Perspective from the 19^th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

Okay, here’s another set of comments on the new Pope, Pope Leo, from me, a non-Catholic, but, still, an early admirer of the new Pope, so pardon me, I could write about this Pope many times because of how he stands out as a man of conviction before God.

Now, it appears that Pope Leo is driving MAGA faithful crazy here in the United States.  That’s the posit for a new column by David French that appeared over the weekend in the New York Times.

French lists reasons for MAGA craziness, but he also makes this salient basic point: 

“President Trump is no longer the most important American in the world.

“He is certainly the most powerful, at least for three more years, but power is only one measure of importance.  On Thursday, a Chicago native and Villanova University graduate named Robert Prevost supplanted Trump. He became the first American pope, taking the name Leo XIV.”

As you can imagine, for Trump to be labeled #2 at best, drives crazy all those who bow at the feet of Trump.  It also makes Trump crazy, too.

French’s column appeared under this headline:  “Pope Leo Is All Over the Map, and That’s Driving Some People Crazy.”

To repeat:  “President Trump is no longer the most important American in the world.

“He is certainly the most powerful, at least for three more years, but power is only one measure of importance. On Thursday, a Chicago native and Villanova University graduate named Robert Prevost supplanted Trump. He became the first American pope, taking the name Leo XIV.

“And it happened at exactly the right time.

“I’m not Catholic. I’m an evangelical from the rural South who grew up so isolated from Catholicism that I didn’t even know any Catholics until I went to law school.  But I’m deeply influenced by Catholicism, in both its ancient and modern forms.”

I don’t know French, but, in this column, he speaks for me, as well as for himself.

More from French:

“I devoured the works of Augustine and Thomas Aquinas in college.  And one of my favorite classes was about liberation theology, a left-wing, modern Catholic approach to the Gospel that puts an emphasis on improving the material conditions of the poor, in part through political and economic reform.  

“And no book has influenced my approach to abortion and human life more than Pope John Paul II’s encyclical “Evangelium Vitae.”

“It was in this study and reflection that I understood the true importance of the historical stream of Christian thought.  Christianity is an ancient faith, one that has endured through rulers and regimes far more ignorant and brutal than anything we’ve ever confronted in the United States.

“All too many American evangelicals are disconnected from that history.  We belong to churches that measure their existence in months or years, not centuries or millenniums. Our oldest denominations have existed for only the tiniest fraction of time compared with the Catholic church.”

This lack of perspective, Franch adds, ends up exaggerating the importance of politics.   “It narrows our frame of reference and elevates the temporal over the eternal.  It leads to absurd declarations, such as Trump’s vow this Easter to make America ‘more religious than it has ever been before.’

“And when you believe the success of your religion depends on the success of any politician, it’s only a matter of time before politics becomes your religion.  That means that too many Christians will evaluate even the pope through a partisan political lens.”

French is right on at least two counts.  First, count me as among those who don’t have an adequate sense of history, including history for the church.

Second, count me among those who abhor the fact in many parts of American that, to quote French, “you believe the success of your religion depends on the success of any politician, it’s only a matter of time before politics becomes your religion.”

That’s what is happening in the America where Trump says he is the most important person in the world.  He is all-important, almost like a pope.  So, he demands allegiance that, instead, should go to God, the real God.

Pope Leo also posted this:

“We need to hear more from leaders in the Church, to reject racism and seek justice.”

Finally, from French:

“As one American steps onto the world stage as a man of malice (read, Trump), another American answers, leading with love and compassion.”

I root for Pope Leo to emerge on top, not because he wants to be there, but because he exalts the real God.

And, this footnote:  The new Pope no doubt also made Trump crazy when he, the Pope, met with the media at the Vatican and, according to the New York Times, said this:

“Pope Leo XIV used his first audience with the press on Monday to appeal to journalists to help cool the heated language of today’s media landscape, as he renewed his calls for a more peaceful world.” 

And he also went on record in favor of a free press, exactly the opposite of what Trump and his minions want.

Go Pope Leo!