.”

“It means placing in that pure and undefiled heart, where God is mirrored, the inestimable goods of fraternity and peace, all that we have and are, so that she, the mother whom the Lord has given us, may protect us and watch over us,” the pope had said.

Students, staff and families from St. Clare/St. Paul School in Scranton gathered Friday morning, March 17, 2023, for a pep rally to send off their boys basketball team to represent the Diocese of Scranton in the state CYO (Catholic Youth Organization) Tournament in Philadelphia.

The Crusaders will play their first game this evening at 7:45 p.m. against Our Lady of Mt. Carmel at Holy Family University in Philadelphia.

Best of luck to the Crusaders!!

SCRANTON (Feb. 16, 2023) – During the penitential season of Lent, Catholics age 14 and over are required to abstain from eating meat on Friday. This ecclesiastical law helps us to commemorate as a community the Passion and Death of the Lord and to practice the self-restraint called for by this holy season.

The memorial of Saint Patrick falls on a Friday this year, March 17, the Friday of the Third Week of Lent. Given the importance of this feast in the life of the Diocese of Scranton and in the lives of many local Catholics, the Most Rev. Joseph C. Bambera, Bishop of Scranton, is granting a dispensation from the Friday Lenten abstinence on Friday, March 17, 2023, to those who wish to take advantage of this opportunity.

Code of Canon Law No. 87 states, “A diocesan bishop, whenever he judges that it contributes to their spiritual good, is able to dispense the faithful from universal and particular disciplinary laws issued for his territory or his subjects by the supreme authority of the Church.”

This dispensation applies to celebrations in parishes, fraternal organizations and families. It is not required that anyone make use of this dispensation. The dispensation does not apply to any other celebrations of Saint Patrick that might take place on any other Fridays in Lent.

All the faithful who take advantage of this dispensation are encouraged to abstain from meat on some other day as part of their penitential practices during Lent and/or perform an act of service, prayer or sacrifice in keeping with the character of the Lenten season.

Information on this Saint Patrick’s Day Dispensation was published in the Feb. 16 edition of The Catholic Light newspaper.

SOUTH ABINGTON TWP. – On behalf of the faithful of the Diocese of Scranton, the Most Rev. Joseph C. Bambera, Bishop of Scranton, welcomed a community of ten Carmelite nuns to northeastern Pennsylvania on Sunday, Feb. 26, 2023, the First Sunday of Lent.

“I speak on behalf of the people of the Diocese of Scranton in saying ‘welcome Sisters,’” Bishop Bambera said while celebrating Mass with them. “We are so, so honored and blessed to have you be a part of this local church, a part of this Christian community of believers.”

The Most Rev. Joseph C. Bambera, Bishop of Scranton, celebrates Mass with cloistered Carmelite nuns of the Monastery of Our Lady of Mount Carmel and Saint Joseph, on Feb. 26, 2023, in their temporary home at the former Saint Gabriel Retreat Center near Clarks Summit. The nuns recently relocated to the Diocese of Scranton after leaving Brooklyn.

Earlier in the month, the cloistered Carmelite nuns from the Monastery of Our Lady of Mount Carmel and Saint Joseph relocated from Brooklyn, N.Y., to a temporary home at the former Saint Gabriel’s Retreat Center near Clarks Summit.

Their current location is expected to be only temporary because the Carmelite nuns have plans to build a new monastery on land in Pleasant Mount in Wayne County.

“This place has had a tradition of being a real refuge for many people. I know it may not be part of your tradition but many people have had retreats here. It has been a place of prayer, a place of discernment and just a wonderful place where God’s people have come together,” Bishop Bambera explained to the nuns prior to blessing their current home.

The Discalced Carmelite nuns, who pray for the Church and for the world, especially for the sanctification of priests and the salvation of souls, decided to relocate from Brooklyn because of late night partying by teenagers and young adults in a park next to their former home that was disruptive to their prayer work.

