Easter Week Wishes and Pleas to My Friend, an Ailing Pope Francis (Jorge Mario Bergoglio)
Dear Francis,
It has been over five years since we first met in Rome. I’ve cherished our conversation from that day — your loving comments about my work (and admonishing me that I “need to do more”); your agreement with me that the Church must end the treatment of women as second class citizens; me encouraging you to “keep putting the poor first and foremost.” On that last point I asked if what I had heard was correct, “that you said you believed capitalism to be a ‘sin’.”
“Sì!” you responded. “Yes. It is greed. Greed is a sin. It is against the poor. The rich do not come first. The poor come first.” I added, “It (capitalism) is a system where the few benefit at the expense of the many.” You smiled a knowing smile that could be captioned, “Not bad for a lad who lasted only one year in the seminary.” And then you returned to, I guess, the more important issue: my sin of sloth and why don’t I make more films? (Jeesh!) You asked your assistant for a rosary, he handed it to you, you put it in my hand, and you said goodbye with this: “Laughter. Is good.”
A week ago today, I saw you on TV saying mass on Palm Sunday and, just as you were going to give the sermon, you whispered to one of the priests that you weren’t well enough to stand and speak. Then on Good Friday, again at the last minute, you were not able to walk the Stations of the Cross. I know that you’ve been suffering various ailments in the last couple years and, at 87, life is definitely taking its toll.
Which of course saddens me. There are many millions who wish you could live another 87 years. There is so much good you have done, so much hate you have stood against. You told the right-leaning America Catholic bishops to stop their “obsession with abortion, gay marriage and contraception” and put their focus more on injustice, poverty and the environment. You formally recognized the State of Palestine. You told the IDF recently that “one doesn’t respond to terrorism by becoming a terrorist” yourselves. You told the anti-Covid-vaxxers that refusing to be vaccinated is an act of violence, because you may be infecting others. You continually appeal to American governors to not execute inmates because, well, you don’t prevent murder by becoming murderers.
But there is so much more we need you to do. And I fear when you leave us, the cardinals of the Catholic Church are going to be relieved you are gone — so they can step in and return the church back to the Dark Ages.
Therefore, as this Easter Sunday draws to a close, I’d like to ask you to please do your best to stay alive and complete the reforms you’ve initiated. To act with firm resolve. To go ALL THE WAY and — either through Papal Decrees or issuing a number of Encyclicals (“God speaking through you”) — finally fix at least 5 awful things about the Catholic Church that YOU have the power to correct right now.
My suggestions:
Declare the Truth that a fertilized human egg is NOT a human being. Tell people that Jesus never said one word about abortion. State clearly what should be the obvious: Men do not hold authority over women or their reproductive systems. They do have the responsibility to respect women, to care for the children they father, and to commit no acts of violence against either group. Not too much to ask. Real basic. Pitifully minimal.
Bring an end to the Church being a woman-hating institution. Give women equal say and power in all matters. Women priests. A female Pope. Birth control is a God-send. Let women disperse the Church’s wealth to the rest of the world.
Embrace the Gay. Tell the world that you should marry whoever the person is whom you love. And by the way, you don’t even have to get married if you don’t want to! And if they want a real wedding let them have it — not the “blessing of a civil union.” Fight for LGBTQ rights and cease all efforts to ban books and teachers and enlightenment. Just stop all the Church’s gay-hating (which, considering how many gay men have fortunately found a safe haven in the Church, this is one of the world’s great ironies).
Reparations. A couple years ago you went to a gathering of the Indigenous in Canada, and got down on your bloody knees and begged the Native Peoples for forgiveness. Wow! I’m sure you wrote the abused a check, too. The list of all the other things Christianity did to harm humanity throughout the centuries is too long for you to address — and why does it have to be you to do it, you who are the antithesis of all the haters who came before you?
How about you just say this out loud again: “On behalf of all Christians, we offer not just an apology to our Jewish brothers and sisters, but also a promise we will never conduct a Holocaust again (yes, that was carried out by Christians). And we will stop anyone who tries to harm the Jewish people. Including an Israeli prime minister who commits ethnic cleansing, mass starvation and forces 2 million Palestinians into the desert (‘from the river to the sea’ indeed).”
