Cavadini on the challenges of Pope Francis

In this piece ("Challenge us, Pope Francis!", my friend and colleague, theologian John Cavadini offers an insightful and moving reflection on the Pope's upcoming visit.  Check it out.  Here's just a bit:

Everything is interrelated, Pope Francis never tires of repeating. "How can we genuinely teach the importance of concern for other vulnerable beings, however troublesome or inconvenient they may be, if we fail to protect a human embryo, even when its presence is uncomfortable and creates difficulties?"

The papal rhetoric, then, is equal opportunity when it comes to discomfort. What if we were all to listen?

What if, even just for the period of his U.S. visit, we were to allow ourselves, each in our own way, to follow his rhetoric into a zone of discomfort? Would we, oddly, find ourselves meeting there?

One of the official names for the Pope is "pontifex maximus." "Pontifex" means "bridge maker," or "bridge builder" as we might say, and "maximus" indicates the "biggest" bridge builder of all. By inviting us out of our comfort zones and into the realm of discomfort, is Francis inviting us to find a bond we hadn't seen before, a stake in the "comfort zone" of the other that we had not expected to find? In a culture that is so divided as ours, could this be a way of building, or at least rebuilding, some bridges to each other?