As an Alaskan already spending my Permanent Fund Dividend check and as someone “wowed” by Pope Francis’ blunt talk on immigration, social justice, poverty and climate, I could not pass on thinking about the Pope’s recent trip as sort of a PFD, a Pope Francis Dividend, for all of America. When you connect the Pope’s message about income equality and the need and benefit for the redistribution of wealth — this is to what the PFD does to a degree in Alaska.
Even in Alaska we have income inequality. According to the nonpartisan think tank The Economic Policy Institute, 34 percent of all the economic growth that occurred in Alaska from 2009 to 2012 was captured by the top 1 percent of wage earners. However, the day our PFD check arrives or shows up in our account, Alaskans are all richer by the same amount. It’s a working example of sharing the wealth.
My favorite point in Pope Francis’s remarks before Congress was when he spoke directly to them and reminded them on a fundamental level about what it means to be an elected politician. He had the moral authority to tell them:
Your own responsibility as members of Congress is to enable this country, by your legislative action, to grow as a nation. You are the face of its people, their representatives. You are called to defend and preserve the dignity of your fellow citizens in the tireless and demanding pursuit of the common good, for this is the chief aim of all politics.
Then he prevailed upon Congress to act.
Now is the time for courageous actions and strategies, aimed at implementing a culture of care and an integrated approach to combating poverty, restoring dignity to the excluded, and at the same time protecting nature.
According to the editorial board of The New York Times, “Pope Francis could not have had a more divided and needy audience than Congress to hear his creative, blunt demand to confront the problems of the nation and the world that Congress has made a political art of evading.” Any listener expecting a safe delivery of general value statements had to be delighted in the Pope’s prescriptive discourse in reminding American leaders they must not forget our nation’s roots in immigration, tolerance and equal justice.
I am one of those so delighted that Pope Francis spoke with such passion and truth to our deeply divided Congress. I see it as a dividend for all of America. While his performance before Congress may be seen as a dividend in and of itself, it is on the world stage where Pope Francis’ presence appears to be far more than a dividend one equates with economic value. Judging by the diversity and size of the crowds wherever he appears, he seems to be having a transformative effect on bridging the divide of governments and religion.
The Pope’s ability to pull people of all faiths together was on display in his visit to America. Here’s what two people, one Muslim and one Jewish, quoted in a New York Time’s Sept. 25 article had to say about their encounter with the Pope as he passed through Central Park: “He’s just one of my favorite people. He’s so humble and so into people. I’m a Muslim but I believe that maybe God sent this guy to unite everybody.” The other said: “Clearly, I’m Jewish. This pope is speaking for the poor and the powerless. That is beyond religion. It transcends religion.”
Who else speaks so resolutely on the global challenges and comes close to having this level of impact on everyday citizens? No one.
A December 2014 Pew Research Center report shows the Pope has a 60 percent favorable rating across 43 nations. Francis’ strongest support comes from Europe but even here 78 percent of Americans give Pope Francis a favorable rating.
In honor of Pope Francis’ visit to America and his call for rational treatment of refugees in the U.S. and abroad, I’m using part of my PFD to help Europe cope with the flood of Syrian refugees. I donated to the United Nation’s High Commission for Refugees, also known as the UN Agency for Refugees. Knowing how generous Alaskans are with their PFD, I’m sure I’m not alone in making a heartfelt response to Pope Francis’ words about responding “as best we can to their (the refugee) situation.”
• Kate Troll serves on the City and Borough of Juneau Assembly. The views expressed are her own.
