The Pope’s visit to D.C. changed my view on religion

I’m an atheist, but I’ll be damned if this Pope isn’t the best thing to have happened in the 21st century.

After watching him speak, I find myself endowed with a new sense of optimism: it just might be possible for religion to become a good thing again.

Pope Francis arrived in Washington, D.C. last Tuesday, and spoke in front of a joint session of Congress on the Thursday. He would also go on to speak in several other places, including in New York and Philadelphia.

I sat down on my tattered blue bean bag to watch him in front of my TV screen, too lazy to fight through the predicted abhorrent traffic of the day to get to the National Mall, where thousands thronged to catch a glimpse of him.

In all my nonchalance, I decided to watch him from my living room – with a bowl of cereal at hand, and a glass of orange juice on the table – as he struggled with halting pauses and labored pronunciations to deliver in English a most magnificent speech. I watched him fight and grapple with his unfamiliarity with the language, as he delivered lessons of great substance with majestic prose. The poor guy – who can barely speak English, let’s be clear about that – managed to nail a sentence that had “simplistic reductionism” in it.

I was hooked.

I’ll be honest, I can’t name you any Popes who came before Francis, except I know there were Johns and Pauls or some combination thereof. So while the atmosphere here at Georgetown was one of great trepidation and awe – a friend of mine even ran to the National Mall at 2:45am on the day of the speech, and was among the first 10 people waiting in line – I was still in my sweats, wondering whether to eat at Leo’s or Epi.

I had heard about the Pope and his trailblazing statements, but the reality was that I was only paying attention now because he was literally four miles away from me.

However, while it is noteworthy he was the first Pope to speak in front of Congress, and that a papal visit is always a big deal in and of itself, it is vastly more important to pay attention to what he actually said.

After the speech, I did some research. I looked back at some of the other things he’s been saying and doing since he became Pope.

And I was absolutely blown away – now I understood why he’d become such a worldwide icon.

Apparently, he’s come at the right time too. According to the Pew Research Center in 2014, 22.8 per cent of Americans consider themselves religiously unaffiliated, up from 16.1 per cent in 2007. We’ve been experiencing a crisis of faith. Many people feel churches are outdated and that their traditional values are anachronistic.

But for all the pessimism, there’s some good news, because the biggest church in the world, with its 1.2 billion members worldwide, is led by a someone who understands all of that. He knows nobody should be stoned for wearing different clothes, or that it’s really not okay to kill someone for working on the Sabbath anymore, or homosexuality is not an abomination.

As leader of the Catholic church, we now have someone who participated in a pro-life march in May 2013, who has washed the feet of Muslim women, who has stated there is no “Catholic” God, who believes in defending the environment, and who pleads for every human being whether they be a refugee, a Christian, an atheist, or a criminal.

His rhetoric is a constant reminder that it is possible to uphold one’s own moral or religious standards, recognizing the inevitable failures that come, while still reaching out lovingly and generously to those around us. Religiosity and piety are not prerequisites for being a good person.

If only

The result of many of Francis’ speeches is that he takes the focus away from religion, away from an institutional sense of right or wrong, and towards an inherent, personal sense of right or wrong that isn’t black or white.

Or as he said to Congress: “There is another temptation which we must especially guard against: the simplistic reductionism which sees only good or evil: or, if you will, the righteous and sinners.”

Again, we really should take a moment to admire the fact he can’t speak English and said the words “simplistic reductionism” in front of Congress.

Conservative members of the Catholic Church might not agree with me, or him, and many do find themselves wishing he were more traditionalist. The Pope does entreat us to be more merciful and accepting, but that doesn’t diminish his eager and pious call to religious individuals. He isn’t advocating for atheism, he is simply painting religion as an intense, symbiotic gospel predicated on love and inclusion.

Francis seeks to show us religion can be a vital, valuable part of society, with a completely unique contribution to it. He is steering his religious institution away from tradition and power, and towards a more honorable path: that of spreading good in the world, as inspired by the faith of its members.