Regarding "Pope Francis’ longtime rival asks for help" (Tuesday Nation), it seems newly installed Pope Francis' tenure is off to an inauspicious beginning. In this article, we learn that Argentina's President Cristina Fernandez De Kirchner approached Pope Francis to intervene with Britain in the dispute over the Falkland Islands. More curious are the statements attributed to Francis as the Archbishop of Buenos Aires, claiming "Britain 'usurped' the remote islands from Argentina and last year paid homage to the Argentines who were killed trying 'to reclaim what is theirs for the fatherland.'”
This doesn't jibe with the public portrayal of Francis as a humble man of God who constantly asks people to pray for him. Couple that with the on-line Chronicle article titled "Francis urges protection of nature, weak", and it appears at first blush that what the Catholic Church has in their new Pope is a man overly concerned with the material world, and one willing to take sides in nationalistic disputes. When the Pharisees tried a similar strategy to draw Jesus into the political arena on the question of whether Jews should be forced to pay taxes to Romans, he famously replied "render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's".
His rebuttal reminds us all that the purpose of the Catholic Church is to tend first and foremost to people's spiritual needs. Hopefully Pope Francis will respond in kind to the Argentine President.
Pete Smith
Cypress
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