For now, I’ll say this–I do think that Francis took a look at his position and thought something like this–I am 77, I have one lung, I am not well–what do I want to do with the years I have left–get all involved in the banking scandal at Vatican Bank–or the problem with homosexual priests–or do I want to go out among the people and live as Jesus lived–after all the Pope represents Jesus here on earth–I have decided to go among the poor and let the enormous bureaucracy take care of the PR problems–this is how I think his mind works–as he was away in South America his whole career, my brother doesn’t know Francis and can’t say much about him but I think Pope recognizes that he–like the American President and the English Crown as we’ve discussed in our notes, Karen, –are symbols–Pope is supposed to be a symbol of Jesus on earth. Queen a symbol of England. Our President a symbol of America.That’s where it gets tough–the Church has had right wing and left wing Popes but all of them have written notes of this sort reminding the rich to care for the poor, reminding the rich that the poor have a right to form guilds and unions and reminding the rich of their Christian charitable obligations–it is Pope’s duty to be a champion of the poor.And, this has always been tough sledding –in Europe the unions were controlled by the communists– whereas in America the unions are controlled by the Mafia–so the Popes have always had a difficult time getting out their message of the need for Christian charity without appearing to be favoring communists or Mafia.As in the earlier question–I would caution Pope Francis to advocate for the employment of the poor at good jobs and train them to be independent rather than appearing to get tied up in some tired social leveling gambit–now that would have been creative for Pope to say–“hey rich guys–employ some poor guys.”That said–it remains to be seen how he develops–but remember this–he was elected King by his fellow Princes of the Church and to that extent he is representative of the majority point of view at Rome–or else he would not have got into office.