Pope Francis wants the Church to be an inverted pyramid: where those supposedly “at the top” are the ones serving others. This is the lens through which to view the baptism he performed for the son of his friend Sergio Sanchez, the leader of the waste-pickers cooperative in Argentina, last Saturday. The Pope baptised Sanchez’s son, appropriately named Francisco, in the chapel of his residence, the Casa Santa Marta. There are also some other messages from that simple baptism ceremony that are worth paying attention to. The first is with regard to the family: Sanchez, 50, who is married to Jacqueline, 27, has two teenage children from a former union. The second is that the event took place in the midst of a transition of power in the Pope’s home country of Argentina.
05 November 2015, The Tablet
Baptism with a message
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