No doubting the Pope’s commitment to his task

NEED never sleeps as Brother Kevin, who has been feeding the hungry in our capital for five decades, can attest. The queues have formed outside Bow Street, even as the kitchen staff on the first shift arrive. This summer the centre will have a special visitor, an 81-year-old, slightly stooped figure who carries an inordinate burden. It is entirely fitting that in a trip of only 36 hours to this country, Pope Francis has found time to meet the Capuchin fathers.

Just like Francis of Assisi – their inspiration – and his namesake, they work with the excluded and forgotten.

If the Catholic Church in Ireland lost sight of its mission, the spirit of humility and compassion for all is alive and well in this little pocket of Dublin. If Pope Francis’s intention is to re-energise a deflated and demoralised Church, he could hardly have selected a better venue than Brother Kevin Crowley’s soup kitchen. His visit will bring a spotlight on the nation’s shameful homelessness scandal which Brother Kevin has rightly categorised as a national emergency.

Pope Francis will also visit victims and survivors of clerical abuse. Unlike many in the hierarchy, he has rooted his pontificate in service and reform. The Church is desperately in need of both. It is to be regretted that he will not get to visit the North this time.

Unlike John Paul’s visit in 1979, Pope Francis will find a Church fractured and still reeling from the trauma of institutional abuses. He has said the media only writes about the sinners and the scandals, but he acknowledged: “That’s normal because ‘a tree that falls makes more noise than a forest that grows’.”

He has also said he prefers “a Church which is bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a Church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security”.

It is a tall order to expect one visit to bridge a chasm opened over decades, but no one can question Pope Francis’s commitment to his task.