Originally published at crisis magazine
Some who have a familiarity with Lumen Gentium, the Vatican II document, may recall the section of this dogmatic constitution on the images used for the Church. One of these images is the field (Lumen Gentium, 6). It is an image which takes up but four sentences in the text, each sentence drawing on words found in either the Old Testament or the New Testament. The operative words in the short description are tree, roots, vineyard, and branch.
I don’t know if Pope Francis had this part of Lumen Gentium in mind when he used the expression “field hospital” for the Church’s work back in 2013. He could have, but I doubt it. My guess is that the Holy Father had in mind something like what we Americans remember was depicted in the immensely popular television series M*A*S*H.
Readers will remember American soldiers during the Korean War being taken from the battlefield to a field hospital to be stitched up and or bandaged and, depending on the severity of the wounds, returned to the fighting. Captain Hawkeye Pierce (Alan Alda) had an immensely important role then—to save as many lives as he could. And that he did along with Col.
