It’s Sunday, just before midnight, and I’m lying on my bed in my beautiful little apartment in Rome. Chris Wetschka, the pastoral assistant at the Caritas community in Vienna, just sent me an email calling for a text for the next “Context”: “What Unites Us.” The original motto: “Let us therefore pursue what contributes to peace and to the building of fellowship!” (Romans 14:19)
Exactly one week ago, I took the night train from Vienna to Rome. Why? I’m having to think for a long time about how to phrase it. I don’t know exactly how to describe it. There’s one word remaining: “The Conclave.”
Yesterday, I listened to Cardinal Christoph Schönborn’s press conference on the election of the new pope. He was asked what he expected from the new Pope, Leo XIV. Cardinal Schönborn replied with a smile: “That he is the Pope. I mean it quite seriously. He is the Pope.”
And then the Viennese cardinal talked about what touched him most about this papal election: that hundred of thousands of people from all over the world, along with perhaps billions of others, were waiting for the moment when the “white smoke” rose. And that at that moment, more than hundred of thousands of people began to cheer in and around St. Peter’s Square. And that even though no one yet knew who had been elected. But: We have a new Pope.
I arrived here in Rome on Monday morning. On Tuesday, I made a pilgrimage to all the popes I have known myself, to their tombs in and beneath St. Peter’s Basilica and in Santa Maria Maggiore, where Pope Francis was buried. I met friends there and celebrated the Marian Vespers with them. The next day, the conclave began.
It’s futile to try to put this experience into words. Ludwig Wittgenstein writes as last sentence of his world-famous Tractatus: “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.” It cannot be expressed in words.
Dear God!
You were there with me. You were there with hundreds of thousands, with millions here in Rome. You were there with billions of people all over the world. I was in St. Peter’s Square on Thursday, May 8, 2025, somewhere in the front right among ten thousand others. When the white smoke rose from the chimney at 6:08 p.m., I wept. I wept for minutes, I wept for minutes of joy. You were there with us.
There are people who don’t “believe” in You. They want to see everything documented in writing and measured in money. Please grant them this experience once in their lives, just once. Be it on a starry night, on a mountain peak, or on a beach by the sea. No one needs to “believe” in You; you just have to experience it once, just once. Perhaps alone, perhaps together with loved ones. Martin Luther called You “Gott,” the Jews call You “Yahweh,” the Muslims “Allah,” and others call You even differently. But no matter what we call You, You are. You are, You are there, You are among us. On a starry night, on a mountain peak, or on a beach by the sea. You are. And You are there.
“La pace sia con tutti voi!” Those were the very first words of the new Pope. They are the first words of the Risen Christ. They are God’s first words to all of us. “Peace be with you all!”
Dear God!
Give that we may finally understand You. Chris asks for the “Context” of the Caritas community, “What unites us?”
Dear God, what unites us?
You.
—
Vienna Calling 