Traveling in Place

The Inspiring, Unnerving Leadership of Pope Francis

In the afterglow of Pope Francis’ visit to the United States, filled with remarkable moments that will remain seared into the public imagination for some time, one might reasonably assume that the leader of the Catholic Church enjoys the unbridled reverence of the entire Christian world. With a perfect blend of moral authority and gentle humility, he unified (in spirit at least) a fractured Congress in Washington, world leaders at the U.N., and people of all religions at Ground Zero. More profoundly, he brought the most powerful together with the most vulnerable by giving as much attention to children and the poor as he did to august governing bodies. Everywhere he went, throngs greeted him with exuberant cheers and joyous tears.

The echoes and photos left from the Pope’s visit, however, do not tell the whole story. The Internet has been exploding with blogs by Catholics around the world who are debating whether it is appropriate for Catholic laypeople to criticize the Pope. The discussion seems rather one-sided to me. Most of the bloggers raising the question are furious with their current leader for committing all manner of heresy. Actually, the greatest concern is over the sympathy he has expressed for gay and divorced people, which is simply unconscionable for these amateur theologians.

Before Francis’ historic appearance before Congress on Thursday, Washington was experiencing its own papal paroxysms. There are lots of Catholics in Congress who are nervous about this Pope, not so much because of his pleas of compassion toward gay and divorced people, but for his attacks on unregulated capitalism and his urging of the world’s leaders to address climate change. For this, Francis has drawn sharp criticism from Catholics running for president and Catholic members of Congress, one of whom boycotted his speech.

This is NOT Religious Persecution

Kim Davis, the Rowan County, Kentucky, clerk who refuses to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, claims the right of religious liberty to ignore a direct order from the U.S. Supreme Court. Now that she’s been jailed for contempt of court, she has become a cult hero for some Christian conservatives around the country who reckon her incarceration as religious persecution and compare her plight to that of Daniel in the Old Testament and Paul and Silas in the New Testament. Her lawyers put her in the same category as Martin Luther King, Jr., who was jailed for leading protests for civil rights.

But I’m with Sen. Lindsay Graham (a staunch Southern Baptist) and (gulp) Donald Trump on this one. She’s an elected government employee sworn to uphold the Constitution of the United States. As such, she is bound by the law of the land. The cynical politicians who are exploiting this issue to gain traction with a certain segment of the electorate are inviting political chaos.

Kim Davis’ religious liberty is not in jeopardy. She is not being persecuted for her religious beliefs. She’s being punished for ignoring a court order.

Suppose another County Clerk converted to a fundamentalist version of Islam and declared, “My religious beliefs do not allow me to grant driver’s licenses to women.” Would Davis’ supporters line up and support that person’s religious liberty? If Davis’ refusal to grant marriage licenses is protected by the First Amendment, what’s to stop any government official from applying the law selectively and only insofar as it comports with their personal beliefs? A generation ago, many County Clerks also appealed to their religious beliefs as they refused to grant marriage licenses to interracial couples. You will be hard pressed to find Christians today who would defend their claim. Religious liberty is not permission to impose one’s beliefs on another person, and certainly not to use government authority to impose it on the public. In fact, that is exactly what Constitutionally guaranteed religious liberty is designed to prevent.