The Pope Unscripted
Pope St. John Paul II (1978-2005) made very few public statements that weren't read from some well crafted, and often closely vetted, written document. While he was a genuine linguist, his conversational English was somewhat stilted, and he rarely went off script, at least on his trips to the States, and I'm pretty sure he didn't play the freewheeling raconteur in other settings either. He did on board news conferences while traveling by plane, but no one remembers much of what he ever said on those occasions, the answers were so bland.
The one notable controversy caused by Pope John Paul speaking off the cuff came a year before his death, when he, in a private conversation, responded to a screening of Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ by saying, "It is as it was." The enigmatic comment, taken as an endorsement, was leaked to a member of the press, and immediately denied by the Vatican upon its publication. The journalist who broke the story stuck by his account though, and was eventually vindicated. The idea that a pope would give a public thumbs up to a movie, especially one so controversial, terrified the papal apparatus to it's core. The fear of such a statement being made public lies in the possibility that some would confuse the pontiff's personal opinion for an infallible declaration. For this reason popes have always been reticent to offer candid interviews, and, in this case, the Vatican press office was quick to try to squelch the pope's remarks.
Pope Benedict XVI (2005-2013) gave personal interviews more frequently, but often through email, where he would receive a question and have time to craft a thoughtful, measured response. Benedict faced his share of controversy, even over his written messages, because he is an academic who is used to offering professorial hypotheses, which the press often misinterpreted as some seismic shift in Church teaching or policy. So when he suggested once that a hypothetical gay prostitute choosing to use a condom as a way to avoid the spread of HIV, could represent some small stirrings of conscience, the press was set aflame with reports that the Church was now allowing condoms for gays. This missed the point, to put it mildly, and many in the Catholic press had to double back to clarify Benedict's argument.
Pope Francis (2013-), as I probably don't need to inform the reader, has never had an opinion, it would seem, that he's been afraid to express, be it in writing or off the cuff. His impromptu in-flight news conferences have never failed to be a source of media ready sound bites that make some rejoice, others cringe, and, quite often, his own communications and press officers duck for cover as they come up with an explanation for what the Holy Father "really meant." Do I have to mention his oft quoted "Who am I to judge?", the most well known and (I would argue) misunderstood of Pope Francis' quick draw remarks, made on the way back from the 2013 World Youth Day in Rio?
We aren't accustomed to a pope who speaks freely, beyond the confines of official statements, and it can be disconcerting at times, even, and maybe especially, for some Catholics. Many others don't understand that papal infallibility is very narrowly defined by the Church, so that while Catholics need to take what the pope says in such informal settings to heart, they don't constitute teaching moments in the strict, doctrinal sense. This understanding of the difference between official pronouncements made from the Chair of Peter and private opinion offered by the man who is pope has never been as big an issue as it is right now. Pius XII (1939-1958) was possibly the most widely read pontiff before John Paul II - book length additions of his speeches were published almost yearly under the title The Pope Speaks - and Pius loved to talk, it seems, and weighed in on everything from evolution to nuclear war. But, again, we're talking about prepared, well thought out addresses that people had time to mull over and digest. Today the pope speaks through Twitter at 140 characters or less, and at such a pace it's hard to keep up. One "controversial" statement isn't clarified before the next one hits the web.
Defending the Pope
In the past I would comment on Benedict's more controversial pronouncements, but these would come at us about once or twice a year, so they didn't take up much of my time. Francis seemingly says something controversial almost every week, if not more frequently, and a blogger could dedicate an entire career to just commenting on and interpreting his statements. It seems that some do, and unfortunately these writers tend to be critical of the Holy Father. As for myself, I've given up defending every word that proceeds from the lips of Pope Francis. He's a big boy and doesn't need my help. And as I've said already, such a project could take all my time. So I pick and choose my spots, and in light of the upcoming election in the U.S., I'm choosing to comment now on something the Pope said on the way back from his Apostolic Journey to Georgia and Azerbaijan.
