Pope Francis - Martyrdom and Mark Chapter 8

The new Pope is to be known as Pope Francis, not Pope Francis I, we are told.  In this post my Lenten study of the Gospel of Mark intersects with today's news on the election of  Pope Francis.     Here is one of the most important sections from  that gospel:

[27] And Jesus went on with his disciples, to the villages of Caesare'a Philip'pi; and on the way he asked his disciples, "Who do men say that I am?"
[28] And they told him, "John the Baptist; and others say, Eli'jah; and others one of the prophets."
[29] And he asked them, "But who do you say that I am?" Peter answered him, "You are the Christ."
[30] And he charged them to tell no one about him.
[31] And he began to teach them that the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.
[32] And he said this plainly. And Peter took him, and began to rebuke him.
[33] But turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter, and said, "Get behind me, Satan! For you are not on the side of God, but of men."
[34] And he called to him the multitude with his disciples, and said to them, "If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.
[35] For whoever would save his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it. 

Mark 8:27-31 (RSV).

Today we have a new Pope, and thanks to John O'Brien S.J. I can say that  this section from Mark 8 is on point.   What has this to do with the Pope?   Here in Mark 8 we see Peter making the first statement by any of the friends of Jesus showing an understanding of the identity of Jesus.  (Yes, I know, his words in verse 32 show that he still had a lot to learn.)   Jesus follows with his teaching on  his own impending death.    And John O'Brien S.J.  commented today on this exchange between Jesus and Peter, citing the  parallel passage from Matthew Chapter 16,  as follows:. 

The Pope must be a martyr because the whole Church is called to be martyrological – that is, a living witness to Christ, and Christ crucified. Since Peter’s declaration, “You are Christ, the Son of the Living God”, the Petrine Office has primarily been about professing this living reality. Jesus responded to this first ecclesial “faith-statement” by declaring that flesh and blood had not revealed this to Peter but the heavenly Father, and so Peter is the rock on which he will build his church. The church, then, is built upon a public profession of faith, based upon the witness of what each of us has seen and heard. Peter becomes the first credo-bearer.

http://www.ibosj.ca/2013/03/why-pope-must-be-martyr.html#more     (online post, by John O'Brien S.J.  of March 13, 2013 from  the blog Ibo et Non Redibo). 

Two months ago I was in Caesarea Philippi, which lies at the southwestern base of Mount Hermon in the Golan Heights, a beautiful place located along a spring with streams of rushing water all around, where Jesus had this conversation with Peter.    While we were there we stopped to read these words of Jesus and Peter, and our leader, Derek Leman, presented a reflection on it.   I will never forget that place and our reading of  Mark 8 there.  

As Peter bore witness of Jesus, he followed Jesus in giving his life for his mission, as a martyr in Rome.  May Pope Francis follow in the footsteps of  Peter as a witness of Jesus.     But  I don't want the Pope to die a martyr's death.       I will pray for his health and safety.  What form does Papal  "martyrdom"  take in our era?   The answer is in Mark 8:34 which states: "If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me."   Mark 8:34  (RSV).      Quoting then  Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, from his  book  The Church, Ecumenism and Politics (1987), which  relies on the work of  Cardinal Reginald Pole (1500–1558),   O'Brien explains “the martyrological structure of the papacy” with these remarks:

Pole expresses what many believers know intuitively, that “the office of the papacy is a cross, indeed, the greatest of all crosses,” for the burden of the care for all the Churches in the world is a yoke of not insubstantial weight. For this reason, he will say that the qualities of a Pope may be seen as those that are least desirable in a human political leader. The more a man resembles Christ, the less will he seem capable of human government, “because reason cannot fathom humiliation or the Cross.” 

http://www.ibosj.ca/2013/03/why-pope-must-be-martyr.html#more   (emphasis in original).