New pope: Good news
One doesn’t need to be among the Archdiocese of Seattle’s nearly 1 million congregants to be heartened by the selection of Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina as the 266th pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church.
As leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics, the pope is a major player in the 24/7 news cycle. What he says and does influence the intellectual and moral climate of that cycle, which is often challenged on both fronts.
In an age of mass consumerism in which worth, including people, is judged by market value, the pope in a unique position to challenge prevailing assumptions.
The symbolism behind the Jesuit-trained pope’s pick of St. Francis of Assisi for his namesake is especially encouraging.
St. Francis of Assisi (1281/1282-1226) was driven to reform a corrupt church. More than 700 years later, the church is in badly need of reform, riven as it has been by sex-abuse scandals, shady bank deals and a medieval court atmosphere in Rome. The church’s social teachings on gay marriage and contraception don’t play well in Seattle, but the new Pope Francis’ reputation for humility should get our attention. It is a virtue that our culture would profit from were it held in higher esteem.
Pope John Paul II, from Poland, was a man who had endured the horrors of fascism and communism; he could speak with authority to the West about its own problems but was mired in bureaucratic inertia in the face of much-needed reforms.
Pope Benedict, a brilliant theologian, was a placeholder.
Clearly, the church is undergoing an examination of conscience. That Pope Francis comes from the Americas heralds a much-needed fresh start.
Let the sun shine
Just in time for spring, a potentially revolting development brewing down in Olympia has died of unnatural causes, aided by House Speaker Frank Chopp (D-43rd District).
House Bill 1128, supported by numerous municipalities in this state, would have made it easier for governmental agencies to discourage requests for information under open-records laws.
This state’s voters adopted the Public Records Act in 1972, which includes this key sentence: “The people, in delegating authority, do not give their public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to know.”
Washington is among eight states in the country to be given an A rating by the Sunlight Foundation, which focuses on improving on-line access to government information. This speaks to the heart of our democracy.
Last week, Chopp sat on HB 1128 so that it wouldn’t make Wednesday’s deadline for bills to be considered by the House. Good for him: It was a victory for “We the people.”