I didn’t make pope
It’s not on my CV
Priest and prison pastor
Prefect of students
Seminary professor
Parish priest and parish mission preacher
But never pope or bishop
There you go
Francis present pope
He has the human touch
The human face the world
Looked out to see
Benedict the scholar
Has given us powerful stuff
His writings good
Solid theology
And the chap that came before them
The polish pope we say
Dynamic guy the actor
Heavy theology
Alphonsus told his fellows
Be careful how you live
People are more impressed by what they see
Than by anything they hear
Our modern visual age
All TV screens and pictures
Follows what it sees
Not what it thinks
In fact I think it thinks what it sees
Moving along with moving images
Not much depth to life these days
Just stimuli each day
Signs of life or maybe
Signs of decay
John Paul came out of Poland
And shook the liberal West
Our idea of freedom
Does not meet the test
Benedict the scholar
Thinking all the time
Offers us good teaching
Till his own decline
Now Francis is the Church’s face
A human face and heart
His stature and the way he lives
Helps us to play our part
Brian Fahy
3 December 2021
+ Last night I watched again the film Two Popes, starring Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce. In that film we hear the great line uttered by the character of Bergoglio – ‘Holy Father, the truth may be vital, but without love it is unbearable.’
Erris Poetry 