The Pope in front of Congress

El Papa in front of Congress, 

Thomas Merton-5, Jesus Christ-0

 The View from the Middle

This is a very difficult article for me to write.  I’ve just watched Pope Francis deliver his address to Congress and I’m watching the pundits slobbering all over themselves with glorious praise for his speech.  How can a person criticize a man who just talked about love, liberty and the importance of taking care of the poor? 

He may as well have come out in favor of mom, apple pie and the flag.  I guess he could have also come out in support of puppies.  Oh, and let’s throw the golden rule in there just for good measure.  One pundit did touch on the flaw in this speech, although it wasn’t positioned as a flaw.  She said the Pope offended no one except possibly ISIS and arms dealers.

And that is the problem I have with the Pope’s address.  He had the attention of the entire US Congress, the President, the Vice President and millions of Americans and he played it safe.  He spoke in vague generalities and on subjects that almost no one would disagree with when he could have challenged us to look deep inside ourselves and at the character of our nation.

About half way through his delivery my heart began to beat a little quicker when he said that we should protect human life during every stage of its development.  I thought to myself, here we go!  He’s going to segue into a discussion of partial birth abortion or Planned Parenthood’s barbaric practice of selling baby parts for profit.  I was truly excited.

But where did the Pope go?  To a global ban on the death penalty.  Don’t get me wrong, I have some real reservations about the death penalty.   Last year, however, only 35 people were put to death in the US penal system, and that number has been trending down since 1999 when we executed a total of 99 people.  This compares to over a million babies who are aborted every year in the United States and over 40 million worldwide.  

Pope Francis barely grazed on issues like abortion (that word was actually not mentioned), religious liberty and the traditional definition of marriage (I’m assuming that’s what he was addressing when he talked about marriage and family), but spent big chunks of his speech to talk about global warming and immigration.  Are these big issues?  Yes.  But does he risk becoming the Papal meteorologist instead of the Pope?  Should his goal be to make us feel comfortable or to challenge us to be better, or is it a little of both?  Today, he clearly erred on the comfort side.

Finally, as a Christian and former Catholic, I was disappointed that the Pope never mentioned the name of Jesus Christ either day.  Jesus separates us from all other religions and is the centerpiece of God’s plan to save the world.  He’s also a model for all of us to use if we want to be better people.  He mentioned Thomas Merton five times today.  God bless Thomas Merton, but he’s no Jesus Christ.

PS – The Pope did deliver a one liner about the importance of unity early in his address.  Personally, I think lack of unity and civility are huge problems in Washington, and this could be the closest thing to a controversy that that pundits could point to, if they even notice.