So I read the Pope's speech to congress. If I were a pro-life Catholic, I'd have been outraged by it (I am very pro-life, but very Protestant). The Pope had an opportunity no other Pope ever had: the chance to confront American lawmakers, gathered together in one place, who legislate the death of over a million children per year from that very room.
And he didn't mention one word about it.
"But wait!" the Pope's pro-life defenders might say. "He mentioned the Golden Rule! And he said that the Golden Rule 'reminds us of our responsibility to protect and defend human life at every stage of its development!'"
So? There are people who think that killing a child in the womb is defending human life at every stage of development. Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, said it was merciful to kill a child. Anyone can take the Pope's statement and contort it to fit their worldview. I guarantee you there were both pro-abortion and pro-life politicians in that room who thought "the holy father" was on their side. (For those who don't catch my tone, I don't think of the Pope as "the holy father.")
If a person of his influence is not willing to take a stand in front of a group of lawmakers who are responsible for over a million human deaths by abortion each year, not saying one word about how wrong that is, can that person really say that they care for the lives of the unborn? In that speech, he was more clear on his views regarding capitalism, the environment, and the death penalty than on the definition of life and family.
Pope Francis came to the United States of America for the first time, a country presently embroiled in a controversy involving the exposure of one of the most insidious death-clinics on the planet (*cough* Planned Parenthood *cough*), and he couldn't hold one prayer vigil? What kind of statement for life would that have made if the Pope stood outside an abortion clinic and prayed for the lives of the unborn?
What the Pope's speech affirmed is that Roman Catholicism is out of touch on multiple levels: there's no urgency on major social issues (abortion and family, which Francis only eluded to but did not directly address), Christianity is a mere after-thought (he only mentioned Moses and quoted one Bible verse), Jesus was just a great moral teacher (hence quoting the Golden Rule but never mentioning Christ one time), and let's just stick with pop-culture ideologies that we can all agree on (the death penalty and saving the environment).
Again, that's not just the Pope. That's all of Roman Catholicism. Though there are periods and places of Catholics doing social good, there's little if any push to share the gospel of Jesus Christ. Doing good things and being nice to people is not the gospel. When a religion thinks they can pray to anyone other than Christ and their prayers will be answered, as Catholics do, they're out of touch with the truth. Anyone who ignores the exclusivity of Christ will be wrong on a host of other doctrines.
According to Roman Catholicism, the Pope's decrees and teachings are regarded as perfect and without error. Whatever he says is as authoritative as the Bible itself. The Pope's speech before Congress was a demonstration of that doctrine in action.
Why would the Pope consider it unimportant to say abortion and redefining marriage are wrong? Because that would mean submitting to the law of God, which the Pope does not do. As we read in 1 Timothy 1:9-11:
"The law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who strike their fathers and mothers, for murderers, the sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality, enslavers, liars, perjurers, and whatever is contrary to sound doctrine, in accordance with the gospel of the glory of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted."What a great passage the Pope could have shared before Congress! But he didn't. For being over 3,000 words long, his speech said very little, actually.
We must do more than say "protect and defend human life," as the Pope did. We must specifically tell the lawless that abortion is murder. We must do more than talk about "the beauty of family life," as the Pope did. We must tell our sexually immoral culture that those who practice adultery and homosexuality stand condemned under the law. The door is then open to share the the gospel: the good news that in Jesus Christ alone, there is forgiveness from sin and deliverance from the death penalty we all deserve.
None of that was in the Pope's speech. There was no law, and there was no gospel. The Pope doesn't think it's important to quote the Bible beyond the Golden Rule (even that he doesn't quite get) because he, along with every other Catholic committed to the doctrine of the Pontiff's infallibility, thinks his word is equivalent to the word of God (really, he thinks of his word as superior to God's).
Another reason Francis didn't call anyone out according to the law is because he may not have actually considered anyone in that room as lawless! There was this sense of "We're all the same here." At the beginning of the speech, he said the following:
"Each son or daughter of a given country has a mission, a personal and social responsibility. Your own responsibility as members of Congress is to enable this country, by your legislative activity, to grow as a nation. You are the face of its people, their representatives. You are called to defend and preserve the dignity of your fellow citizens in the tireless and demanding pursuit of the common good, for this is the chief aim of all politics. A political society endures when it seeks, as a vocation, to satisfy common needs by stimulating the growth of all its members, especially those in situations of greater vulnerability or risk. Legislative activity is always based on care for the people. To this you have been invited, called and convened by those who elected you."Is he preaching to the choir? Was there a person in the room who would have disagreed with that? Sitting right behind the Pope (pictured above) was Joe Biden, a Catholic democrat, and John Boehner, a Catholic republican. Knowing something about human nature, it's likely that both were sitting there thinking about the other going, "I hope he's listening to this."
Other than sharing his view about the death penalty, Pope Francis didn't ever directly confront anything as being "wrong." It was the kind of speech anyone could relate to. I cannot believe that it made any difference whatsoever in a single person's life. [Note: The Pope thinks he's been given the keys to the kingdom, appointed in the apostolic line of Peter. So if the Pope says people are basically good, he thinks that makes it so.]
What Francis and everyone else who loved his speech missed is that a society endures when it understands that the definitions of life and family are foundational. All these other problems we have as a nation -- racism, poverty, joblessness, immigration, illiteracy, misogyny, public shootings, political divisiveness, international hostility, health care, human and drug trafficking, even environmental destructiveness if you want to throw that in there -- all come back to the definition of life and family.
If life and family remain morally ambiguous, we will be broken on every other issue. If we aren't willing to stand in the fray and say, "That's wrong, but this is right," then what the Bible calls sin our culture will call normal. Sin must be confronted with the law -- the law of God. The conviction that follows can be resolved by sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is the responsibility of every Christian to do that, with gentleness and respect (2 Timothy 2:25, 1 Peter 3:15). It is unloving not to (Proverbs 13:24, Hebrews 12:7-11).
The Pope isn't going to do that. I knew before he addressed Congress that he wouldn't. But hopefully now many others are beginning to see his inherent fallibility, and that the doctrines of Roman Catholicism are off. They're out of touch with the truth, as the Pope is. He needs to repent and submit to the Christ of the Bible, as we all do. That's me, and that's you.
The Pope is so out of touch with the truth, he started the speech confusing the United States with being in South America. Infallible, my foot.
EDIT: A later update on this blog quoted Pope Francis at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City the following day, where he referred to the cross as a "failure" from a human perspective. I regret that I reacted too quickly to the spray of comments on social media, and took Francis out of context. That section, previously here at the end of the blog, has been removed. The fourth paragraph from the top has been re-worded (the thought is still the same), and a spelling error was corrected in the fourth paragraph from the bottom.