Pope Francis Inspires Hope Across The Globe For A Reason

His Recent Autobiography Shows A Zest For Inclusion And Diversity That Long Predates His Papacy

- RAHUL JACOB

Just days before Pope Francis was hospitalized with pneumonia in the middle of this month, he criticized the Trump administration's mass deportation of immigrants in blunt terms. In a letter to Catholic bishops in the US, the Pope said that it violated "the dignity of many men and women" and that such policies "begin badly and will end badly."

The contrast between the Pope's candor and the mostly muted response from European leaders to US Vice-President J.D. Vance's provocative February 14 speech in Munich could not have been clearer. Vance said, somewhat incredibly, that he worried more about the state of European democracies than he did about possible threats to Europe from China and Russia. In his letter on immigration, Pope Francis took apart the suggestion by the US vice-president, who is Catholic, that medieval Christian precepts prioritized looking after one's family and immediate community. "The true ordo amoris (the order of love) that must be promoted," Francis wrote, is "love that builds a fraternity open to all, without exception."