By Katie Patrick
The call to the peripheries isn’t just for popes and bishops. You can go to the peripheries, too.
In 2017, at the Convocation of Catholic Leaders, Archbishop José Gomez offered a powerful reflection on a theme that the late Pope Francis emphasized throughout his papacy: the Church’s call to reach beyond her own walls.
“The Church is called to come out of herself and to go to the peripheries,” Pope Francis said, “not only geographically, but also the existential peripheries: the mystery of sin, of pain, of injustice, of ignorance and indifference to religion, of intellectual currents, and of all misery.”
These words resonate deeply with me. They shape the mission of Catholic Social Services and guide how we live out our faith in our communities, parishes, and homes.
It’s fitting that the first of CSS’s five core values is dignity for all—because everything else stems from the belief that human life is sacred, from conception to natural death.
In 2013, Pope Francis said, “Every child who, rather than being born, is condemned unjustly to being aborted, bears the face of Jesus Christ, bears the face of the Lord, who even before he was born, and then just after birth, experienced the world’s rejection.”
In 2014, Pope Francis said, “The elderly are so often discarded with an attitude of abandonment, which is actually real and hidden euthanasia! It is the result of a throwaway culture which is so harmful to our world. Children are thrown away, young people are thrown away, because they have no work, and the elderly are thrown away with the pretense of maintaining a balanced economy, which has at its centre not the human person but money. We are all called to oppose this poisonous, throw away culture!”
For his commitment to human life, we commend his spirit.
Pope Francis got on his knees to wash and kiss the feet of prisoners. Are not the men and women who commit crimes still our brothers and sisters—souls to guide with compassion, not simply problems for the state to manage? Pope Francis said, “We must work so that prisoners are treated with dignity, as everyone can make mistakes: being imprisoned is for resuming an honest life afterwards.”
For his commitment to the imprisoned, we commend his spirit.
Last spring, holding an American flag at the Lincoln airport, my daughter helped me welcome three of nearly 900 refugees that CSS has served over the past four years. With nothing but their backpacks, I drove them to their new home in a new city far from their own homes, and away from their families. When visiting Lesbos, Greece, Pope Francis reminded the world: “Before they are numbers, refugees are first and foremost human beings.”
For his commitment to refugees, we commend his spirit.
In February 2023, the Democratic Republic of Congo declared the day the pope came to celebrate Mass a public holiday, so that as many people as possible could welcome the Holy Father. At one of the largest crowds, nearly one million Congolese attended the Holy Mass celebrated by Pope Francis. Riddled with natural riches yet stricken by conflict, the Congo has been labeled one of the most dangerous countries in the world.
For his commitment to the poor and vulnerable, we commend his spirit.
Over the years, Pope Francis expressed his sorrow when encountering suffering parents. When a mother wrote to Pope Francis about the pain and suffering she endured when her 21-year-old son died in a car accident in 2019, he wrote back, saying that in the face of the mystery of innocent suffering, Mary, the Mother of God, accompanies the broken-hearted.
For his commitment to the sorrowful, we commend his spirit.
Our world sometimes seems weighed down so heavily with anxiety, doubt, and despair. In his homily for the Solemnity of the Epiphany in 2021, Pope Francis said, “When we focus exclusively on problems, and refuse to lift up our eyes to God, fear and confusion creep into our hearts, giving rise to anger, bewilderment, anxiety and depression. Then it becomes difficult to worship the Lord. Once this happens, we need to find the courage to break out of the circle. If we lift up our eyes to the Lord, and consider all things in his light, we will see that he never abandons us.”
For his commitment to the doubtful, we commend his spirit.
We are each called to the peripheries—not in theory, but in practice. Pope Francis has shown us how: with humility, courage, and tenderness. May we strive at Catholic Social Services—and in our neighborhoods, churches, and families—to continue to commend his spirit by living it out ourselves, even in times when we fall short.