On their website, the nuns wrote the park has “proved to be a real problem and in recent times, even a danger for our Community … Worse than the noise, however, is the late night carousing, drinking and drugs, as well as the evidence of satanic rituals just feet away from us. Under such conditions it is impossible for our Community to grow and flourish.”

Bishop Bambera uses holy water to bless the general living area of the cloistered Carmelite nuns who are temporarily living at the former Saint Gabriel Retreat Center near Clarks Summit.

In beginning his homily for the Carmelite nuns, Bishop Bambera noted they had been an important part of the Brooklyn diocese for nearly 20 years.

“I know first-hand from Bishop DiMarzio, Bishop Brennan, Bishop Chappetto, Bishop Sanchez and Bishop Octavio, they are sorry to see you leave,” he said. “Their loss, as they’ve said to me, is our blessing and we are so grateful.”

Bishop Bambera also reflected on the Gospel passage for the First Sunday in Lent, which was about the temptation of Jesus in the desert.

“He goes into the desert, into the wilderness, probably something like this part of northeastern Pennsylvania or Pleasant Mount, and He prepares for His public ministry,” the bishop said. “At that moment, in the quiet solitude of the desert, He begins to reflect and discern all the more intently, more so than He had done throughout his 30 years of life to that point, what the Father was calling Him to do and to be.”

Not unlike what the Sisters have embarked on, the desert was a time of “great transition, reflection and change.”

Bishop Bambera told the nuns the real blessing in the Gospel account is that every day each of us is confronted with choices and given the opportunity to hand ourselves over to God and thus be used by God.

“I face choices every day of my ministry as Bishop and I dare say Sisters, you face those choices as well. As the spirit has led you into the wilderness of northeastern Pennsylvania, you face a lot of choices … We simply need to trust in the power of God.”

As he reflected on the former Saint Gabriel Monastery property a little more, Bishop Bambera encouraged the Sisters to trust where God’s goodness and mercy leads them.

“This was a monastery for Passionist Sisters. Providentially, I don’t know if this is in your plans yet, but they had a place where they baked altar breads. I know that is something that you will, or plan, to do as you did in Brooklyn,” Bishop Bambera said.

“May we have the humility and the wisdom to pray that the Lord will touch our hearts so that we may trust in God’s way, in God’s will and in God’s plan, and together in the ways given to us by God help to build his kingdom.”

The Carmelite nuns of the Monastery of Our Lady of Mount Carmel and Saint Joseph are currently raising donations for their new home in the Pleasant Mount area. Plans for new Community call for it to be an authentic Spanish Carmel, like those in which Saint Teresa of Jesus and her daughters lived.

The monastic enclosure is being designed for 24 nuns, a chapel that seats 148 and facilities for baking altar bread and communion wafers that would be sent out for use by parishes across the country.

“The monastery is designed in a Spanish Carmelite style, taking its inspiration from the monastic home of Saint Teresa in Avila, Spain, Joel Pidel, lead designer, said.

“The monastery will even share Avila’s distinctive feature of being situated on a hilltop, visible for miles around.”

Erik Bootsma is the architect leading the planning and execution of the planned project in Pleasant Mount.

“It is a privilege to help to facilitate the growth of such a vibrant, devout religious order,” Bootsma said. “The new Monastery will truly be a beautiful center of prayer, built in stone in the classical style.”

As he ended his time with the Carmelite nuns, Bishop Bambera simply told the Sisters they are more welcome in northeastern Pennsylvania than they know.

“We are very touched by your presence and most especially very grateful for your prayers. I know that is the heart of your ministry and we know that we have a special place in that heart,” Bishop Bambera said. “Thank you for all that you have done for us and all that you will continue to do. I hope you feel at home here.”

To learn more about the plans for the Discalced Carmelite nuns, or to donate to their planned Monastery in Pleasant Mount, visit pleasantmountcarmel.org.

