Pope Francis
Last week I wrote about how Father Quigley, a priest at UMass, had taught me about Catholic compassion and the possibility that Pope Francis’ demonstration of Catholic compassion would present an opportunity for liberals to broaden their appeal to Catholic voters. This week we learned that the Pope met with Kentucky County Clerk Kim Davis, which has been taken by many as evidence that my political hypothesis was naïve at best. While I admit that upon hearing the news of this meeting I was genuinely disappointed, I quickly realized it was far from a “disaster” and that holding the Pope to conventional public relations standards is absurd. By visiting with Kim Davis Francis was indeed obeying Father Quigley’s moral directive.
America’s first language is that of the market, reflected in poll driven language mouthed by political figures. Our second language, the language of spiritual morality, was evident in Pope Francis’s call for us to welcome immigrants. Congressional applause for the pontiff’s speech had barely died down when we returned to our first language.