“Small Gestures”: Mark Shriver on His Search for Pope Francis
By Julia Greenwood
Last week, the Initiative hosted Mark Shriver for a conversation about his return to his faith in the Catholic Church and his journey to discover Pope Francis’ roots, as detailed in his recently published book Pilgrimage: My Search for the Real Pope Francis (2016). This Dialogue was about two rather prominent figures: Pope Francis, as head of one of the world’s major religions, has become one of the most influential people on the planet. Mark Shriver, for his part, is a member of the Kennedy dynasty. His mother, Eunice Kennedy, is the sister of the late John F. Kennedy. He served in the Maryland House of Delegates, is the president of the Save the Children Action Fund, and wrote a best-selling book about his late father, Sargent Shriver.
When an audience member asked about Francis’ potential lasting effects on the global Church, Mark Shriver had no shortage of proverbial threads at his fingertips that he could have pulled on. Francis is, after all, a Pope who has done big things. He has rejuvenated the Church and, in some ways, reconnected the Vatican with the Church’s work on the margins. Francis has managed to connect with the world, not only with Catholics but also with people of other faith traditions or even those of no particular faith. This is especially true with young people through not only social media but with his personality and charm. When he started an Instagram account in March, for instance, he amassed over a million followers in less than twelve hours—a world record. He is, after all, “a leader whose smile lights up the world,” as John Carr commented at the Dialogue. Moreover, he has made significant contributions to Catholic Social Thought (CST). His encyclical on the environment, Laudato Si, has placed care for creation at the forefront of CST, along with his emphasis on serving the poor and caring for those on the margins, particularly refugees.
Shriver spoke of how Pope Francis is “trying to teach us all to reach out to each other” and show us how to change hearts starting with our own. Francis teaches with “small gestures” in the way he lives. He rides the subway with the masses, as Shriver pointed out, and turned the Vatican’s summer residence into a museum. The latter is not a “small” thing, so to speak, but it is certainly representative of the pontiff’s efforts to reach out to others.
When Shriver was asked at another point to reflect on the Pope’s visit to the United States last September and how we as Americans can recapture some of the love and joy and hope that surrounded that voyage, he similarly returned to speaking about such “little gestures.” “It’s not about crazy, big ideas; it's about small gestures of mercy and forgiveness.” Shriver spoke about our interactions with the members of our own families, and how approaching such encounters with love can add up to more significant changes that may, perhaps, even change hearts.
And so a conversation with an incredibly accomplished politician, activist, and author about a Pope beloved by not only Catholics but by people the world over became a conversation about the little things that we do individually in our daily lives, reminding us to reach out with love in our little gestures something to take to heart, especially this Advent season.
Julia Greenwood (C'19) is an undergraduate studying American studies at Georgetown.