TOWANDA – Hundreds of people have already taken the opportunity to grow closer to Jesus this Lent at a series of Holy Hours with the Most Reverend Joseph C. Bambera, Bishop of Scranton.

If you have not had the opportunity to participate yet, there is still plenty of time!

As we approach the middle of Lent, nearly half of the 12 Holy Hours have already taken place in communities including Carbondale, Cresco, Montoursville, Towanda, Scranton and Wilkes-Barre. At least six more Lenten Holy Hours will take place before Holy Week begins.

Bishop Bambera celebrated a Lenten Holy Hour at Our Lady of Lourdes Parish in Montoursville on Wednesday, March 8, 2023.

The Lenten Holy Hours are being held to commemorate the diocesan phase of the National Eucharistic Revival, which has the goal of renewing the Church and enkindling a living relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist.

Below is a roundup of some of the Holy Hours that have taken place so far:

CARBONDALE

The Lenten Holy Hours began in the Carbondale deanery on Thursday, Feb. 23, the day after Ash Wednesday, at Saint Rose of Lima Parish.

“This Holy Hour is a great way to start, to begin, the first step, because every journey begins with the first step,” Rev. Seth Wasnock, pastor of Saint Rose of Lima and Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parishes, said.

“To have our Bishop here is just a wonderful experience,” Bernadette Lepre, parishioner of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish, explained.

Each Holy Hour begins with Solemn Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, followed by a period of silent, personal prayer.

“I feel that a Holy Hour is a time for me to have a one-to-one talk with the Lord, to sit and just think of what he wants me to do,” Joan Scavo, parishioner of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish, added.

CRESCO

The faithful of the Stroudsburg deanery gathered at Most Holy Trinity Parish in Cresco on Tuesday, Feb. 28.

“Anytime the Sacrament is exposed, it is a time to be with Christ and be closer to Christ and it’s especially important during Lent,” Michael Ziobro, parishioner of Most Holy Trinity Parish, said. “During our Lenten journey, we’re supposed to be spending more time in prayer and having more quiet time and getting ourselves together.”

Many feel the time is well spent.

“It’s a time of very quiet thought and prayer and this gives our community the opportunity to sit together with these solemn services and pray as we should during Lent,” Midge Barron, parishioner of Most Holy Trinity Parish, added. “The silence of it brings us closer to Christ and I think that is what makes it for me.”

“When the whole deanery is represented and we have multiple congregations joining as one, I think it adds a heightened sense of community to the prayer,” Cheryl Lynott, parishioner of Most Holy Trinity Parish, explained. “It invigorates all of us and I think it’s a special way to pay homage to the Lord.”

MONTOURSVILLE

The faithful of Lycoming and Tioga counties joined together on Wednesday, March 8, at Our Lady of Lourdes Parish in Montoursville.

“To be here with the Bishop tonight is just so special to me. I’ve never ever been here with a Bishop,” Sharon O’Malley, parishioner of Our Lady of Lourdes Parish, said.

As the faithful gazed upon the consecrated host on the altar – many said they prayed about the great mystery of God’s love revealed to us in Christ.

“A Holy Hour is a great way to slow down from the pace of life, which these days seems to be crazier than ever,” Keith Kuzio, parishioner of Our Lady of Lourdes Parish, added. “It is time to just be with our Lord in His peace and His love and to feel the grace that comes to us from the Eucharist and His sacrifice for us.”

Rev. Michael S. McCormick, host pastor, said a Lent without Jesus is a waste of time but a Lent with Jesus is worth the world.

“It is such a glorious gift that He has given us and to know that He is with us, in Adoration, we know that He is there substantially. He’s really, really present – body, blood, soul and divinity,” Rev. McCormick said.

TOWANDA

As Father Kevin Miller, dean of the Sayre Deanery, welcomed the faithful to Saints Peter & Paul Parish in Towanda, he encouraged people to let Jesus’ holiness penetrate their souls and minds.

“It’s wonderful because you put everything else out of your mind and you just are in the moment and journeying with Christ,” Karen Stroud, parishioner of Saints Peter & Paul Parish, said.

