Senators and Prophets: A Reflection on Pope Francis’ Visit to D.C.
“Good morning, this is the Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth. How can I help you today?”
Sitting at my desk on a typical Wednesday morning, the call seemed at first like any other – the family member of a loved one serving juvenile life without parole, probably, like all of my calls.
Then I realized that the person calling had asked for me by name, something that most family members did not do. I had been prepared to take down names, phone numbers, dates of conviction, Department of Corrections ID numbers, legal representation notes – all the usual things I do on a call. In fact, I’d already written down the time and date of the call on my notepad – Wednesday, September 16th, 2015, 2:10 PM. Now my pen floated above the paper, hesitating.
“Hi John, this is Mike, Senator Murray’s Chief of Staff. I’d love to chat with you if you have a couple minutes.”
Over the course of those next few minutes, Mike explained that Senator Murray had read a profile piece on my Jesuit Volunteer Corps community done in the Washington Post, published only the day before. In advance of Pope Francis’ visit, the Post was looking for stories on how the Jesuit values so central to Pope Francis’ life and mission were inspiring others. As the singular Jesuit Volunteer community in Washington, D.C., my community met Dan Zak, a reporter, and Amanda Voisard, a photojournalist, who shadowed us throughout our first week in the city. The piece they produced, we felt, captured the spirit of JVC in a very real way.
Apparently, Senator Murray felt the same way, and after finding out that I was a Washington state native – Bellevue born, Issaquah raised, and Spokane (Gonzaga) educated – she decided to extend her one and only available invitation to be her guest during Pope Francis’ historic address to Congress to me.
A week later, on the eve of Pope Francis’ address, my community has just finished dinner and each of them is asking me how I’m feeling. After a week of being able to talk through everything with them – the typical anxieties and worries about being on time in light of rerouted buses, thousands of pilgrims, and navigating a city that I have, after all, only lived in for a month, among other things – I realize that what I’m feeling most profoundly is a sense of unworthiness. I tell them that I feel that there are so many people would be more effectively capable of capitalizing on this opportunity, that I should be using my strange and sudden proximity to so much power to convince Senator Murray and the others I will meet that they should do more about juvenile life without parole, about LGBTQ+ discrimination, about climate change, about chronic homelessness, about the lack of mental health resources. I realize through telling my community these things that my unworthiness is coupled with an intense feeling of responsibility.
One of my community members is having none of it.
“John, this isn’t about whether you’re ‘worthy’ or not,” one of the members of my community says immediately. “It’s so dangerous to think like that. It’s so dangerous to start ranking human beings in terms of ‘worthiness.’” I know instinctively that she is right, and hearing what she has to say and the wisdom from the rest of my community members reminds me to stay as open as possible to whatever this experience will bring.
Mike tells me to arrive at Senator Murray’s office by nine the morning of the address, so I naturally plan to arrive by eight thirty at the latest and leave the house by seven (the habits of a military brat are hard to break). In the crush of thousands walking towards the front lawn of the Capitol building to watch the Pope’s address broadcast live, attempting to repeatedly negotiate with police officers who are confused about why I need to get to a Senator’s office and not said front lawn where everyone else is going, I happen to pass Gerri Craves, a Gonzaga Trustee who has been chosen as Senator Cantwell’s (the other Senator from Washington state’s) guest. Recognizing her from a Facebook post on Gonzaga’s official page a few days previous, I introduce myself and am immediately calmed by her generous spirit and kind words – she knows who I am and is apparently a good friend of not only Senator Cantwell but Senator Murray as well. We walk the rest of way together and discuss our hopes for the address: what we hope Pope Francis says, how he has inspired both of us to continue to put our faith into action, and how we hope and pray that the leadership of our country will take his words to heart. We say goodbye in front of the office building where Senator Cantwell’s office is located – Senator Murray’s is nearby, but in a different building – and Gerri gives me a long hug. I am sad to see her go, but feel reassured by the serendipity of our encounter.
Nick, one of Senator Murray’s staff, is welcoming and clearly expecting me when I walk into Senator Murray’s office. We spend a few minutes chatting and watching some pre-coverage of the event. Another member of Senator Murray’s team, Carrie, comes to escort me to her personal office within a few minutes, and I’m finally able to meet Senator Murray face to face for the first time. She is welcoming, excited about the event, and genuinely interested in my work with the Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth, asking about juvenile life without parole sentences and what I do on a daily basis. We chat for a few minutes over coffee and smile for a few photos before Senator Murray reminds me that we have to get going. Carrie tells me that I have to leave everything in the office except for my ticket – which is, by the way, literally golden around the edges – and a form of identification. She laughs and reminds me that this means I have to leave my phone behind as well, and I sigh in spite of myself as I realize that there will be no pictures from inside the Capitol.
Senator Murray and I are only able to walk a short distance together before we have to part ways – she is one of a handful of members of Congress who have been selected as members of Pope Francis’ escort party, greeting him when he arrives at the Capitol and following him into the House Chamber. Nick, the staff member from earlier that morning, escorts me down a maze of stairways and hallways until we end up at the entrance to the Capitol subway system. From this point on, I’m on my own, and ride one of the cars through a tunnel with some men and women wearing clothing that makes me feel suddenly quite aware of my $100-a-month stipend from JVC. I shift uncomfortably in my Goodwill-purchased shoes, slacks, and shirt, and remind myself of my community’s discussion of “worthiness” from the night before. It helps.
