My Pope Francis book, the joy of the gospeler!

As I write these lines, 15 January 2015, I just finished producing printout copies of my new book, POPE FRANCiS: Champion of Faiths, Champion of Science. This is the one I started 3 weeks ago, on Christmas Day, Thursday, 2014. This is my personal contribution to the celebration of the visit of Pope Francis to the Philippines 15-19 January 2015.

I was very happy to have thought of writing this book even given the tight schedule that I imposed on myself, and to finish it in time for Pope Francis' arrival in Manila. That brings me to 2 world records I suppose: Earlier I finished a book on science in 3 months (158 pages, 49,600 words), and now I have finished a book on faith in 3 weeks (103 pages, 40,200 words) – including desktop publishing for both, as for my books I always do the DTP myself, as a one-man band.

So now I'm thinking of 18 January 2015, when I will be in the periphery of Rizal Park and with a copy of my book on hand waiting for Pope Francis to pass by me, or near enough for me to hand it over to him. It would be a joy. My gospel? My science goes well with your faith.

Let me now summarize the contents of my book:

Chapter 1, "A Big Heart Open: An Interview with Pope Francis Annotated by Frank H." If you want to understand Pope Francis, you have to know where he's coming from, and this chapter presents him mostly in his words. "A Big Heart Open" (my title) is my take on Fr Antonio Spadaro's published interview "A Big Heart Open To God" (his title), an inspired act I must say, since I knew after reading much that the heart of Pope Francis is open to both God and Man, especially the poor and the oppressed. That title of Fr Antonio's 6 hours-long total interview on 3 different dates with Pope Francis is limited to only one good side of Pope Francis. In this chapter, I annotate the 12,500-word report and at the same time insert some tips on how you can conduct interviews so that you can write more interesting stories or essays out of them. The art of the interview can be summarized in 1 word: Listen!

Chapter 2, "Pope Francis, Champion of Faiths." He has 10 tips to happiness and 10 suggested New Year resolutions to make you happy anyway. If you're not Catholic, he doesn't try to point out the error of your ways and convert you, only convince you of his offer peace among religions, to collaborate and work out peace and prosperity, the former for the world, the latter for the poor. Your faith is as good as mine.

Chapter 3, "Papal Power. Pope Francis of the Little Doughnut" takes off from Oscar Wilde's differentiation between an optimist and a pessimist, the one seeing the doughnut and the other seeing the hole – and Pope Francis sees the whole, God-given, not man-made. Thus, he sees the whole family as male parent, female parent, and children. He also sees the whole world, and I say "Your world is not whole if as a Roman Catholic you exclude the Protestants, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and so on." That is why Pope Francis is promoting interfaith dialogues. The whole is the world.

Chapter 4, "Epal Power. The 7th Commandment: Don't Steal." About the popular Manila T-shirt campaign against corruption with the slogan "Huwag kang magnakaw" ("Don't steal"), I have a suggestion on how to raise awareness and at the same time raise funds through sale of the T-shirt by encouraging people to spend for T-shirts with their faces and names, just like politicians do to announce their projects. No shame for announcing one's intention to convince people to behave as good Christians. I call it "Epal Power" based on the fact that "epal" is a local slang for "attention grabber," so that the epal T-shirt becomes a great private medium for public good. This will be more fun for more funds.

Chapter 5, "Pope Francis & The Beatitudes of Power" has to do with what Pope Francis referred to as the 15 ailments of the Vatican Curia. If you want to cure a disease, you have to expose it. The Curia diseases have something to do with feeling "immortal," excessive activity, mental & spiritual petrification, over-planning, bad coordination, spiritual Alzheimer's, rivalry & vainglory, existential schizophrenia, gossip & chatter, deifying the leaders, indifference to others, funereal face, hoarding, close circles, and worldly profit & exhibitionism. The difference I made is that I converted the 15 into Beatitudes of Power, transforming the negatives into positives. The journey of transformation is the reward.

Chapter 6, "What Would Pope Francis Say? Charice on Glee, Fox Revisited" is about the young Filipina international singing sensation supported by Oprah and mentored by David Foster, who chose to become a lesbian, deserted her family (mother Raquel and brother Carl), and lived as if married with another girl, Alyssa Milano. Charice was in fact very proud of it, not acknowledging the sin, only the pleasures she derived from it. As a father, I love Charice as a daughter but I hate her homosexuality.

