Pope asks American Charismatic pastors for blessing

In a seven-minute, home-made video, Pope Francis has asked a “prosperity gospel” televangelist for his blessing. It was broadcast in January at a convention for evangelical Charismatic ministers in Texas, writes Robert Mickens.

“I speak to you as a brother in a simple way … I ask you to bless me and I bless you – brother to brother,” the Pope said in a moving video, posted online on 21 February.

“I have a nostalgia [yearning] that we can be united. We must cry together like Joseph did and these tears will unite us, the tears of love,” he said, referring to the Old Testament account of Joseph weeping when he was reunited with his brothers that had sold him into slavery. “Our sins have separated us … misunderstandings throughout history. Who’s to blame? We are all to blame; only the Lord is just,” the Pope said in the remarkable video, filmed on an iPhone by Tony Palmer, who was born in New Zealand but grew up in South Africa and is a bishop in the Communion of Episcopal Evangelical Churches. 

Palmer presented it on 21 January at an evangelical ministers’ conference hosted by televangelist Kenneth Copeland, a disciple of US television preacher Oral Roberts. He told the gathering that Francis was one of his “mentors” and “spiritual fathers” whom he had met several years ago in Buenos Aires while working as an ecumenical collaborator with the Catholic Charismatic Renewal. He said he visited the Pope on 14 January at his Vatican residence and that it was Francis’ idea to make the video.

“I am here with my brother, my bishop brother, Tony Palmer. We’ve known each other for years,” the Pope said. After saying a few words in English, he continued in Italian (subtitles were added for the audience).

The conventioneers vigorously applauded at the end of the Pope’s video and Kenneth Copeland, speaking in tongues, led a long prayer for him. “I’m telling you right now, Heaven is thrilled with this! When we went into the ministry 47 years ago this was impossible,” Copeland told the crowd.

Pope Francis’ outreach to the evangelical Charismatics was remarkable for the fact that Catholic leaders, especially in Latin America and Africa, have seen them as “poachers” and too far from doctrine to merit dialogue. In 2008, Benedict XVI warned Catholic Charismatics of the need to safeguard their “fidelity to Catholic and ecclesial identity” in strict cooperation with their bishops.