Ad Limina Apostolorum

One of the special blessings and responsibilities of being a diocesan bishop is making the pilgrimage – ad limina apostolorum. Ordinarily the ad limina visit takes place every five years. It is a pilgrimage “to the threshold of the apostles,” that is to the tombs of the Apostles, Saint Peter and Saint Paul who are buried within the major papal basilicas in Rome that bear their names. It also is the occasion when the bishop prepares an account of his stewardship and reports on the state of the diocese to the Holy Father and his curia. The principal highlight of the visit is, of course, the meeting with the pope.

I write this column with bleary eyes since I returned late from a week of travel to Rome for my ad limina visit. The highlights of the trip almost are too numerous to mention. It was certainly a beautiful experience of fraternity with my brother bishops from Texas, Arkansas and Oklahoma, who made this pilgrimage together.

We had Mass at each of the four major papal basilicas of Rome, beginning with Saint Peter at the Vatican where we renewed our profession of faith and expressed our communion with the successor of Peter on the very tomb of Saint Peter.

I had the privilege of being the principal celebrant and homilist when we visited the Papal Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls. After Mass, we had an opportunity to pause for prayer at his tomb as well, which for me was very poignant since he is my patron saint. In addition, we celebrated Mass at the Papal Basilica of Saint Mary Major, one of the oldest churches dedicated to Mary in the Christian world. It was built to commemorate the affirmation of her title as Mother of God following the 5 ^th century Council of Ephesus. Finally, we celebrated the closing Mass of our pilgrimage at the Major Papal Basilica of Saint John Lateran, the cathedral Church of Rome.

Each day, we had scheduled visits to the various Vatican dicasteries, or curial offices, which oversee and serve to facilitate the work of the pope in service to the Universal Church. This was my third ad limina visit since becoming a bishop 15 years ago. The tone of each has been different and each has been the occasion of great joy, especially having the privilege of meeting the last three extraordinary popes, Saint John Paul II, Pope Benedict and Pope Francis.

What struck me throughout this ad limina visit was the obvious desire of all of the officials at each of the dicasteries to hear from us and learn of our concerns. This was displayed most remarkably in our visit with Pope Francis with which we began our visit in Rome.

Pope Francis welcomed us warmly and, once we were seated around the room, he invited us to share with him what was on our minds. For the next two and a half hours we had a very cordial and fraternal conversation. He told us to ask anything and broach any subject that was on our minds. And, we did! This was truly an extraordinary experience. We spoke frankly, and he did too. Obviously, most of the things we discussed were spoken in confidence and cannot be shared.

When I spoke, however, I thanked the Holy Father for the gift of the beatification of Blessed Stanley Rother and reminded him that he was from Oklahoma and had been a missionary in Guatemala. He quickly demonstrated a remarkable familiarity and appreciation of the life and ministry of Blessed Stanley. He was struck by the fact that he chose to return to Guatemala even knowing that he risked his life by doing so. We found that same interest and admiration for our Oklahoma martyr in several of the dicasteries that we visited.

The Church has been going through great trials and difficulties in recent years. We certainly discussed those, especially the scandals of sexual abuse and coverup by clergy and bishops. In recent years, tensions have emerged that seem to indicate a strain in the relationship between Pope Francis and many Church leaders in the United States. Pope Francis offered us a precious opportunity to experience and express our deep communion with him.

We bishops left Rome and our visit with the Holy Father encouraged by our experience. He listened to us, and we listened to him. It was a remarkable blessing to hear from the Holy Father directly and for him to hear from us unfiltered by the distortions of social media and the biases of the mass media.

One of the joys of every pilgrimage is the opportunity to visit holy sites and pray for the needs of others. Knowing that most people of our archdiocese never have such an opportunity, it was a joy to carry in my heart the prayers of gratitude and petition of all the faithful, clergy and religious of Oklahoma and present them to the Lord through the intercession of so many apostles and saints whose tombs we had the opportunity to venerate. It was a remarkable experience of our closeness and communion as members of the Body of Christ united under the leadership of the Successor of Peter.