Chapter 7, "The Large Hilario Family. Pope Francis & Population" has to do with Frank A Hilario's family of 12 children with 1 wife, 0 extra-marital affairs, 0 adoption, and 0 abortion. Pope Francis recognizes large families as well as encourages interfaith dialogues. We are already interfaith: the Hilario parents are Roman Catholics, and so are 9 of the children; 2 are Bread of Life and 1 is Victory Fellowship for Christ. Ask Pope Francis, you can't win them all!

Chapter 8, "Jose Rizal, Philippine Hero as a Returning Roman Catholic." I can't help but insert this insight of mine about the National Hero as having returned to the Roman Catholic fold before he died and before he composed his valedictory poem, "Adios, Patria Adorada" that I translated as "Adios, Beloved Country" (my English translation is included in the book). We all must welcome all the prodigal sons returning.

Chapter 9, "the Gift of Release. A Pope Francis Lesson of 2013" recalls the release of the newly elected Pope Francis on the evening of 13 March 2013 from darkness and doubt to light and hope, by the grace of God, when he prayed for it. I recall a similar if lower degree of transformation in my family life. The gift is in the giving up of burdens; the release is in the releasing of cares and concerns at the foot of the cross.

Chapter 10, "Pope Francis. For Catholics, Is He Leader or Soldier? Saint!" American business author Jeffrey A Krames has written a book and derived 12 lessons for would-be-good leaders to emulate. Forbes has its own list of 4 ways that make Pope Francis an outstanding leader. What I see is that Pope Francis would rather be a saint – and he would rather have us all as saints. Because we are already sinners.

Chapter 11, "Frank H and the Making of Pope Francis' Joy of the Gospel" (JoG). While everyone else is looking at the content, Frank H looks at the physical production side of this papal exhortation, specifically the use of automatic footnoting to prepare and revise draft after draft after draft up to camera-ready copy, or the miracle of the pdf. If you assign numbers mechanically, as they did, you have a hell of a time with 217 citations that you have to number and renumber again and again. I employ my mastery of hardware (PC, not Apple) and software (Microsoft Office 2013 Professional Plus) in reviewing the making of the JoG by Pope Francis and his Vatican staff. Note that Frank H is 74 and Pope Francis is 78; I have an edge in technology-assisted writing because I began using the PC in December of 1985 yet, or 30 years ago, and I've continued teaching myself more since then. In analyzing the JoG pdf output, I find that the Vatican staff needs to learn modern desktop publishing so that they too will enjoy the joy of the gospel while they're composing the pages that will bring joy to everyone else. Software makes hard work light.

Chapter 12, "Pope Francis' Genius & Women's Genius." The genius of Pope Francis is that of finding genius in everyone, from the poor to the prisoners to the feminine. The Catholic Church is re-considering the role of women not in ordination, which is human rights, but in complementarity, which is natural rights. The Church is not a democracy, sorry; it was not intended to be. My conclusion: The genius of women lies not in themselves separately but in the natural family. The female cannot define herself by herself alone.

Chapter 13, "Pope Francis, Champion of Science." He has been proselytizing for the protection of the environment and is now reported to be preparing an encyclical on climate change. In fact, in this chapter, I point out that Pope Francis in effect unilaterally declares that there is no schism between science and faith, that, for instance, the theory of evolution does not contradict the belief in creation. Your science is as good as my faith.

Appendix 1. I have rewritten James Francis' "One Solitary Life" into "One Solitary Life Reborn" because while it has been linked to the gospel, in fact the original lacked reference to Christ and lacked the Christian message. Similarly, songs of today are popular even if they are characterized by vacuity.

Appendix 2. I included the lyrics of "We Are All God's Children" by Jamie Rivera, it being the official theme song of Pope Francis' visit to the Philippines. If you want to watch a performance of Jamie with the Brave group, the url is shown here for YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtcQB5048hI

If you want a copy of my book, email me at frankahilario@gmail.com.
It's PhP 500 a copy, including mailing.