Personal notes on Pope Francis

Announcement of the election of Jorge Mario Bergoglio as Pope Francis in 2013, was of a Jesuit who had taken the name of Francis, to honor the inspiring memory of Francis of Assisi, known as “il Poverello," that is, "the little poor one." (Monti & Lentz, 2024).

Vatican in October 2021

The announcement of the first Jesuit Pope and the first to take the name of “Francis” resonated deeply with my own affinity with Jesuit and Franciscan spirituality. I remember being overcome with emotion as I put together the likely significance of this choice to the Church. In the late spring of 2015, our friend, Father Roberto Donato, kindly was our guide during our three week tour of Italy and Rome.

We attended a Papal Mass celebrated by Pope Francis on the Feast of Corpus Christi at the Basilica of San Giovanni in Laterano and walked about 1.7 kilometers in procession to the Basilica Papale di Santa Maria Maggiore where the Pope presided over a Benediction in the Piazza. The Pope has chosen Santa Maria Maggiore as his burial place.

 Laudato Si  is an encyclical letter issued on 24 May 2015 “On Care for Our Common Home” was a significant call for care of the ecological health of the earth for which we are called to stewardship. The mission identified for people in this document has become a core of my work on sharing this call for care in presentations and blog posts.

Prime Minister Mark Carney writes:

 

“At the Vatican meeting in 2014, ‘The Global Common Good: Towards a More Inclusive Economy’, Pope Francis issued a challenge that has guided me ever since. He likened humanity to wine – rich, diverse, full of spirit – and the market to grappa – distilled, intense, and at times disconnected. He called on us to ‘turn grappa back into wine’, to reintegrate human values into our economic lives. (Carney, n.d.)

Pope Francis recalled a favourite imagery of a pastor, urging that priests be “shepherds with the ‘smell of the sheep’”, grounded in the situation of their flock. (Gomes, 2021)

References

Carney, M. (n.d.). Statement by the Prime Minister on the passing of His Holiness Pope Francis. Mark Carney - Prime Minister of Canada | Prime Minister of Canada. Retrieved April 21, 2025, from https://www.pm.gc.ca/en 

Gomes, R. (2021, June 7). Pope to priests: Be "shepherds with 'the smell of the sheep'". Vatican News. Retrieved April 21, 2025, from https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2021-06/pope-francis-priests-students-church-louis-french.html 

Monti, D., & Lentz, R. (2024, September 29). Saint Francis: Il Poverello | CFIT. Franciscan Intellectual Tradition. Retrieved April 21, 2025, from https://www.franciscantradition.org/blog/saint-francis-il-poverello/ 

America First Canada First

The saying "to whom much is given, much is required" (Luke 12:48) caused me some concern as a Canadian when I observe that “America First” has been interpreted by the Trump administration as the slogan for the dismantling of USAID, slashing staff at the Centers for Disease Control,  reducing staff at NOAA, and closing offices at USGS.

America First? Canada First?

Oxfam America’s Abby Maxman in a statement urged all staffing and funding to be reinstated. “The funding freeze and program cuts are already having life or death consequences for millions around the world,” said the chief executive of the humanitarian group. (WHITEHURST & KUNZELMAN, 2025)

WASHINGTON, April 1 (Reuters) - The Trump administration began mass layoffs of 10,000 staffers at U.S. health agencies on Tuesday, according to multiple sources familiar with the situation, with security guards barring entry to some employees just hours after they received dismissal notices.

The cuts, which affect several high-profile agencies under the Department of Health and Human Services, including the FDA, CDC and National Institutes of Health, are part of a broad plan by President Donald Trump and billionaire ally Elon Musk to shrink the federal government and slash spending. (Douglas et al., 2025)

The reinstatements have added a new layer of confusion at NOAA, which had already halted several services because of staffing issues following the cuts. They included weather balloon launches in Albany, New York; Gray, Maine; and Kotzebue, Alaska, that are critical to support accurate forecasting. The agency also closed several offices.

The cuts came just weeks before a severe storm raced across the country, spawning tornadoes and killing at least 42 people. The National Weather Service, a division of NOAA, forecast the storm, issuing public alerts that it would be a “particularly dangerous event.” 

Although the probationary workers at NOAA have technically been reinstated, they were placed on administrative leave and have not been asked to return to work. So it is not immediately clear whether the services they previously contributed to would be restored. (Bush, 2025)

“Shuttering USGS offices is a short-sighted move that will severely weaken our nation’s ability to monitor natural hazards, manage water resources, and understand how our environment is changing,” said Kristen Averyt, executive vice president for science at the American Geophysical Union, a nonprofit organization that represents Earth scientists, in an emailed statement. “This decision would undermine decades of scientific infrastructure that directly serve the American public and puts both lives and livelihoods at risk.” (USGS Faces Potential Office Closures, 2025)

Many of the ways in which America has given much to the world has been through sharing the work of top notch scientific and humanitarian aid organizations with the world to alleviate hunger, educate impoverished people, control disease epidemics, warn North Americans of dangerous weather events, and alert the world to earthquake and tsunami events.

The King will reply, 'Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.' (Matthew 25:40-45 NIV;KJV)

When I hear politicians proclaim “Canada First”, I fear that we may be advocating policy that mirrors the American neglect of their moral responsibility to use their riches to address the hunger, thirst, nakedness, imprisonment, and isolation of our brothers and sisters in the world.

