With the ongoing visit of the Pope to our fair shores, I couldn’t resist the opportunity to pontificate on the larger significance of his Holiness’ role in the Great Catholic Renaissance Tour that’s seemingly bigger than The Beatles.  He’s drawing record-breaking crowds everywhere he goes, he has the faithful in a tizzy, and world leaders weep like teenage girls in his presence.  It’s official: this pope is a rock star.

Full disclosure: I am a huge fan of Pope Francis, his reforms, and what he has meant to the Catholic faith.  I realize that not everyone in the big Catholic tent agrees with me.  Were I more doctrinaire in my approach toward traditional Catholic teachings, I could understand how he might rub more conservative elements the wrong way.  He is more openly tolerant of homosexuals, draws from strains of liberation theology in his pro-poor, redistributionist stances, supports making annulments easier, and meanders into the political realm with his pronouncements on climate change and refugees (but more on that in another post).  He’s basically a socialist.  But here’s a dirty little secret: so was Jesus.

Before there was Karl Marx, there was Jesus Christ.  Preaching the downright revolutionary notion that the downtrodden poor and not necessarily the rich, the clergy, or the powerful would be welcomed into the kingdom of heaven.  The social revolution that was Christianity began with the idea that the meek would inherit the Earth.  Somewhere along the way, the Church lost sight of that, which is why Pope Francis’ message and approach seem so very radical and leftist and extreme.  What would Jesus do, you might ask?  Exactly what the Pope is doing now, I would submit.  Jesus always struck me as a pro-poor, redistributionist, friend to the cast-offs, anti-establishment kinda dude.  What could be more Christian than eschewing fancy cars, ministering to the poor and infirm, and saying the hard things that the faithful don’t want to hear yet need to be said?

Some will say that the Pope should stay out of political matters.  That his realm is a spiritual and not a worldly one.  But when the plight of so many people is tied up with climate change, income inequality, asylum/migration, and oppression, why should he stay silent?  He’s a moral leader, and these are moral issues.  Fact: climate change disproportionately affects the world’s poor.  Developing countries bear a larger share of the burden of a changing climate as a result of their dependence on agriculture.  They also have fewer financial resources with which to cope with the challenges presented by global warming and rising sea levels.  Fact: the undeniable trend toward wealth accumulation in the hands of the uber rich, highlighted by Thomas Picketty among others, harms the poor as an increasing proportion of resources are consumed and hoarded by the few.  Dodgy economists and shady politicians will assure you that income trickles down through the economy, but wealth (think investments, property, real estate) often does not.  Redistributionist policies in the form of equitable tax burdens, social health and insurance schemes, and free universal education are fundamental to establishing the kind of meritocratic society that Americans so love to trumpet as the cornerstone of our greatness.  While this may have always been more fiction than fact, it’s less true now than it has been at any time since the end of the Second World War.  You say you want a social revolution?  I say we need one, and Pope Francis is reminding us of our golden responsibilities to our less fortunate neighbors, both at home and abroad.

There’s also another, more selfish reason why I love this pope: he’s given me my Catholicism back.  His outstanding example has allowed us Catholics to hold our heads a bit higher and affirm our allegiances with pride.  I’ve never renounced my Catholicism (unless you count those two years in college—props to my Irish friends for dragging me back), as 9% of the total US population has (Pew Research Center)—a truly striking statistic.  But it was admittedly more difficult to stump for a sect that covered up sexual abuse, boasted a rigid and gilded hierarchy, and perpetuated some forms of misogyny.  Now, not all of these problems have been solved overnight, but at least we have a pope who is walking the walk and leading by example on any number of important issues.  Emperor Palpatine, I mean Pope Benedict, was probably a good man but was a difficult symbol behind whom to rally; he often seemed out of touch with the needs and direction of the modern Church.  Pope Francis is a new pope for a new age.

I liken it to 2008 when Obama was elected.  During the Bush years, it was hard to be an American abroad.  I felt like I was constantly apologizing for my nationality with the caveat “but I don’t support _________ (insert shitty policy here: the Iraq War, torture, anything involving Vice President Rasputin).”  It’s like rooting for a sports team with a racist name—sorry, wrong blog.  After Obama was elected, it was as if all was forgiven by those who protested in London, Madrid, and Rome.  I had reclaimed my nationality, and it felt like a burden had been lifted (though proudly, I was never one of those Americans who claimed to be Canadian—I mean, come on, have a modicum of self-respect people—just fucking with you Canada).  With Pope Francis’ arrival and refreshing approach, I feel like I no longer have to qualify my Catholicism by asserting “but there’s a massive difference between the hierarchical bureaucracy in Rome and the Church on the ground in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.”  His example has set us free and set our course in a direction of which many of us are proud and enthusiastically supportive.

For the last several hundred years, Catholicism’s other dirty little secret is that there have always been two churches.  There has been the Church of pomp and circumstance.  Of Vatican City, expense accounts, and ornate ceremony.  I’m all for tradition and ritual, and I appreciate the fact that Catholicism has been the font of some of the world’s greatest architecture (albeit built on the backs of the poor).  But the other Church, the true Church, has always done its best work in the hardest places.  With Gustavo Gutierrez, the father of liberation theology, in the mountains of Peru, or with Oscar Romero on the streets of San Salvador, or in the bush of the Central African Republic.  I worked with numerous priests and nuns in CAR who put their lives on the line every day and lived the gospel through their dedication, sacrifice, and courage.  Nick Kristof has written beautifully and poignantly on the subject of the two churches within Catholicism before in The New York Times.[1]  What Pope Francis has done is try to reunite these two previously divergent strains of Catholic dogma and Catholic action.  And I love him for it.

There are many inside and outside of the Catholic Church who oppose Pope Francis’ reformist agenda.  He just demoted the highest ranking US cardinal at the Vatican who has been outspoken in his opposition to these changes.  There will always be roadblocks in the face of change.  The Catholic Church is a massive monolith that moves by inches and not by miles.  But it’s hard to question a guy who represents the best traditions and most righteous teachings of the Christian faith.  Is he subverting the true Church?  I don’t think so.  Is he bigger than Jesus?  Definitely not.  Bigger than the Beatles?  Maybe.  Pope Francis would probably just say that all you need is love.  And maybe faith (but that’s an entirely different rock star).

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/18/opinion/18kristof.html?hp