Francis, make this clear to them: “When your people were murdered on October 7th, your job, Mr. Netanyahu, had been to protect them — which you failed to do. Instead, you responded with a nonstop mass slaughter of their children, women, and the elderly. Now you’ve lost the support of the world. Except for Joe Biden, who sends you your killing machines. President Biden — STOP! NO MORE DEATH.”
Something like that.Cut the Hocus-Pocus.
Can you just tell the Believers that there are no Virgin Births, and that Joseph and Mary had consensual sex, and had at least one child named Jesus. He was exceptionally bright, was good with a lathe, questioned authority, hung out at the temple annoying the rabbis, left home at 12 to travel East — where it is thought he picked up some groovy ideas like ‘treat your neighbor the way you’d like to be treated,’ the only “commandment” is LOVE, and sex is not evil and will not turn you into a pillar of salt.
Also, you can’t live inside a whale.
He came back home at 30, wanted to wash the feet of the poor and the imprisoned, his best friend was a woman from Magdalene, and he spent most of his time with men who liked fishnets. He tried to reform Judaism (he never intended to start a religion and certainly not have people name it after him, or have worshipers years later use him as the excuse to conquer and kill in his name. His last act before his arrest was to attend a Seder, and his last words on the cross were, “I am a Jew. The Jews did not kill me. It was the Italians!”)
Also, people can’t walk on water, we don’t rise from the dead, and to cure one’s paralysis or blindness will require a $10,000 deductible and a $15 co-pay.
I know you know people will live a better life and help create a better world if their religious leaders were just straight with them. Cut the superstitious behaviors and the belief that things will be better once we’re dead. What a terrible way to live! And dangerous! Whenever I book a flight with Delta, I always ask if the pilot believes there’s an “afterlife” because, if he does, that is one plane I’d rather not be on.
Thanks so much my friend, Señor Jorge Mario Bergiglio of Argentina. And if I could make one final request... Write up your manifesto as to why capitalism is a sin and how we can live in an economy where everyone has a roof over their head, a seat and a say at the table, and a nice healthy slice of the pie. Tell the people God didn’t have enough room on Moses’s two stone tablets to spell out what he really meant by “Thou Shall Not Steal Nor Covet Your Workers Meager Wages.”
Tell ‘em God told you to say this.
Happy Easter Week Jorge/Francis!
—Michael Moore
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Oh dearest Michael as a cradle Italian Catholic I love all you wrote to our dear Francis. So let me just say if you think he can say most of that and not have his espresso poisoned then hooray. He can’t. He would be gone pretty quickly. He is doing what he can in baby steps. The Synod though not forthcoming enough in reforms is already being narrowed down by the naysayers. And the Virgin Birth well that is dogma and well that really will get heads rolling. And enough it was the Romans not Italians that were in charge of the territories! Unification didn’t happen till 1800s. HAHA Thank you for your wonderful work for workers. And thank God for the UAW My immigrant parents who worked the assembly line would be destitute if not for the health benefits as retirees. My Dad proudly never ever crossed a picket line. Proud union family.
Thank you, Michael, more than I can say. If you could run for Pope, I would surely vote for you. I cried as I read what you wrote imagining that the Church might have been the way you described when I was growing up in the 50’s and going to a Catholic school in an Irish Catholic neighborhood. And I was named Mary after the Blessed Virgin and that is a hard act to follow. There was so much that I loved about the Catholic faith so when I knew I would have to divorce it to maintain my sanity, it took me a long time until it got to the point where going to hell seemed better than carrying on, like my grandmothers and my mother, who had one baby after another that they couldn’t afford, physically, mentally, or financially. If I could describe in one word, what would define my family, I would say sadness. I am a recovering Catholic, and like an alcoholic, I know I will always be recovering. There is no cure. I was brainwashed and guilty and ashamed and anxious so often, it just became part of who I was and still am. I am 80 years old now and managed over the years to find a path that I could walk on and develop my spirituality and my relationship with God. There is only one person left in my family who is still a Catholic. I had four brothers, three who turned to alcohol, and one to meditation to cope. Sometimes I think about growing up Catholic and the high masses and the incense, and the chanting, and the Latin, and the Nativity scenes, and midnight Mass, and the Stations of the Cross, the things that seemed so sacred to me, and when I divorced the church, I had to leave all that behind, along with all the rest I had to leave behind so I could start to try to learn how to breathe again. Thank you again for being able to articulate that which I could never put into words. Reading what you wrote was very healing for me, and I am sure it must have touched others very deeply.