Converting from pontiff to pundit
POPE FRANCIS is unquestionably a man of uncommon personal grace, the possessor of a genuinely beautiful soul. “On Heaven and Earth,” his booklength exchange with Rabbi Abraham Skorka first published in 2010, is a remarkable testament to the breadth of his perspective.
But that’s not exactly the guy who showed up Friday at the United Nations. That pope endorsed the Iran deal, the UN’s environmentalist goals and what amounts to a worldwide openborders policy on refugees — and offered a very specific view of how to promote development in the Third World that’s straight out of a leftwing textbook.
“The International Financial Agencies,” the pope said, “should care for the sustainable development of countries and should ensure that they are not subjected to oppressive lending systems which, far from promoting progress, subject people to mechanisms which generate greater poverty, exclusion and dependence.”
We’re told we must not view the pope’s expression of views on contemporary subjects through the lens of daytoday issues — that we belittle him and ourselves by examining his words through an ideological filter.
Because of the awesome position he holds, and by dint of his own teachings and his life and teachings before he rose to service as the Vicar of Christ, Francis is said to be deeper and loftier than mere politics.
Sorry: When the pontiff sounds less like a theological leader and more like the 8 p.m. host on MSNBC or the editor of Mother Jones, what’s a guy to do?
Pope Francis is entirely within his rights to become the world’s foremost liberal. But, since that’s what he is, it can’t be wrong to say so.
It is undoubtedly the role of theological leaders to speak to our highest selves, to remind us of eternal moral teachings, to remove us from the everyday and put us in touch with the divine. We look to leaders to tell us what our faith traditions expect of us — what we should do and what we must do.
And, of course, it is impossible to do so without touching on the behavior of people and nations in the present. A leader whose role it is to save the souls of his flock must take account of the particular temptations that beset them and the particular challenges they face.
But that’s wildly different from specifically embracing a UN document, or endorsing a specific agreement between nations. And this is what Francis told us:
“The adoption of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development at the World Summit, which opens today, is an important sign of hope. I am similarly confident that the Paris Conference on Climatic Change will secure fundamental and effective agreements.”
When a leader speaks in these sorts of bureaucratic specifics, he is descending from the highest heavens into ordinary, even trivial, reality. He’s using his authority in the realm of the spiritual to influence the political behavior of others.
He becomes just another pundit. And who needs another one of those?