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For his frequently expressed hope of returning the Roman Catholic religion to a focus on compassion rather than dogma (and his example of the same), Pope Francis has been lauded by media institutions from Time magazine to The Advocate. Now, David Gibson reports for the Religion News Service, he is encouraging public breast-feeding — or at least, encouraging one woman, waiting to see him pass with a hungry, crying baby in her arms, to nurse the infant who needs her no matter where she is. In an interview with Andrea Tornielli of La Stampa, the pope said:

There are so many children that cry because they are hungry. At the Wednesday General Audience the other day there was a young mother behind one of the barriers with a baby that was just a few months old. The child was crying its eyes out as I came past.

The mother was caressing it. I said to her: “Madam, I think the child’s hungry.”

“Yes, it’s probably time…,” she replied.

“Please give it something to eat!” I said.

She was shy and didn’t want to breast-feed in public, while the pope was passing. I wish to say the same to humanity: give people something to eat! That woman had milk to give to her child; we have enough food in the world to feed everyone.

One can question whether the pope’s message is about breast-feeding or about hunger — or both — but at a moment when many might have agreed that a baby should be discreetly removed for feeding, Pope Francis encouraged the mother to nurse her child. He has also been photographed kissing an infant while another mother breast-fed her baby just a few inches away, apparently without blinking an eye.

In this, Mr. Gibson says, Pope Francis is being deeply traditional. In the Middle Ages, he writes, quoting “A Complex Delight: The Secularization of the Breast, 1350-1750,” “the virgin’s nursing breast, the lactating virgin, was the primary symbol of God’s love for humanity.”

By the Middle Ages, the breast-feeding Mary was shown in every possible context, and “lactation miracles” and “milk shrines” proliferated across the Christian world. Mary was “the wet-nurse of salvation,” as one phrase had it, offering holy succor to communities exposed to the vagaries of war and disease. Some images of St. Bernard of Clairvaux even show him kneeling in prayer before a statue of Mary, who is squirting breast milk onto his eager lips.

File that under “interesting facts that might come in handy some day,” and chalk up another reason to appreciate the Catholic Church’s new public face.

Hat tip to @KDaniels8 for this story. For more images of the nursing Mary, visit St. Peter’s List.