This week, Pope Francis will visit the U.S. to the cheers of Catholics and non-Catholics alike and we’re looking forward to his speech before Congress on Thursday. It’s easy to see why he’s so popular. Not only is his lack of pretension endearing, but over and over again he’s proven that through his words and actions he’s a force to be reckoned with—for the good.
It’s very difficult to implement change in a massive institution of any kind, but to implement change in a 2,000-year-old religious institution with more than a billion followers is a monumental task. We totally admire his efforts to try to move the Catholic Church in the direction of genuine love for all of humanity. His interest in working with and aiding the poor and working toward greater social justice has been an inspiration to every decent human being on this earth.
Going forward we would hope to see the Catholic Church do more to recognize women’s leadership, support birth control and heal those who’ve been victims of clergy sex abuse. Pope Francis has been able to nudge the Catholic Church into a new era, one with less of a focus on dogma and more of an emphasis on mercy. In fact, the church will observe a “Year of Mercy” beginning this December and he’s leading by example. This is the pope who famously said of gay priests “Who am I to judge?” and he’s shown similar compassion for the poor, immigrants, women who’ve had abortions and divorced Catholics and he helped to thaw the relationship between the U.S. government and Cuba. Finally, since Pope Francis speaks with such knowledge, clarity and conviction, it seems hard to believe but many conservative Catholic Americans have found his critique of capitalism and of climate change denial to be way off the mark. Maybe it is because we are so used to our leaders, whether in business or politics, being so careful with their words and deeds in their efforts to avoid offending the powerful, whether it is a wealthy political donor or major shareholder. The pope, on the other hand, can put into a moral context and say what so many people truly believe because he isn’t afraid of losing his job or offending the powerful, who only seem to care about money and ambition.
We find the pope’s outspokenness to be refreshing and necessary in a world full of injustice and greed. Although good people do good work every day around the world, we live in an era that lacks truly moral world leaders who can rise above petty political divisions and shape history for the better. We welcome Pope Francis to America and hope that more people will take his message to heart and create a more compassionate world.
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