I remind myself to breathe deeply as I navigate the myriad elevators, hallways, and marble staircases on my way to the Visitor’s Gallery, and find myself more and more self-conscious: am I walking too slowly? Too quickly? Am I gawking too obviously at endless photos of legislators past and present, the endless frescoes and paintings? In a moment of self-effacement, I remark out loud to no one in particular that perhaps a resident of Washington state who doesn’t have a diagnosed anxiety disorder would have been a better choice.
I am relieved when I am finally admitted to the Visitor’s Gallery and can sit down, although my relative calm does not last long. Turning to the guest on my left, a woman I had only glimpsed from the side while I took my seat, I introduce myself and have to catch my breath when she turns to introduce herself to me, as I recognize her before she opens her mouth: Sister Simone Campbell, the Executive Director of NETWORK, a Catholic social justice group, and the founder of the Nuns of the Bus movement, a group that has inspired me immensely. She is clearly excited to see Pope Francis address Congress and tells me so. We spend a few moments discussing our hopes for the address while I again attempt to breathe deeply. I cannot believe I will be sitting next to such an incredible activist for the duration of the morning and am, in a word, ecstatic.
Shortly, Speaker Boehner calls the House to order – I have to remind myself that I am sitting in the same room as the Speaker of the House, yet another ridiculously surreal moment – and the various representatives who are not already in the Chamber begin to walk in: Vice President Biden, the Chief Justice and some of the Justices of the Supreme Court (I cheer loudly when I spot The Honorable Ruth Bader Ginsburg), and the Cabinet. Finally, the moment comes when Pope Francis walks in, and I am struck yet again by his aura of simplicity and humility more than anything else: he seems genuinely embarrassed that so much attention is being directed towards him, especially as he makes his way to the Speaker’s dais. He smiles sheepishly for what seems like several minutes as the chamber continues to reverberate with applause and raucous shouts from all sides. Even after he begins to speak, he gets barely thirty seconds into his remarks before he refers to the United States as “the land of the free and the home of the brave” and the chamber once again erupts with boisterous cheering and clapping.
As Pope Francis resumes his speech, I am suddenly glad that I do not have my phone – I am fully invested in what he is saying, not distracted by a desire to take a photo or live-tweet his remarks. I can simply bear witness as an American Catholic to a historic moment, and my vain sense of “worthiness” is no longer relevant – as if it ever was.
Pope Francis addresses Congress and the people of the United States, by turns gentle and forceful, diplomatic and passionate. He remarks upon immigration reform, drawing applause from several of the individuals gathered, as well as climate change and the purpose of politics.
He then begins to discuss the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” (Mt 7:12). As he moves into this section of the address, most of those gathered begin to cheer; however, several stop cheering suddenly as he forcefully declares that “This conviction [the Golden Rule] has led me, from the beginning of my ministry, to advocate at different levels for the global abolition of the death penalty.” I find myself becoming far more emotional than I had expected as he says this. I am not someone who cries often – if we’re being completely honest, I’m not someone who expresses much of anything externally in public – but over the last month I have been able to bear witness to the stories of so many incarcerated individuals and their families. Pope Francis goes on to say that “every life is sacred, every human person is endowed with an inalienable dignity, and society can only benefit from the rehabilitation of those convicted of crimes… I also offer encouragement to all those who are convinced that a just and necessary punishment must never exclude the dimension of hope and the goal of rehabilitation.” In this moment, I feel as if Pope Francis is speaking directly to me.
Before beginning work with the Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth, I was firmly against the death penalty but truly had no understanding of what life is like for incarcerated individuals in our country. However, as outreach coordinator with the Campaign, my primary role has been reading and responding to the letters and phone calls of both those serving juvenile life without parole sentences and their families. I find myself reflecting on several remarks Pope Francis has made in the past about how life without parole sentences are truly a “hidden death penalty” and a product of our “throwaway culture.” As he adjures Congress to reform our justice system and recall the humanity of every individual – especially those convicted of crimes – I find myself thinking of the names and faces of those incarcerated individuals I have been privileged enough to correspond with. I think of the hundreds of letters I have read and responded to within only my first month of work and begin to tear up, recalling the hopelessness, fear, and despair that so many of them express about life in prison, especially life without the possibility of parole. Where is the hope that Pope Francis speaks of for them? Where is the chance at rehabilitation?
Under our current system, of course, there is none, and I feel reaffirmed in my work in a way that I have rarely experienced, utterly convinced of the value of what the Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth is doing.
As Pope Francis wraps up his remarks, I find myself thinking of Jesus’ parable about new wine and old wineskins, feeling as if all that I have been so privileged to witness that day is incompatible with the person I was before – that I must become a new vessel, one capable of processing all that has occurred, all that I have experienced. In my experience, such hyperbolic ways of thinking about oneself are rarely helpful and often lack weight when considered after the fact. Nevertheless, as I make my way back down the Capitol subway system, return to Senator Murray’s office for some final remarks, grab my things, and finally head outside, I cannot help but feel that I have been profoundly changed somehow. I know that even if I am not capable of holding the new wine of what I have experienced, then at least I can become a new vessel, and I leave the Capitol convinced I am capable of doing so.
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