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Obama, Pope Francis and global religion

By Emmanuel Ojeifo
26 October 2015   |   11:28 pm
I’VE never felt more proud as a Christian and as a Catholic like I was on the morning of Wednesday, September 23, 2015 when the spiritual leader of the world’s 1.5 billion Catholics, Pope Francis, stepped his feet on the south lawn of the White House, enthusiastically welcomed by the President of the United States,…

pope-and-obamaI’VE never felt more proud as a Christian and as a Catholic like I was on the morning of Wednesday, September 23, 2015 when the spiritual leader of the world’s 1.5 billion Catholics, Pope Francis, stepped his feet on the south lawn of the White House, enthusiastically welcomed by the President of the United States, Barack Obama, his wife and other senior officials of both Church and State, at a ceremony that opened with great fanfare, featuring both the pontifical and U.S. anthems, a fife and drum parade and a performance by a Washington DC-based Catholic choir.

Watching the live transmission of the entire ceremony and listening to the deep and profound words of welcome addressed by President Obama to Pope Francis and Pope Francis’ response to the presidential address got me quite emotional.

Obama began his address by invoking the biblical acclamation of praise to God, “This is the day the Lord has made.” Immediately the crowd broke into rapturous applause. In appropriating these words of Psalm 118:24, President Obama was not referring to the beautiful weather; he was invoking something deeper: two sons of immigrant families – Obama, an American of African heritage and Pope Francis, an Argentine of Italian heritage – were meeting in God’s own country. “I should explain that our backyard is not typically this crowded. But the size and the spirit of today’s gathering is a small reflection of the deep devotion of some 70 million American Catholics. It reflects as well, Your Holiness, the way your message of love and hope has inspired so many people across our nation and around the world.”

The president’s address highlighted issues of human dignity, religious liberty, social justice, global peace and climate change, lauding the contribution of the Catholic Church in America and around the world to resolving some of the world’s most complex, vexing and intractable social, political and cultural problems. The president could not hide his excitement about this. “From my time working in parish neighbourhoods with the Catholic Church in Chicago to my travels as president, I see first-hand how every single day Catholic communities, priests, nuns, laity, are feeding the hungry, healing the sick, sheltering the homeless, educating our children and fortifying the faith that sustains so many people. And what is true in America is true around the world. From the busy streets of Buenos Aires to the road villages in Kenya, Catholic organisations serve the poor, minister to prisoners, build schools, build homes, operate orphanages and hospitals, just as the Church has stood with those struggling to break the chains of poverty and given voice and hope to those seeking to break the chains of violence and oppression.”

After Obama’s moving address, delivered with great pomp and oratory, and interrupted at almost every sentence with wild applause and hysteria, Pope Francis took to the podium, adorned with the presidential seal and spoke his first words of his trip in English. Within moments it was clear: The Pope’s summer of language learning had paid off in dividends. He spoke clearly in a language not his own, identifying himself as “a son of an immigrant family” and “a guest in a country which was largely built by such families.” In opening his address with these words, Pope Francis wittingly struck a good chord. His words immediately drew attention to the current global situation of refugees and immigrants and the poor treatment often meted out to them, especially those fleeing from the theatres of violence and war.

But much more than the Pope’s English was clear. He spoke of himself as the leader of a Church committed to building a society of tolerance and inclusion. His moral message of strong caution against the attacks on religious liberty, advocacy for the foundational rights of the vulnerable and the defence of a healthy ecology, which he presented as an essential part of what his venerable predecessor Pope Benedict XVI called “integral development” left no one asking any questions about the direction his remarks would take. He also spoke about the crisis of marriage and family “at this critical moment in the history our civilisation,” calling Americans to remain committed to the founding principles, those self-evident truths, upon which their nation was built.

President Obama’s gratitude to the Pope for the strength of his moral authority and his global witness to the cause of peace and justice brought to my mind the Pontiff’s unrelenting effort in resuscitating the consciousness of a universal religious community that does not pull back from its civic obligations. Francis identifies with those at the margins of society. He desires a Church that is poor, that draws close to the downtrodden and that constitutes a voice for the defence of the most vulnerable. And it is precisely in this connection that he claims the Church’s right to exercise religious liberty for the benefit of all.

According to the Pope, freedom of religion is not a private right for the individual. It is a foundational principle for the common good of society. It manifests its supreme value when it is exercised for the sake of the weak, protecting and safeguarding those values that constitute the cornerstones and foundational building blocks of a nation constituted for the sake of freedom and justice for all.

If there is one thing both president and Pontiff agree on, it is that religion should be at the service of the poor and vulnerable in society, and not at the service of power. The Pope reminded America, citing the words of America’s civil rights champion, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., that “we have defaulted on our promissory note and now is the time to honour it.” His addresses to the U.S. Congress in Washington, the United Nations in New York and the World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia certainly involve the Pope calling the nations of the world to be mindful of the poor, as he has been doing since the night of his election on March 13, 2013.

• Ojeifo is a Catholic priest of the Archdiocese of Abuja.

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