It was a true holiday gift this week to see an opinion piece in The New York Times by Pope Francis. In a short essay adapted from his new book, the pontiff encourages his clergy to … laugh.
"(S)ometimes we unfortunately come across as bitter, sad priests … ," he wrote, "more authoritarian than authoritative … more supercilious than joyful …"
His Holiness even shares a couple of what I'll call vestment ticklers: a story about himself being pulled over for speeding in a limo, and a joke about a vain Jesuit. I'll leave the punchlines to the pontiff.
"Jokes about and told by Jesuits are in a class of their own," says the pope, comparing them to jokes about Jewish mothers in Yiddish humor.
The pope is a Jesuit, even as he takes his name from St. Francis.
Fr. James Martin, the American Jesuit, author and a consultant to the Vatican, told us, "The Holy Father makes me laugh a lot, every time I see him. It puts people at ease. There's a reason you see him smiling all the time."
Pope Francis says he counsels his clergy to laugh at themselves, and urges priests to try to be a little more spontaneous.
"(W)hen it becomes hard to cry seriously or to laugh passionately, then we really are on the downhill slope," he writes. "We become anesthetized, and anesthetized adults do nothing good for themselves, nor for society, nor for the church."
"Irony is a medicine," he says, "not only to lift and brighten others, but also ourselves."
I have seen this kind of medicine at work for much of my reporting life, even in the most agonizing circumstances. This time of year, I often recall some of the jokes that went around Sarajevo during the worst of winter's siege in the early 1990s.
"We have a great Christmas tree this year," Sarajevans would say. "We put lights that don't work, because there's no electricity, around trees that aren't there because they were cut down to burn for heat."
Decades later, as the world continues to deal with loss, war and struggle, we may still find that laughter can be that most precious, simple, and freest of gifts.
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