Pope Francis’s U.S. Visit Garners Mixed Reaction

The response to Pope Francis's US visit has been mixed in
light of recent legal issues.
Image: giulio napolitano / Shutterstock.com

Last week, Pope Francis made his first visit to the United States, to the joy of his fans and Catholics around the nation. The pontiff was met at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland by President Obama, Vice President Biden, and their families. He then made stops around Washington, D.C., New York, and Philadelphia. Though his welcome was warm and people delighted in seeing the pope, some are regarding his trip with mixed feelings.

Among the pope’s less-popular commentary were his insights about the legality of conscientious objection. Kim Davis, the Kentucky clerk who was recently jailed for refusing to issue same-sex marriage licenses, did so on the grounds that her faith would not permit her to issue them. The pope said that government officials have a “human right” to refuse to perform a duty if it would violate their conscience.

In a brief for the Supreme Court, Ken Mehlman and amici write that people who use religious liberty laws to keep from performing duties “violate the core promises of the United States Constitution” and that no one should suffer loss of rights based on anyone’s religious objections.

But if government officials can object to some of their duties on the grounds of religious objection, should the same argument not apply to members of the clergy? If a priest or even the pope objected to a tenet of the Vatican, would they be able to refuse a duty and still keep their place in the clergy, as Kim Davis has kept her place in the government?

Luckily, most of the pope’s trip was not so fraught. Francis stopped to kiss and bless a young boy with cerebral palsy, spoke with prison inmates, spoke to Congress, and met with five victims who had been subject to sexual abuse by the clergy. “But when a priest abuses, it is very serious because the vocation of the priest is to make that boy, that girl grow toward the love of God, toward maturity, and toward good. But instead of that, it squashed it," he said.

Francis said that his trip to the United States filled him with hope and warmth, tweeting, “May the love of Christ always guide the American people! #GodBlessAmerica.”