Pope-ularity

I - like a lot of people - have to say that Francis is by far my favourite Pope. Again like most people these days, I only have three choices in my lifetime, at least since I've been conscious of what a Pope is. So how about if I call him my favourite fully-observant Catholic. Though that is also a pretty small pool.

Time has notably given him their Person Of The Year. However, I started writing this when I read this article which praises him as the leader we wish we had in other religions, and in our politicians.  At that point, I have to call apples-and-oranges.

It's a pet peeve of mine that comes up whenever someone tries to push the idea that some unelected person's popularity (a royal or a religious leader) somehow proves that they are "better" than any and all politicians.

When it comes to politicians, they have two distinct disadvantages compared to everyone else:

A high threshold for success

A politician has to win elections. So no one cares if you got a lot of votes, they care if you got the most votes, and that's harder than just winning over a few fans. As I've pointed out before, a TV show only needs a few percent of the audience to be a hit. A politician is a massive failure with only a third of people's support.  Or to put it in 1980's terms, more Americans voted for Walter Mondale than bought Thriller.

This Pope is just getting nice things said about him, by some people. And as a liberal leader of a traditionally conservative sect, he's getting soft treatment in the media.

No power

Everyone seems to be saying nice things about his pro-poor talk. But it's easy to support rhetoric. It's not like he's actually making you give to the poor, regulating capitalism etc. Once the issues start affecting people lives, suddenly people won't feel so warm and fuzzy about it.