Pope Francis has won Time magazine’s Person of the Year for 2013. Whether you are religious or not, his ‘new’ way of thinking will make an impact to the world around us.
I went to a Catholic School and was baptized and confirmed when I was little – my parents are Catholics. However, during my university years, I was disillusioned by people with religious authority and realized that there is a difference between being spiritual versus being religious; believing in God versus belonging to a Church; doing good because it is the right-thing-to-do versus being afraid of the consequence of “going to hell”. The scandals within the Church uncovered in the last 20-30 years did nothing to change my attitude.
With Pope Francis in the leading position, he can indeed cause changes that are deemed impossible at one point. It won’t be all smooth sailing as there is still a HUGE group of old guards with old beliefs still around. Hopefully, Pope Francis’ approach will cascade down the hierarchy or that we can support from bottoms up.
Exercise
I usually try to avoid talking about religion as it tend to polarize people. I am certainly not trying to convince you to be a Catholic or to sway you away from your beliefs – you are who you are.
The lesson that I get from all these is that you can work from within a system to cause changes – POPE FRANCIS DID. Forget about peer pressure and those judging you because you may be the odd one who is on the right path.
MERRY CHRISTMAS!