Neil McNicholas: Power of faith in action as millions drawn to see Pope

WHEN the size of a crowd is mentioned in a news story, how do you get a handle on what that looks like? A hundred thousand, for example, used to be Wembley Stadium packed to capacity – so you pictured the last cup final you saw and that’s what a hundred thousand people looked like. But three million – how do you picture three million? When was the last time you saw three million people in one place?

That was the estimate of how many people packed the two-and-a-half mile long Copacabana beach for the vigil service led by Pope Francis to mark World Youth Day at the weekend.

In his address he lamented what he sees as a defection of Catholics from the Church to Protestant and, in particular, Pentecostal churches and yet, despite that supposed state of affairs, three million souls – many of them young people – packed the beach that day to hear and see the Holy Father.

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I would venture to say that no other person could draw such a crowd – no one. The Pope is in the unique position of being not only a Head of State (of the Vatican), but also the leader of the Catholic Church worldwide. I suspect that when people flock to see him – whether on his international trips or at his weekly public audiences in Rome – they are not going to see a Head of State. They probably don’t even think of him in that way.

Most, if not all, simply want to see their spiritual leader and to experience the person himself and the charisma that Francis, for example, has demonstrated from the first days of his papacy.

But, again, there is no other international figure, or Head of State, that could attract people in such numbers.

Having been privileged to first attend a papal audience in Rome as a youth of 14 just after Pope Paul VI was elected, but then in more recent years to have on several occasions been part of the crowds in St Peter’s Square during the audiences of Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI, there is just something about being there, being “home” as a Catholic, being part of such a vast gathering of people simply wanting to see the Holy Father.

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Some will be there out of curiosity, but the majority are there out of love and respect for the person himself. And in a way that is difficult to explain, it isn’t just him as a person, but what he represents as the head of the Church.

He is, in a sense, the human embodiment of something much greater than he himself, indeed much greater even than that crowd of three million.

He somehow points beyond himself to the faith professed by the great majority of those who come to see him and to something perhaps understood only by those who don’t share that faith.

And it is particularly telling that the recent gathering in Rio consisted mainly of young people who had come together not only from Brazil, but from all over the world for World Youth Day – an occasion that always draws huge numbers of young people in response to the invitation of the Holy Father whenever and wherever it is held.

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Whatever else people may say about the youth of today, the faith and joy and hope that is evident on an occasion like that offers great encouragement for the future of the Church.

While the Pope may have expressed his concern over the “drift” of Catholics to other denominations or none, and not just in Brazil, at the same time gone are the days when Catholics were perceived as being out with butterfly nets trying to catch any and all who strayed too close to the Church!

Young people are the hope of the Church of tomorrow and if the vast numbers that have greeted, and gathered with, Pope Francis at every stop on his visit to Brazil are anything to go by, it has been a rallying call for all people of faith.

Surely his personal appeal will have attracted hundreds of thousands who initially may not have known quite why they came, but certainly would have known afterwards.

• Neil McNicholas is a parish priest in Middlesbrough.