UNITED STATES
WLRN
By TIM PADGETT
Argentine-born Pope Francis knows it’s not enough to be the first Latin American pontiff. He also has to make that mean something.
So far he has. He’s condemned the region’s still epic inequality, he’s tried to mediate the unholy mess in Venezuela – and most famously he’s brokered a rapprochement between the U.S. and Cuba that could thaw a century of bitter mistrust between Washington and Latin America.
Francis announced last week that in September he’ll visit Cuba, where polls show he’s far more beloved than the Castros – and where, as my colleague Andres Oppenheimer points out, he has a unique opportunity to persuade them to improve human rights.
All good stuff, Your Holiness. So forgive us if we can’t figure out why you would risk all that New World goodwill by stubbornly endorsing a bishop in Chile who, according to victims, shielded a pedophile priest.
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