Pope wants priests to be lighthearted: NPR

This week’s op-ed by Pope Francis in the New York Times was a true holiday gift. In a short essay based on a new book, the pope encourages clergy to… laugh.

“Unfortunately, sometimes we encounter bitter and sad priests…” he wrote. “More authoritarian than authoritative…More transcendental than fun…”

The Pope shared some of what I call robe-tickling jokes, including a story about how he was stopped for speeding in a limousine and a joke about a vain Jesuit. I’ll leave the punchline to the Pope.

“Jokes about Jesuits and jokes told by Jesuits are different,” the pope said, comparing Yiddish humor to jokes about Jewish mothers.

The Pope, despite taking his name from St. Francis, is a Jesuit.

Father James Martin, an American Jesuit, author, and Vatican advisor, said, “Every time I meet the Pope, he makes me laugh a lot. That puts people at ease. There’s a reason to watch it.” . ”

Pope Francis said he is advising clergy to laugh at themselves and urging them to be a little more spontaneous.

“(W)hen it becomes difficult to cry seriously or laugh passionately, we are truly on the downhill slope,” he writes. “We are anesthetized, but anesthetized adults are of no use to themselves, to society, or to the Church.”

“Irony is medicine, it uplifts and brightens not only others but ourselves,” he says.

For most of my reporting career, I’ve seen this kind of medicine work, even in the most dire of situations. At this time of year, I often think back to some of the jokes that circulated in Sarajevo during the worst winter siege of the early 1990s.

“We have a beautiful Christmas tree this year,” Sarajevans used to say. “We’re putting lights around trees that don’t exist because they’ve been cut down for heat, and they don’t come on because there’s no electricity.”

Decades later, as the world continues to deal with loss, war, and struggle, we may still find that laughter is the most precious, simplest, and most freeing gift.