Pope Francis: Pastor or Policy Wonk?
In his Encyclical, "Laudato Si mi' Signore'" ("Praise be to you, my Lord"), released June 18, Pope Francis reveals an inspiring, dynamic, compassionate heart, and then smothers it in the same old stagnant, wearying strategizing of the finite human mind.
I am an evangelical Christian who loves Pope Francis. As I read through 78 pages of the Encyclical I remembered why: his pastor's heart.
The Roman Catholic Church has elected many kinds of popes — prophets, politicians, hucksters, philanderers, warriors, golden-throated preachers, financiers, entrepreneurs, theologians, and diplomats, to name a few. But last time the Cardinals gave the Church a pastor.
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Pope Francis' pastor's heart is evident right up front in the "Laudato Si". The Encyclical's full title comes from a canticle of Saint Francis of Assisi, "whose name," says Pope Francis, "I took as my guide and inspiration when I was elected Bishop of Rome."
Pope Francis sees the wholeness of creation. God did not fragment it into biology and physics and chemistry and psychology and theology and sociology and all the rest. Rather, as Einstein guessed and Pope Francis and all Bible students know, it is unitary, one great fabric.
Thus Pope Francis speaks of "an integral ecology" that calls "for openness to categories which transcend the language of mathematics and biology, and take us to the heart of what it is to be human."
The scientist must be open to the theologian and the theologian to the scientist, the Pastor-Pope is telling us. When such "openness" to other "categories" has characterized humanity's intellectual quest it has become more than the search for mere information, but for the "unifying field" that makes data meaningful.
Modern science was born in such a waltz.
The Encyclical shows Pope Francis' heart-desire for the well-being of humanity, and the proper care of our "common home," which "is like a sister with whom we share our life and a beautiful mother who opens her arms to embrace us."
I love Pope Francis' pastor's heart, for it points beyond him, beyond Francis of Assisi, to the Good Shepherd. My own vision was lifted as I read those sections of rich theology and holy revealed truth.
And then the pastor's heart was replaced with the cold mind of the policy wonk.
In more research, I bumped into the stark words of Rep. Rob Bishop of Utah, chairman of the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources regarding the Encyclical: "No, I'm sorry, it's a political issue."
Suddenly I realized that, though this was not his intention, this is precisely where Pope Francis wound up when he made the unfortunate switch from the pastor's heart to the policy wonk's mind.
After describing the sad condition of humanity and its "common home", the Pope, like a scolding prophet, pointed his finger, naming many of those who had contributed to making the planet and human society "an immense pile of filth."
The prophet-role is an appropriate mantle for a Christian leader, but when Pope Francis turns to solutions, his uplifting transcendent vision is swamped in the same old finite proposals with which governments have entangled the world since policy-making became a career reserved for professionals.
"Enforceable international agreements are urgently needed, since local authorities are not always capable of effective intervention," says Pope Francis. While "states must be respectful of each other's sovereignty" there must be "global regulatory norms… to impose obligations and prevent unacceptable actions."
Frankly, this is chilling. We have gone from the warmth of the pastor's heart to the icy dominance of the authoritarian.
Is Pope Francis proposing something like a global EPA (the US Environmental Protection Agency launched by my old boss Nixon)? How does that help the poor who are rightly at the center of his pastor's heart? The Pope seems to recognize the problem when he notes that "some strategies for lowering pollutant gas emissions" might penalize "those countries in need of development."
Pope Francis also envisions what amounts to a global tax. "The developed countries," he says, "ought to help pay (the foreign debt of poor nations) by significantly limiting their consumption of non-renewable energy and by assisting poorer countries to support policies and programmes (sic.) of sustainable development."
Voluntary debt forgiveness of poor nations by affluent countries is an admirable policy. Compulsory debt reconstruction infers existence of a global agency with the power to tell a sovereign state how it would handle its own budget. This is frightening overreach.
Pope Francis, as a student of the Bible, ought to understand the nature of human beings and of power. The antichrist spirit described by the Apostle John, enters into agencies of coercion. Though Lord Acton might not have known it, that's the background of his famous aphorism that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Thus when Pope Francis speaks from the mind of a policy wonk rather than the heart of a pastor, he demeans the beautiful message that runs throughout "Laudato Si', mi Signore."
What, then, is the answer?
In his early life, Saint Francis of Assisi was a poster-boy of materialist excess, an embodiment of everything Pope Francis condemns. What made the difference in Francis of Assisi was receiving Christ as Savior and becoming His disciple. Learning of Christ opened Francis of Assisi to the wholeness of God's creation, and his own responsibility for being a steward of God's world.
Therein lies the answer: Make disciples.
That was Jesus' command to His followers 2,000 years ago, and it remains as the best solution for all human travails.
I have been hearing for more than 40 years that the spiritual solutions "won't work." The reality is that, after almost 50 years working in media, the White House, the United States Congress, academia, and the Church, the spiritual solutions are the only ones I have seen that do work.
Wonks we have in abundance. What humanity must hear and feel is the pastor's heart –a rarity indeed. When that passion inspires us all to say, "Praise be to you, My Lord," everything changes.