Some people who attended had never participated in a Holy Hour before.

“This was really the first Holy Hour I’ve attended,” Patti Meredith, parishioner of Saints Peter and Paul Parish, said. “I thought the sense of community, where people came from other towns and priests were here from other towns and the Bishop was here providing a beautiful message.”

The Holy Hour was also a family affair for the Tavani family, who attended together.
“I think it is always nice to spend time in front of the Blessed Sacrament. The opportunity is usually time for private, quiet, meditative prayer,” Heidi Tavani said.

For Heidi’s daughter, Hannah, the Holy Hour emphasized the universality of the Church.

“I think Lent is sometimes overemphasizing, ‘What are you giving up?’ I think sometimes the prayer aspect of Lent gets overlooked so I think having the opportunity to have a Holy Hour in front of the Blessed Sacrament, during Lent, before Easter, helps emphasize the importance of prayer, leading up to Easter,” she said.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – For a decade, even when discussing the internal workings of the Vatican, Pope Francis has insisted the church is not the church of Christ if it does not reach out, sharing the “joy of the Gospel” and placing the poor at the center of its attention.

Signals that his papacy would be different started the moment he stepped out on the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica the evening of March 13, 2013: He was not wearing a red, ermine-trimmed cape, and he bowed as he asked the crowd to pray that God would bless him.

His decision not to live in the Apostolic Palace, his invitations to Vatican trash collectors and gardeners and other employees to join him for his daily morning Mass, his insistence on going to the Italian island of Lampedusa to celebrate Mass and pray for migrants who had drowned in the Mediterranean captivated the attention of the media.

Pope Francis blesses a prisoner as he visits he Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility in Philadelphia in this Sept. 27, 2015, file photo. In Washington the pope visited the White House and made history as the first pope to address Congress; in New York he spoke at the U.N. and visited ground zero; in Philadelphia he led the World Meeting of Families. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)

But not everyone was pleased with the seeming ease with which he set aside pomp and protocol. And tensions within the Catholic community grew as he expressed openness to LGBTQ Catholics and to those living in what the church considers irregular marriage situations and when he said in an interview in 2013 that the church cannot talk only about abortion, gay marriage and contraception.

One kind of summary of his first 10 years as pope can be found in numbers: He has made 40 trips abroad, visiting 60 countries; in eight consistories he created 95 cardinals under the age of 80 and eligible to vote in a conclave and paid tribute to 26 churchmen over the age of 80; and he has presided over the canonizations of 911 new saints, including a group of more than 800 martyrs, but also Sts. John Paul II, John XXIII and Paul VI.

In his first major document, the apostolic exhortation “The Joy of the Gospel,” he laid out a program for his papacy, looking inside the church and outside at the world to see what needed to be done to “encourage and guide the whole church in a new phase of evangelization, one marked by enthusiasm and vitality.”

The document included a discussion of the need to reform church institutions to highlight their missionary role; to encourage pastoral workers to listen to and stand with the people they were ministering to – his famous line about having “the smell of the sheep”; to deepen an understanding of the church as “the entire people of God” and not as an institution or, worse, a club of the elect; to integrate the poor into the church and society, rather than simply see them as objects of assistance; and to promote peace and dialogue.

For Canadian Cardinal Michael Czerny, prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, the agenda of Pope Francis is the original agenda of the Second Vatican Council.

Unlike St. John Paul II and the late Pope Benedict XVI, Pope Francis did not attend any of the council sessions. And, in fact, because he was ordained to the priesthood Dec. 13, 1969, he is the first pope to be ordained a priest after Vatican II.

“After Scripture and tradition, the council is the significant foundation, and I would say, characteristic orientation of this papacy,” the cardinal told Catholic News Service. “He has taken the council not from a collection of decrees, but from the lived experience of the council as implemented, as lived, as tested, as developed, you might say, in the church of Latin America.”

