Bishop W. Shawn McKnight, of the Diocese of Jefferson City, rarely lets a quiet moment linger.
McKnight and 14 other bishops from Missouri, Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska sat down with Pope Francis on Jan. 16 to discuss issues facing the Catholic Church.
Every bishop goes on a pilgrimage to Rome to meet with the pope every five years. About six months before the pilgrimage, the bishops send their ad limina reports, which discuss status of their dioceses and what is upcoming for them.
As the bishops entered the room where they were to meet the Holy Father, they were told there would be no seniority.
"The pope sat us all down. We sat in a big circle," McKnight said. "We had a very good discussion. We had already prepared for one of the bishops to be the spokesman. The Holy Father said, 'We're not doing that. I want everybody to say something. I'm here to listen and to respond to any questions you might have.'"
Most of the discussions were confidential and wide-ranging. However, McKnight said, the pope was very candid.
"When he opened up the floor, he said, 'Who's going to be brave enough to start?' There was a hesitancy," McKnight said. "I raised my hand. He said, 'Bravo.'"
McKnight told Pope Francis he had heard the pope had increased resources to the portion of the church that deals with clergy abuse cases. The organization was expanded to work on cases.
"I wanted to thank him - and let him know how important that is for us," McKnight said.
Pope Francis spoke with the men for about two hours and 15 minutes.
In addition to the issue of clergy abuse, McKnight thanked the pope for a portion of the "Evangelii Gaudium" that Francis wrote. Evangelii Gaudium was the pope's writing on evangelization of the church - including a portion on the importance of the parish to the church's pastoral plan.
Pope Francis has written a lot, McKnight said. And the pope asked what he wrote in the passage that struck McKnight.
"I said, 'It's the one about the parish and how it's an important part of the church, where you described the parish as the presence of the church in a territory and the center of missionary outreach,'" McKnight said.
That sparked the pope's memories. He leaned back and said it may not be de fide (an article of the faith that everybody has to believe), but he was fully behind the parish structure and that's the structure that needs to be used for the church.
"I very much appreciated that," McKnight said. "That's what I am using in my effort throughout the diocese to develop a pastoral vision for us here. How can we be responsive to the Holy Father's wishes?"
The parish is not a place where clergy only serve the church's own members, he said. The church is responsible for proclaiming the gospel to everyone in that territory and manifesting that through good works.
The bishops talked with Pope Francis about immigration, abortion, clergy abuse and other issues facing the church.
McKnight reiterated he could not disclose details of discussions he had with the pope, but he said Pope Francis is "pained by the clergy sexual abuse crisis."
"He reaffirmed with us that this is not something you sweep under the rug," McKnight said. "It's a crime and must be dealt with as such."
And the pope made it clear Theodore McCarrick, a former cardinal and archbishop, should have never been promoted.
McKnight's return to Jefferson City last week came at the end of a three-week trip. He spent the first half of the trip with three lay people from the diocese, conducting missionary work in India. McKnight's pilgrimage to the Diocese of Jashpur (in east-central India) took 42 hours of near-continuous travel, including four flights (two of which each took eight hours). The last segment of travel was a four-hour drive. The final 10 miles of roads were not paved.
"That was quite a tiring experience," he said. "But it was a very moving encounter with the church there."
While there, McKnight was an honored guest for Mass for the 50th anniversary of the dedication of the Jashpur cathedral, believed to be the second-largest Roman Catholic church in Asia. He ordained five priests.
Jefferson City has a connection with the Jashpur community, McKnight said. The Diocese of Jefferson City has helped build churches and schools in the region. Priests from Jashpur have come to serve in the Diocese of Jefferson City.
Catholics are "very much a minority" in Jashpur, he said.
"In that territory, the people are 25 percent Catholic, so it's a real rich environment of Catholics who are very strong," McKnight said. "It's a tribal area. The tribal system is very much in place there."
"I and my fellow travellers were treated almost like celebrities. We were visiting people who had never met anybody from Europe, let alone the United States," he said. "We were really in their territory. They were honored by the fact that we would come and share time with them, and pray with them, and celebrate with them these important milestones in the Catholic Church there."