Pope Francis and the power of tears

02 June 2014

In 1969 the Victorian premier Sir Henry Bolte famously said of protesting railway workers: 'They can march up and down till they're bloody well footsore, it's nothing to do with me.' Bolte was unmoved by the protesters in much the same way that recently members of the current Coalition Government were unimpressed when students hectored Foreign Minister Julie Bishop at Sydney University and former Coalition identity Sophie Mirabella at Melbourne.

There is a place for strident but non-violent protest, but the cause is lost if the intention or effect is to intimidate or coerce. If protesters do manage to persuade authorities to agree to their demands, the change will be temporary or piecemeal unless they have also moved hearts and minds.

The best way of doing this is through meaningful symbolic gesture. We will long remember Pope Francis bowing his head in prayer during his May visit to the Middle East, at Israel's graffiti-covered concrete separation wall, with a Palestinian girl holding a flag by his side. This was an unscheduled moment that allowed him to cut through with his message that the impasse between Israelis and Palestinians is 'increasingly unacceptable'.

It needed to be matched by a further act of symbolism on the other side of the security wall, hence Francis' subsequent unscheduled stop, at a cemetery for victims of terrorism at Mount Herzl. This allowed him to go some way towards establishing trust with Israelis skeptical of 'platitudes about Middle East peace that refuse to condemn Hamas terrorism'.

Catholic Religious Australia (CRA) took its cue from Francis and his mastery of the art of symbolism, when it embarked upon a campaign of National Lament for Australia's harsh and punitive policies against asylum seekers (CRA designated 1–8 June the campaign's Week of Prayer and Prophetic Presence).

Francis had said last year: 'We are a society which has forgotten how to weep.' Heartfelt weeping, he suggested, is 'the cry of the penitent, the cry of the brother and the sister who are looking upon so much human misery'.

The most potent moments in current affairs television occur when the person being interviewed is shown to cry, yet we're taught to believe that 'breaking down' shows we're not in command of the argument. In fact it reveals the humanity of the person, and often establishes an instant bond with those who witness their tears.

CRA stresses the National Lament is not a protest, but 'a symbolic action showing

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Pope Francis and the power of tears

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