Sophia Magazine vol.7 / SUMMER 2018
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joining the dialogue with Sophia University students?”Fr. Haidar: Pope Francis was strongly motivated by the fact that this was a student-centered event. Normally the Prime Minister or an ambassador would be invited, but he is always talking with heads of state and other dignitaries, and when the Pope mentioned that he himself was looking forward to talking with students, it also put us at ease and our discussion could proceed without constraint.Professor Sugimura: This attitude of Pope Francis was re-flected in the dialogue. He called the students by their first names and spoke warmly, gently, and frankly.Fr. Haidar: The popularity and appeal of Pope Francis lies in the fact that he is always natural and always himself. At Sophia University I feel there are a number of leaders who make speeches and so forth, but sometimes they speak as if they are thinking about their status or position. Not the Pope. It is not just with an audience of students; he is the same in all his public duties. On that point he has never changed since the old days. It is fantastic that the students were able to engage with a normal, natural Pope.Fr. De Luca: I think the dialogue via video link was excel-lent. Being able to see the Pope twirling his pen while he was thinking, it felt as though he was talking to us from the room next door.Professor Sugimura: I was impressed at the way he took note of the students’ questions as he listened. It showed his faithful character.Fr. Haidar: I was deeply impressed by the way he would answer questions while keeping an eye on his watch. The Pope loves to talk, so he was worried that if he spent too long on answering one question he would run out of time for others. In the end, his thoughtfulness meant those fears were unfounded. He really put the students first.Professor Sugimura: Singing “Happy Birthday” in Span-ish at the end was exciting too, wasn’t it?Fr. Haidar: Yes, in the planning stages we thought we would sing a Christmas carol, but two weeks before the event we found out that it was the Pope’s birthday on De-cember 17, so we added it to the program immediately. He did not expect it, so he was pleasantly surprised.Professor Sugimura: What impressed me was that when the event had finished, every single person leaving the venue was satisfied, and talking about how wonderful the dialogue was. There was depth in the Pope’s answers to the With master’s degrees in Theology from Sophia (1990) and Philoso-phy from the Universidad del Salvador (1998) and a Ph.D in Theol-ogy from Universidad Ponticia Comillas, Fr. Haidar teaches in the Faculty of Theology at Sophia University.Fr. Juan Carlos Haidar, S.J. Mesmerized by the Pope’s AuthenticityVice President for Global Academic AffairsProfessor, Department of EducationMiki SugimuraPope’s Leadership Sought Beyond ReligionSpecial Talk23

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