A Political Culture
During his customary in-flight news conference this past Sunday (October 2), Pope Francis was asked about how American voters should approach the upcoming presidential election between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. I would quote the entire exchange, but the Vatican website, as of now, only has the interview posted in Italian and Portuguese, neither of which I read. But the pope's response, in part, has been widely reported as:
"The people are sovereign. I would only say: Study the proposals well, pray and choose with your conscience...When in any country there are two, three or four candidates who don't satisfy everyone, it means that perhaps the political life of that country has become too politicized and that it does not have much political culture. 'People say "I'm from this party' or 'I'm from that party', but effectively, they don't have clear thoughts about the basics, about proposals..."
Pope Francis has come under fire for commenting on the election at all, even though his words here are pretty generic, and applicable to any number of national situations. In referring to the lack of a "political culture," he specifically mentioned the political climate of Latin America, not the United States. Earlier in the year, also on a plane ride, he responded to a question on Donald Trump's proposed wall between the U.S. and Mexico by saying that such a proposal was "un-Christian." Again, I think his words need to be looked at closely, and in a broader context, to be fully appreciated - a task that would take us too far out of the way right now. At this moment I want to focus on the idea of a "political culture," and what he might mean by it.
It's jarring to hear the suggestion that the U.S. may have a weak political culture. Whatever one might want to say about the United States, the peaceful and orderly transfer of power from one presidential administration to another that our nation has enjoyed since its founding in unique in political history. That we are a nation of laws, and not governed by the whims of individual leaders, may not be completely novel, but it does separate us from many other forms of government, past and present. We take pride in our Constitution, with its Bill of Rights, holding it up as a model for others to follow. We have a long, storied, while yes, imperfect political tradition, but one that we can rightly take pride in. So, in light of our long political history, what does the Pope mean to say that some countries, possibly including our own, lack a strong political culture?
The key to his words lie in his assessment of identifying too closely with political parties. Too many self identify with a party and its platform uncritically. Rather than really studying the issues (proposals) and judging the candidates based on the balancing of their positions and, as Catholics, seeing how they align with the Church's social teaching, we too often vote a straight party line. We identify as a Republican or a Democrat, conservative or progressive. Increasingly over the years the parties have tended to vilify each other. It's not that one side has better policies, it's that the other side represents the spawn of Satan while the other is a sanctuary for the children of light. I exaggerate, but not that much, I don't think. A disciple of Jesus should be an active voting citizen, and can even rightly participate in party politics, but he or she should be guided first of all by the values of the Gospel in their civic life, not a party platform.
A faithful citizen engages in debate, but assumes the good will of an opponent. To pull the Hitler card on a candidate, any candidate, is to trivialize the atrocities of the Third Reich (as one commentator who opposes Donald Trump said lately, if Trump is Hitler, than Hitler wasn't so bad). The deficiencies of the current field are glaring enough without having to compare them to a genocidal dictator.
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I've been laboring over this post for almost a week, and as I get to this part of the article the news has broken about Donald Trump's 2005 "hot mic" capture of some incredibly crude comments he made concerning the amorous, and failed, pursuit of a married woman, along with an impromptu tutorial on his method of "wooing" women in general (an old fashioned boy, as Tallulah Bankhead might say). Now I'm on delicate ground here, because of course I condemn such comments (as if that really matters). At the same time, considering the political culture, why should they be disqualifying? I was told long ago, during Bill Clinton's impeachment, that sex was sex, and that there was no connection between some one's private sex life and his or her ability to hold high office. That now we should all recoil in horror at the boorishness of Donald Trump, that somehow his coarseness, his misogyny, his lack of propriety, and respect for the marriage bond should disqualify him shows how far we have fallen culturally more than Mr. Trump's actual transgression.
