Building A Bridge To Your Heart

Pope Francis inserted himself into American presidential politics. He was on his way back to the Vatican, after spending a few days in Mexico, and said,

"Aristotle defines a human being as a political animal; at least I am a human being. And a person who only thinks about making walls, wherever it may be, and not building bridges, is not a Christian."

It would be understandable if you wanted to remind the Pope that the Vatican is surrounded by walls. Or, you might wish to ask the Pope if he was aware that Mexican immigration policy is immediate deportation.

Perhaps Jorge Mario Bergoglio was speaking in allegorical language. Surely he is aware that there are walls that keep people in just as there are walls that keep people out. Prisons have walls. Several months ago, he visited a nation that imprisons more than eleven million people. Not the United States.

Cuba.

Cuba's population is held in bondage by the Castro regime. The walls are figurative, yet ninety miles of open ocean is just as formidable as any wall. Did Raul or Fidel Castro earn a rebuke from the pontiff?

Some walls are not even physical, they are virtual. Cuba's citizens are also bound by fear; like any repressive police state, security is maintained through a vast network of informers. Your neighbor could report you to the secret police.

Another example of a virtual prison is the government's systematic control of information. The Great Firewall of China is the government's criminalization of certain online speech, blocked domains and websites, and filtering of keywords out of search strings. Thus, the mind is walled off from unruly thoughts.

Pope Francis was not speaking allegorically. He was speaking literally; he just has very selective criticism. The target of his censure is boilerplate Marxist dialectic: capitalism oppresses the workers.

Funny that a lot of people don't consider Catholics to be Christian, either. One thing about Jesus, he used plenty of allegorical language. He almost always spoke in parables.

And the allusions were usually references to the Kingdom of Heaven. He said, "the barren tree, except it brings forth fruit, will be cut down." This isn't an instruction on proper allocation of agricultural resources.

It's an instruction about how believers must live their lives. Believers must bring forth fruit, or they will be cut down and tossed into the fire.

Has Pope Francis himself built a bridge to the Kingdom of Heaven, or has he built a metaphorical wall?