Although the Center for Economic and Social Justice is an
interfaith organization, and nobody’s income is tied to its existence (it’s
all-volunteer), and the Just Third Way is not a faith-based program (although
fully consistent with the natural law-basis of the social teachings of the
Catholic Church), there is a strong and vested interest in the matters Pope
Francis addresses that are not purely religious in nature.
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| Abraham Lincoln: on the pope's A-list |
That is why we paid careful attention to Pope Francis’s
speech before the U.S. Congress. The
fact that a great many people, Catholic and non-Catholic alike, have managed to
put some rather unusual twists on virtually everything Francis says (and make
up quite a bit to go along with it when actual utterances prove insufficiently
spicy), makes this scrutiny more of a duty than a pleasure, but that, we
believe, is just another example of how desperate people trapped in the slavery
of past savings are to find answers that fit within their limited world
view. The fact that a solution is right
before their eyes in the Just Third Way would be obvious if they could
emancipate themselves from the curse of past savings that has done more to keep
people enslaved in other ways than virtually anything else.
That is why we were impressed with the list of Americans
that Francis mentioned in his address — although, again, we have to be very,
very careful how we understand what the pope said and not load it up with our
own hobby horses and what we would have liked him to have said. Putting that special twist on the pope’s
words is a temptation that fewer and fewer people these days are able to
resist.
So, as Francis said, “I would like to mention four of these Americans: Abraham
Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton.”
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| Is Rome Sweet Home for everyone, automatically? |
Right
away people who don’t listen carefully or who don’t understand the teaching
office of the pope were baffled. Two of
the people on the pope’s list aren’t even Catholic! Does that mean that Francis is holding them
up as exemplars for Catholics to follow, suggesting that one doesn’t have to be
a “good Catholic” in order to be a good Catholic? A fake quote attributed to Francis has,
indeed, been circulating for several months to that effect.
On
the contrary! Being reasonable (and, in
Catholic teaching, even matters of faith must have a foundation in reason), we
conclude that each one of these people is being given not as an exemplar for
his or her entire life, but for a single reason, which is only related to
Catholicism in a general way. Francis
was, after all, addressing a body — the United States Congress — composed of
people of many faiths and philosophies.
It would have been the height of presumption for him to speak to them as
if they were a group of Catholics or even Christians.
No,
the pope was addressing the Congress as a moral teacher and world leader whose principles
are, in essence, consistent with those of all of humanity, not any individual
or specific group. To suggest that the
characteristics or qualities we find in Lincoln, King, Day, and Merton are
somehow essential to being Catholic but not members of the human race would
have been both rude and stupid.
Further,
are we to take everything said or done by Lincoln, King, Day, or Merton as
fully consistent with the teachings of the Catholic Church? Again, that would be wrong. Neither Lincoln nor King were Catholic, and
probably had no intention of ever becoming Catholic. Day and Merton, for all the reverence in
which they are held by many, both Catholic and non-Catholic, said many things
that, at least on the surface (which is all the further many people get these
days . . . when they get that far . .
. ) are contradictory, even inconsistent with what the Catholic Church teaches.
Looking
at the pope’s speech with a little objectivity, then, it is obvious that
Francis asked his staff for the names of Americans who would be recognizable
and who exemplified certain traits he wished to stress. Personally, we think that Fulton Sheen would
have been a better choice than Day and Merton, but we don’t happen to be on the
pope’s staff as speech writers, or as anything else, for that matter.
So
we can accept the examples that Francis gave without assuming that he was
presenting the U.S. Congress with an infallible declaration. We can also reject them without impugning the
pope’s authority for that matter — as long as we accept that the principles he
was trying to illustrate are valid.
After
all, does the fact that George Washington never actually chopped down a cherry
tree and may have stretched the truth a few times in his life detract from the validity
of the belief that lying is a bad thing?
Yes, it would have been better had Parson Weems stuck to the truth
himself, but he was constructing moral parables, sort of an American version of
Æsop’s fables, not a strict historical account.
Many
people, however, not understanding what Pope Francis was doing, are going to go
into high gear, and do themselves and others a great disservice, as we will see
tomorrow.