St. John XXIII launched the council with a pastoral focus on what it means to be the church in the modern world, he said. The papacies of St. John Paul and Pope Benedict, he said, “reverted to a more doctrinal understanding of the council” with “some very good results and with some massive, unfinished business.”

While the work of Pope Francis’ predecessors was important, he said, “I don’t think it picked up the primary agenda (of the council), which was implementing a new understanding of church in the modern world, a new way of evangelizing because the world is so different from how it was, let’s say, at the end of World War II.”

Emilce Cuda, an Argentine theologian and secretary of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, agreed that a key to understanding Pope Francis’ pontificate is knowing how Vatican II was lived in Latin America with respect for popular piety and culture, and trust in the “sensus fidei,” the notion that the baptized together have a “sense of faith” and an ability “to understand what God says to us, to his people, in every moment.”

“There in the popular culture, in the peripheries, and in all the people of God, we can hear what God wants from us, or what God tells us to do in response to social problems and in the church in each moment,” she said. “We are in history and history is a movement, and the situation is not the same (as) in the 20th century or in the 21st century.”

As for disagreements with or even controversies about the papacy of Pope Francis, Cardinal Czerny warned against confusing “loud with representative or loud with majority. Loud doesn’t mean any of those things; it means loud.”

But, he said, “the patience of Pope Francis” leads him and encourages others to recognize that the pope’s critics “are not 100% off beam,” or off track; there usually is a grain of truth in what they say or an important value they hold dear that is being overlooked.

Cardinal Joseph W. Tobin of Newark, New Jersey, told CNS he believes the first 10 years of Pope Francis’ pontificate have been preparation for “what’s happening right now, and that’s the synodal conversation.”

The Second Vatican Council called Catholics to read the “signs of the times” and respond. And, the cardinal said, “this notion that we don’t have automatically prepared prescriptions for every challenge that faces us leads us to a fundamental tenet of our belief,” which is belief “in the Holy Spirit, the lord and giver of life.”

The synod process, which began with listening to people around the globe and will move toward two assemblies mainly of bishops, is about listening to the Holy Spirit.

While the synod involves meetings, Cardinal Tobin said, “synodality is a way of being church. It’s an ancient way of being church that is being recovered and lived in the circumstances in which we face ourselves today. And so, to my mind, that’s sort of the capstone of what Pope Francis has been working for over the last decade.”

“I’ve called synodality his long game,” the cardinal said. “He’s convinced that the changed circumstances of our world and our world going forward demand a new appreciation for the role of the Holy Spirit and a way to access that gift that is given to all of us by virtue of our baptism.”

Pope Francis has been laying the foundation for the new synod process since the beginning of his pontificate, said Cardinal Blase J. Cupich of Chicago. “There’s an organic whole to all of this.”

“I just wonder if, from the very beginning, he had in his mind that this would be the trajectory of his pontificate, and the synod on synodality I think is, in some way, the opportunity for him to pull everything together,” he said. “There are people who want him to go faster, but he wants things to be held together and the church to be held together.”

Asked what he thought was the most significant aspect of Pope Francis’ pontificate, the cardinal cited his predecessor, the late Cardinal Francis E. George, who participated in the 2013 conclave, and said the best description of Pope Francis was “He’s free.”

“He’s free in the sense of wanting to listen to different voices in the life of the church,” Cardinal Cupich said. “He’s free in being imaginative, but also he has the kind of freedom that really allows him to be joyful in this ministry.”

“John Paul II told us what we should do. Benedict told us why we should do it. And Francis is saying, ‘Do it,'” the cardinal said. Pope Francis is leading by example in how he cares for the poor, sees God at work in people’s real lives and reaches out to people often overlooked by the church.

“I think history will look back on this pontificate as historic, as pivotal in the life of the church,” Cardinal Cupich said.

Here is a timeline of some significant events in Pope Francis’ pontificate. (OSV News illustration/Chelsa Alt, OSV News)