References

Bush, E. (2025, March 19). Fired workers are reinstated at NOAA, creating confusion on heels of storms. NBC News. Retrieved April 7, 2025, from https://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/noaa-fired-workers-reinstated-weather-storms-rcna197004 

Douglas, L., Taylor, M., & Steenhuysen, J. (2025, April 1). Trump begins mass layoffs at FDA, CDC, other US health agencies. Reuters. Retrieved April 7, 2025, from https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/trump-administration-begins-mass-layoffs-health-agencies-sources-say-2025-04-01/ 

USGS Faces Potential Office Closures. (2025, March 12). AIP.ORG. Retrieved April 7, 2025, from https://ww2.aip.org/fyi/usgs-faces-potential-office-closures 

WHITEHURST, L., & KUNZELMAN, M. (2025, March 18). Judge rules DOGE's USAID dismantling likely violates the Constitution. AP News. Retrieved April 7, 2025, from https://apnews.com/article/usaid-federal-judge-trump-administration-bdc919a5d98eda5ab72a32fdfe2f147d 

“First” may become last

The political slogans of “America First” and “Canada First” may be heralding paths that will ultimately fulfill the Christian caution that “the first will be last”  [Mark 10:31; Mt 19:30; Lk 13:30].

In an editorial in the Economist, dated April 2nd 2025 Mr Trump is quoted as saying that he “couldn’t care less” if car prices rise as a result of his tariffs.

But pricier imports and the rising cost of making cars in America will undoubtedly hit sales. Americans bought 16m cars last year. This year that figure could tumble by 1m-2.5m, analysts predict, with the models most affected being cheap ones that would be unprofitable to import or manufacture at home. Making fewer, more expensive cars and pricing out poorer buyers is an odd sort of liberation. (the Economist, n.d.)

Unifor, Canada’s largest union in the private sector, representing 320,000 workers in every major area of the economy, reports that Stellantis has responded to the imposition of a 25% auto tariff with the temporary layoff of thousands of Unifor Local 444 members at Windsor Assembly Plant and additional layoffs in Mexico and at U.S. facilities.

“Unifor warned that U.S. tariffs would hurt auto workers almost immediately and in this case the layoffs were announced before the auto tariff even came into effect,” said Unifor National President Lana Payne. “Trump is about to learn how interconnected the North American production system is the hard way, with auto workers paying the price for that lesson.” (the Economist, n.d.)

Bridge Michigan, a self proclaimed nonpartisan, nonprofit news source, notes that Trump previously imposed targeted tariffs on steel and aluminum, in addition to targeted 25% tariffs on certain Canadian and Mexican imports.

Economists at the University of Michigan recently predicted steel and aluminum tariffs will cost the state about 2,300 payroll jobs in 2026 — but their forecast is based on an assumption that "long-lasting, broad-based tariffs on Mexico and Canada will be avoided."

Uncertainty remains as to what the administration’s tariff plan means for Michigan’s economy, though experts foresee increased prices for consumers and retaliatory tariffs from other countries that could undo any potential benefits.

“In the sense of applying to a very broad range of goods and services, I would expect the cost-benefit ratio of those tariffs to be less favorable to Michigan,” said Gabriel Ehrlich, an economic forecaster at the University of Michigan. 

“At least with the auto tariffs, there is an important local industry that they're aiming to protect,” he continued, noting that auto import tariffs set to begin Thursday will nonetheless be “very disruptive.” (Trump Announces Sweeping New Tariffs: What They Mean for Michigan, n.d.)

The Trade War coverage on BNNBloomberg.ca includes an article by Stan Choe, of the Associated Press, reporting that world markets are reeling as Trump’s tariffs tank stocks. Little was spared in financial markets as fear flared globally about the potentially toxic mix of higher inflation and weakening economic growth that tariffs can create.

Everything from crude oil to Big Tech stocks to the value of the U.S. dollar against other currencies fell. Even gold, which has hit records recently as investors sought something safer to own, pulled lower. Some of the worst hits walloped smaller U.S. companies, and the Russell 2000 index of smaller stocks dropped 5.9% to pull it more than 20% below its record.

Investors worldwide knew Trump was going to announce a sweeping set of tariffs late Wednesday, and fears surrounding it had already pulled Wall Street’s main measure of health, the S&P 500 index, 10% below its all-time high. But Trump still managed to surprise them with “the worst case scenario for tariffs,” according to Mary Ann Bartels, chief investment officer at Sanctuary Wealth. (Choe, n.d.)

The chaos and disruption that has followed Trump Tariff policy is hardly the environment that the world investment community supports in an economy that claims to be “Number One”.

References

Choe, S. (n.d.). World markets reeling as Trump’s tariffs tank stocks. BNN Bloomberg - Canada Business News, TSX Today, Oil and Energy Prices. Retrieved April 3, 2025, from https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/tariffs/2025/04/03/dow-drops-1100-as-us-stock-market-leads-a-worldwide-sell-off-following-trumps-tariff-announcement/ 

the Economist. (n.d.). Donald Trump’s plan for American carmaking is full of potholes. The Economist | Independent journalism. Retrieved April 3, 2025, from https://www.economist.com/business/2025/03/31/donald-trumps-plan-for-american-carmaking-is-full-of-potholes?utm_campaign=r.the-economist-today&utm_medium=email.internal-newsletter.np&utm_source=salesforce-marketing-cloud&utm_term=4/2/2025&utm_id=2072047 

Trump announces sweeping new tariffs: What they mean for Michigan. (n.d.). Bridge Michigan: Michigan news, state, politics, jobs, education. Retrieved April 3, 2025, from https://www.bridgemi.com/michigan-government/trump-announces-sweeping-new-tariffs-what-they-mean-michigan