Should not his lack of a coherent program, his inability to articulate a comprehensive vision, and manifest inability to demonstrate any grasp of what the responsibilities of the office of president involves have been the first things to disqualify him from the nomination? Should not his absolute disrespect for those running against him in his own declared party, his brutish and bullying demeanor from the outset have been the first indication that he may not be qualified for the presidency? If Mr. Trump is made to withdraw from or else loses the race because of this latest scandal, all it will prove is how far we have fallen as a people. If he withdraws or loses it wouldn't have been after a clear eyed examination of the issues and proposals, and a sober assessment of his abilities, but the public bowing to a fickle, vacillating, and hypocritical political correctness. Maybe Mr. Trump should go, but the real question is, should he even have gotten this far to begin with?
Before you accuse me of shilling for Secretary Clinton, let me add that we are in even a deeper mess than we think because she is the only viable alternative to Mr. Trump at this point - and it being so late in the game we might as well delete "at this point." I'm supposed to believe that someone who was considered too corrupt to aid in the prosecution of Richard Nixon, someone who served in the Senate and as Secretary of State, yet according to the FBI director wasn't sophisticated enough to understand the classification markings on sensitive government documents is the most qualified person to be president? I'm supposed to believe that someone associated with an administration that had scandal, both political and personal, attached to it from before the beginning, is somehow virtuous enough for the White House? Remember, Bill Clinton pledged in 1992 that his election meant a two for the price of one bargain, meaning that Mrs. Clinton came as part of a package deal. There is no separating her from her husband's scandals, which include alleged misogynies executed in words and deeds.
While any questions about Secretary Clinton's health are often ridiculed as being the products of a conspiracy theory, I do have wonder about exactly how physically able she is to fulfill the rigors of the presidency. The episode on September 11 was unnerving. It doesn't help that, in the midst of one of the most hotly contested elections in decades Secretary Clinton has chosen to stay off the trail and out of the public eye so many days, making a relative few, brief public appearances over the last couple of months. It's been reported that she's only going to make a handful of personal appearances before the election. A joke put out there is that she's imitating William McKinley's 1896 "Front Porch Campaign." But in that case the candidate spoke to delegations of visitors from the porch of his house - a reported 700,000 over the course of that election season. Here she is out of sight, even if not out of mind: a situation that can only give fuel to the conspiracy theorists who ask why exactly doesn't she want to be seen in public?.
That we have two candidates neither of whom, it could be argued, are qualified to be president is a direct reflection of our lack of a political culture. This is because we are confused and contradictory within our own minds. Though still by and large a religiously minded people, as a whole we are unmoored from revealed faith (President Obama was correct when he said that, no matter what it once was, the United States is no longer a Christian nation), and have adopted faiths of our own designs, to suit our personal tastes. At the same time we no longer study our political heritage, specifically the Constitution. We only recognize an ever expanding roster of rights and entitlements that are divorced from personal responsibilities and the common good. We know that the nation isn't going in the right direction, but we have no standard outside of ourselves that we can appeal to, to guide us. In the absence of guiding principals we are grasping for a would be strong man or else the figurehead of a political machine. One's a blunt instrument, incoherent yet paradoxically easy to understand. The other offers a strange sort of familiarity, that we're not sure we really trust, but seems better than it's erratic alternative.
I don't know what the short term solution to our present crisis is. I don't buy the "lesser of two evils" approach, not this time anyway. I do not believe that any of the men and women appearing on the top of the ballot this year are qualified to be on the ballot in the first place, let alone be president. I will vote on election day, I'm just not sure if I will cast vote at the top the card or not.
The long term solution is a renewal of both our faith lives and our civic lives. This means breaking free of the dictatorship of relativism that ensnares us. There is another strange paradox we face. We do believe that all morality is relative, yet many supporters of both Mr. Trump and Secretary Clinton speak in absolute moral terms: that a vote for the opponent is a sin. We live in a relativistic culture, but this trend to moralize politics points to an instinct within us to reach out to an absolute. This is confused and disorientating. Part of the long term solution may be contained in recapturing the proper understanding of what truly is relative in life, and what needs the guidance of an absolute truth.
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