MEMORANDUM
To: His Excellency, Pope Francis
From: Lance Simmens, Chief Executive Officer, Unsolicited Political Advice Consultants, Inc.
Date: October 4, 2015
RE: Preservation of Your Mantle of Leadership as Head of the Catholic Church
First of all, I am a Catholic and during the 1960’s was a devout and pious altar boy who either participated or attended Mass each morning before Catholic grammar school, was proficient in Latin for purposes of serving Mass, and attended Catholic High School in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia where you were so warmly received during your visit to the United States last week. I preface this memo with these caveats in an effort to convey my strongest desires to be helpful as you deal with the blowback from an unfortunate incident that has temporarily marred your otherwise successful visit to this country. Your current efforts to spread peace and goodwill have reenergized many who had lost faith in the Church, including me. So here goes.
I must also iterate my professional qualifications as this is an unsolicited piece of free advice. I have served in senior level policy and political positions for nearly four decades under two U.S. Presidents, two U.S. Senators, two prominent large state Governors, the U.S. Senate Budget Committee, the U.S. Conference of Mayors, I have written two books and published hundreds of articles on politics, policy, government and in general the nobility of public service.
Your Excellency the key to effective leadership is possession of statesmanship-like qualities that transcend the mindless exercise of merely pandering to the wishes of the multitudes and actually offering vision and wisdom that will benefit those who may not particularly realize what is in their own interest, both individually and collectively. Faith, in this respect, is placed in those who are willing to tell people what they might not necessarily want to hear but need to know, and that faith is transmitted through vassals such as yourself. You have struck a chord with millions if not billions of people worldwide and people like me who have not attended church for many decades find ourselves questioning whether it might not be time to reassess our lack of faith in the church.
Don’t mistake my praise for absolute fealty in your every pronouncement, I have found in my life that there are few things that people can agree with unconditionally, however your refreshing candor and ability to tackle subjects that have been traditionally taboo, such as capitalism, greed, income inequality, violence, and inhumanity towards other men are enough to bring many back to the table. It is vitally important as you proceed to tackle issues as huge as the universe itself that you surround yourself with advisors who truly have the best interests not of you but the church as represented by you in mind and use their best judgment in advising you. Having dedicated advisors is important to protect against embarrassing incidents such as the one involving the Kentucky clerk who used her personal beliefs to alter the power of law that is intended to protect a diverse population from unfair discrimination. No one should deny her the right to her convictions, but she is not entitled to exert those convictions upon others absent appropriate process.
If the law is unjust there are remedies upon which to seek correction. She is free to utilize those official remedies, she is free to violate them and pay the price, witness great leaders such as MLK, Jr., and Nelson Mandela, she is free to relieve herself from her duties and protest, she is free to run for office and seek redress through the legislative process, she is free to seek judicial remedies, but she is not free to impose her beliefs on the system of governance that represents an orderly society. Hence, it came as a great shock that news reports of your supposed audience or meeting with her was arranged during your recent visit. Your trusted advisors did the Church a great disservice by arranging such an event and the consequences placed your efforts to promote peace and tolerance in peril.
You were set up and that simply cannot be tolerated. This was not an act of malicious disloyalty to you personally as much as it was an act of betrayal to the teachings of the Church as represented by you. In much the same way that Ms. Davis inserted her belief system inappropriately so did your Papal Nuncio who in essence, ambushed you by placing his personal agenda above yours, and your agenda represents that of the Holy Church. Such an act of betrayal cannot be tolerated, not because it reflects poorly upon you but because it reflects poorly upon the Church.
In my nearly forty years of counsel to political officials I have had ample opportunity to insert my personal beliefs into speeches, statements, legislation, briefings, and representations of those I solemnly pledged to serve. But it was not the individuals so much as the system of government they were an integral part of that I swore allegiance and an oath to protect when sworn into the various positions I was honored enough to serve in over the years. Loyalty to the greater good is the cornerstone to public service, much as the greater good of all mankind is the solemn responsibility of those who serve the Church.
In this respect your Apostolic Nuncio to the United States Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano imposed his personal beliefs in a profoundly unprofessional way and must be relieved of his duties. I am sure you had the utmost confidence in his ability to protect not you but the Church. Unfortunately, that confidence has been shattered in a most dispiriting way. I am sure he is a fine man, just a bad confidante. These things happen and you are doing a fine job trying to clean up after the mess he has created. But the stakes are immense and you simply cannot tolerate these types of amateur mistakes, so it is in your best interest and more importantly in the best interest of the Church you represent to make a very strong statement that such actions will not be tolerated.
Thus, I am strongly recommending that you relieve him of his duties. No matter how you analyze the situation he is either guilty of directly attempting to sabotage you or is not sufficiently well versed in the political consequences of actions that could weaken your mission as God’s representative on Earth. Either are equally devastating and the resulting damage does not warrant his continued presence as the de facto Vatican ambassador to the United States.
I do not submit this recommendation lightly but with a profound sense of loyalty to the mission that you represent: namely, making the world a better place, protecting the vulnerable, and bringing peace to the greatest number of people possible. There is no higher appeal to goodness than the one represented by the humility, compassion, empathy and intellectual honesty you have exhibited in professing the word of God. I am sure there are other positions to which the Archbishop might be better equipped to handle but his current position is not one of them.
*Lance Simmens is the Author, The Evolution of a Revolution, www.lancesimmens.com