by B. R. GOWANI
Pope Francis addresses a joint session of the United States Congress in Washington, D.C. on Thursday. On right is House Speaker John Boehner and in the middle is Vice President Joe Biden. PHOTO/EPA/Al Jazeera
The news media, which stays on 24 hours/7 days, is always in dire need of stories, new or old, important or unimportant, and so is constantly scavenging for material. The news people must have been more than happy to learn that Jorge Mario Bergoglio or Pope Francis I was to visit the United States. How much can you talk about the visit? Five minutes, ten minutes, one hour? No, they can keep on talking for ever and ever. What would Pope say on climate, and so on. How would Republicans act to Pope’s preaching about inequality, climate change, etc.
The Pope arrived, was received by President Barack Obama, and they had a meeting in the White House. On September 25, he addressed both houses of Congress. He talked about poverty, common person, refugees, elderly people, hard working people, violence of ideological, economic, and religious nature. He also asked people to see things beyond black and white. He criticized the arms trade and asked why the deadly arms are sold to violent people. Then he himself answered the question: “Money.”
He emphasized on abolishing the death penalty worldwide. That was a very good thing.
“I also offer encouragement to all those who are convinced that a just and necessary punishment must never exclude the dimension of hope and the goal of rehabilitation.”
He paid tribute to four persons for shaping “fundamental values” which contributed positively to the US nation. One of them he mentioned was Abraham Lincoln. It is so difficult to find a US president with clean hands and high morality. Lincoln was no different than others. Just his views on black people will give some insight to readers on his mentality.
“I am not now, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social or political equality of the white and black races. I am not now nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor of intermarriages with white people. There is a physical difference between the white and the black races which will forever forbid the two races living together on social or political equality. There must be a position of superior and inferior, and I am in favor of assigning the superior position to the white man.”
Native Indians criticized Pope’s plan to canonize Junipero Serra (1713 – 1784), a Spanish missionary who established several missions in California. The Native Americans and many others were not happy about it. Pope went ahead and canonized Serra.
Valentin Lopez, chairman of the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band was deeply hurt:
“It is very offensive to canonize the person who actually enslaved, whipped, tortured and separated families and destroyed our cultural and spiritual beliefs.” “How can that behavior be recognized as saintly behavior?”
Professor Deborah Miranda points out,
“My objection and the objection of many California Indians is that he is being honored for in fact dishonoring many of our California ancestors. The missions ended up killing about 90% of the California Indians present at the time of missionization, creating all kinds of cultural and emotional baggage that we still carry to this day.” “It’s not a question of attacking the Catholic Church or attacking Pope Francis. It’s about making sure that the truth is heard and that injustices are not continued on into the 21st century.”
There was “zero response” from the Vatican.
The only thing Pope said in the speech about the Native Indians was,
“Tragically, the rights of those who were here long before us were not always respected. For those peoples and their nations, from the heart of American democracy, I wish to reaffirm my highest esteem and appreciation. Those first contacts were often turbulent and violent, but it is difficult to judge the past by the criteria of the present.”
It was a veiled reference to the Native Americans, the original inhabitants in both South and North Americas. One wonders what was the harm in openly mentioning the Native Indians or Americans by name.
It was nice to hear Pope talking about several things. He must have avoided the canonization of such a horrible person. It would also have been better if Pope was more open about arms trade, refugees, and inequality.
Pope is the religious leader of 1.2 billion Catholic Christians, which is 17% of the world’s population. One in 6 persons on this planet is Catholic. Pope has a great power and wide influence. He could have reminded in a gentle manner that the US is the world’s largest arms exporter in the world. The US is also the nerve center of capitalism, the most dominant system in the world (thanks to the democratic sword of the US). The Pope could have asked the US to give more aid to poor countries. He could have asked the US to take in more refugees.
B. R. Gowani can be reached at brgowani@hotmail.com