Pope Francis said what?

In his recent '60 Minutes' interview, the pope gets it spectacularly wrong

Pope Francis gave an interview to CBS news anchor Norah O’Donnell recently. Some of it appeared on Sunday’s edition of ‘60 Minutes.’

At one point, O’Donnell asked the pope, “When you look at the world, what gives you hope?”

There are many things Francis might have said. More on that in a moment.

But what the pope did say was a remarkable (and misplaced) paean to human resilience, determination, and optimism. His answer then was about what you would expect to hear from a “name it and claim it, happy talk” heretic like Joel Osteen, not the leader of the largest Christian body in the world. Francis gave a list of human beings who gave him hope, then said of the human race, “We are all fundamentally good. Yes, there are some rogues and sinners, but the heart itself is good.”

What?

The pope may have found such an assessment of the human race in the writings of pop psychology, Karl Marx, or Norman Vincent Peale. But here’s where he would not have found it: the Bible.

The Old Testament book of Genesis tells us about a great global flood God unleashed on the Earth because He “saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” (Genesis 6:5) The flood, which the apostle Peter late would call a symbol of the saving work God does for us in Holy Baptism, killed all but eight human beings on the planet, according to Genesis. Those eight people were Noah, his wife, his three sons, and the sons’ wives. After the flood, you’ll remember, God promised He would never again destroy the world by waters and gave the rainbow as a sign of His promise.

But what was God’s assessment of the eight people who had believed in Him after the flood had subsided and He sent them to reestablish themselves on the earth? “I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth.” (Genesis 8:5)

Human beings can be blessed by God and the forgiveness of God, but until we die, our human nature will remain the same, even among those who trust in God and know Christ as Lord. Our every inborn inclination is to look out for, even to worship ourselves, desiring to “be like God” like Adam and Eve, others be damned.

In Psalm 51, King David writes about the trait we human beings not conceived by the Holy Spirit—Jesus being the only One ever so conceived—have all inherited from our parents:

”…I was guilty when I was born.
I was sinful when my mother conceived me…” (Psalm 51:5)

You might say, “David said this after repenting for raping a woman and ordering her husband’s murder.” That’s true; David was tempted by the power given to him as king and abused it. But it wasn’t power that corrupted David. It was his corrupt human nature that laid him open to acting on the sinful intentions of his heart. We are sinners before we commit a single sin. Our minds and hearts are selfish and self-centered, as any baby can show you.

Jesus shared David’s assessment of human nature. Near the beginning of John’s gospel, we’re told that Jesus went to Jerusalem for the Passover and many believed in Him because of the miraculous signs He performed. “But,” John says, “Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man.” (John 2:24-25)

If there could be any doubt about what John is referencing in those verses, the doubts are dispelled in the very next incident of Jesus’ earthly ministry. Jesus is visited under cover of darkness by a leader of the Jews, a Pharisee and a religious teacher named Nicodemus. Jesus tells Nicodemus that “…the light [Jesus Himself] has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.” (John 3:19)

There is then, no reason for a rosy or optimistic view of humanity. There is no biblical reason for saying, as Pope Francis did: “We are all fundamentally good. Yes, there are some rogues and sinners, but the heart itself is good.”

If you and I were fundamentally good, Jesus wouldn’t have needed to enter our world to rescue us from our sinful human nature and the death sentence that nature earns us. The good news—the Gospel—is that God has entered our world to save us from ourselves.

Saint Paul says: “…when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly [that’s us]. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:6-8)

I’ll never be interviewed by Norah O’Donnell. If I ever were, I might get flustered and give an even worse answer than Pope Francis did when asked about what gave him hope.

I like to think though that I would have said something like this: “Christ. Christ alone is what gives me hope.”

That’s because I have no delusions about the ultimate perfectibility of the human condition.

I put no hope in human goodness, or the engine of progress.

I put no faith in myself.

Until this universe comes to its inevitable end, people will sin. It’s what we do.

But I know that, whatever happens to us in this world, all who repose their hope in Christ will, in the end, be all right. We will be eternally all right and eternally set free from our sin and the death it brings.

Jesus told Martha, one of the mourning sisters of his friend Lazarus: “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die.” (John 11:25-26)

Hope cannot be found when you look to the world. But hope has come into the world. And His name is Jesus.

He died and rose to set you free from yourself, from your sin, and from your death. You can turn to Him and hope in Him…alone.