Seeing and Believing
Meditating on the Incredulity of Thomas
This is my third Easter season since my ordination to the diaconate, and the third time I have not had to preach on the Second Sunday of Easter, on the Gospel account of Saint Thomas the Apostle. So I don’t have a homily for today, but I do have some random musings.
I’ve always had a particular fondness for Caravaggio’s depiction of the moment. The Gospel text does not specify whether Thomas does probe the wounds before making his profession of faith, but I love the unapologetic physicality, the Incarnational heft the artist gives this moment. And Jesus is perfectly accommodating of Thomas’s need for hard evidence.
This morning I read an account from AP Vatican corespondent Nicole Winfield of a rather heated exchange she once had with the late Pope Francis about his failure to address allegations of sexual abuse in Chile.
Francis insisted no victims had come forward to accuse Bishop Juan Barros of protecting the abuser priest, Fernando Karadima. I knew otherwise, and told Francis as much in a tone of voice that still shocks me today.
“It’s the victims who are saying this,” I told him.
“I haven’t heard from any victim of Barros,” Francis responded.
“There are! There are!” I insisted. The pope interrupted, but I cut him off, my voice rising. “No! There are victims of Karadima who say that Barros was there!”
“But they didn’t come forward,” Francis replied. “They didn’t give evidence for a judgment. You, with good intentions, tell me that there are victims, but I haven’t seen them because they didn’t present themselves.”
By the genteel standards of Vatican protocol, it was a stunningly sharp exchange. Francis could have dug in or retaliated against me and other journalists who challenged him so publicly.
But he didn’t. His response — commissioning an investigation and, once finished, apologizing to the victims for discrediting them — underscored what friends and foes alike saw as one of Francis’ most remarkable attributes: a willingness to admit mistakes and change course.
It is basically unheard of that a public official, a major world leader, would admit he was wrong much less apologize for his mistake. Heck, these days you’d be hard pressed to find any random Joe on the internet willing to make such an admission of error.
It requires humility. This episode from the life of the late Pope can remind us that humility is one of the greatest of Christian virtues — one of the most difficult, and most necessary — to work at cultivating within our own hearts. Like Thomas, like Francis, we all need the humility to recognize that we don’t know everything.
Looking back at Ms. Winfield’s article, one might appreciate and even share her frustration that the Pope was not accepting and believing the testimony of victims who had come forward. All too often, whether in political, social, or economic evils of our world, it seems that many people are unwilling to believe anything that does not affect them personally.
The Vatican recently released a video recorded by Pope Francis shortly before his hospitalization, in which he says that “one of the most important things in life is to listen—to learn how to listen. When someone speaks to you, wait for them to finish so you can really understand, and then, if you feel like it, respond. But the important thing is to listen.” Listen to your fellow disciples, telling you that Christ is risen. Listen to victims of injustice when they share their experiences. “Blessed are those who have not seen but believe,” Jesus gently scolds his disciple. Listen, trust, believe.
But blessed too are those who can change their minds, admit their mistakes, and come to believe.