In Manila, a papal audience unlike any other

By Orlando R. Barone

I was raised on the Baltimore Catechism, a book approved by U.S. bishops in 1884 and used in various forms to educate young Catholics throughout my youth. It's interesting looking back these many years later at a book I memorized word for word.

It asked all the right questions. For instance, "Why did God make us?" Trouble is, it never let you think about the questions. The answer always appeared directly below. "God made us to know him, love him, and serve him in this world and be happy with him in the next."

Little Glyzelm Palomar - Jun, as she is known - asked a version of that question when she spoke to Pope Francis last week. They met at an outdoor rally on the campus of the University of Santo Tomas in the Philippines. She had been a street child, destitute and abused, a witness to human evil and, worse, human indifference.

Jun broke into sobs as she quizzed the pontiff. Her catechism had a slightly altered version of "Why did God make us?" It went like this: "Why does God allow things like this to happen, even to innocent children?" Her version stayed on the mind of the visibly moved pope, who trashed his prepared remarks and spoke in his native Spanish.

It was a papal audience unlike any I've ever heard of. Before hundreds of thousands of young people, a pope is asked the ultimate question from a weeping 12-year-old whose every tear speaks to her intimate knowledge of the topic. Human suffering: Why?

I once took a vow of poverty. It is a strange, seemingly masochistic thing to do, swear to God you'll never own anything, never seek worldly goods, never accept any material gift as your own. I was becoming a member of a Catholic religious order, so this vow was quite the ordinary course of action in those circumstances.

I've long since left that calling, but the three years spent in thrall of this vow have affected my whole life, my view of this wonderful world so full of glittering baubles, bangles, and BMWs. Kind of messed me up, actually.

I mean, poverty is no joy ride. It is a wretchedness you seek to escape, the last thing you would wish on little Jun . . . or yourself. It is not a condition to tie yourself to with a ridiculous vow. I mean, if poverty is so terrific, is heaven a ghetto of broken-down shanties and verminous tent cities?

Truthfully, the vow is something of a sham. I never lacked for food, shelter, heat, or a comfy bed during those three years. The vow did not mean I was destitute. It meant mainly that I could never take my eyes off those who were destitute.

It meant that I became acutely aware that the Baltimore Catechism did not ask Jun's question. Why do children suffer? Why do so few help us? Pope Francis himself asserted: Little Jun asked a question "for which there is no answer."

There is no answer that fits neatly below the question, ready to be memorized and recited with a stifled yawn. There is, however, a response. Jun's unabashed sobs hold the key. Said the pope to Jun, tears in his own eyes:

"Only when we are able to cry are we able to come close to responding to your question."

That's what the vow of poverty did to me, and what I've witnessed in so many who respond to the needs of others. Unable to avert my eyes from human suffering, unable to quell the awfulness with baubles, bangles, and BMWs, I find myself capable of crying. Tears wash my eyes, and I am able somehow to encounter the fearsome reality of marginalization, being shunted to the side, reaching out for help while good people cross the street to avoid crossing little Jun's path.

Pope Francis is writing a catechism that includes the questions without answers, one that asks us to think but not to stop there. Think, the pope says. Then feel. Then act.

It is the catechism that dares to ask: "Why do children suffer?" And right below the question, it reads: "Weep. First, weep." And right below that: "Let the little children come to you and do not hinder them."

This pope's message, his catechism, may seem new and unusual, yet it is as ancient, and revolutionary, as the message of Jesus always is. This is a catechism worth memorizing.