With the selection of Pope Leo XIV, Robert Francis Prevost, and in light of the film “Conclave,” which I happened to watch by chance on a flight back from Florida, I’ve been reflecting on the difference between perception and reality in religious institutions. The film was hard to watch. According to friends in the clergy, Hollywood took too many liberties and included a number of inaccuracies. But the hardest concept to explain to secular audiences, and even to many affiliated congregants in modern religious institutions, is that even though religious institutions may seem as though they should operate as businesses, we are in a different business. We are in the business of making sure that realpolitik doesn’t blind our way, that it doesn’t take over the main agenda — leaving room for God to speak from heaven. We are not here to maximize profit or secure political advantage.
This week, The National Catholic Reporter ran a column by Michael Sean Winters, written almost entirely in the negative. It read like a list of rebuttals: “No, the movie, “Conclave,” did not accurately portray the dynamics of a conclave…” “No, the cardinals were not looking for a counterpoint to Donald Trump…” “No, there was no ‘American bloc’ in the conclave that pushed Prevost’s election…” And the most important point: “No, applying political categories to understand the new pope is a foundational mistake.”
What I heard in the column was not only clarification, but frustration. And I could relate. As a rabbi, I, too, am part of an institution that, while inevitably entangled in politics and finances, ultimately serves a higher calling. Yes, there are politics. Yes, we have to think about the budget and solvency of our institutions. But we are not primarily in the business of politics or profitability.
As the prophet Amos reminds us, a holy life, as God commands us to live, “because I am Holy” means caring for the poor, keeping our doors open even when it’s not profitable in the short term. Like Emma Lazarus’s immortal words: “Give me your tired, your poor…” Or like St. Laurence, who when asked by the Roman Emperor to bring him the treasures of the Church, brought him the poor. We must not forget this.
Cardinal Prevost chose the name Leo XIV in the tradition of Leo XIII, who championed the concept of a living wage. Prevost, raised on the South Side of Chicago, comes from a place steeped in the values of justice and labor. I remember when I worked for the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs, a frontline social justice organization in Chicago’s Loop, where the fight for unions was raging. The idea then was that employers and employees should not be adversaries, but partners in dignity. No, it’s not all about money. No, it’s not all about profit. It’s about cultivating a giving heart. And when that is our true agenda, God provides, just as He provided the Israelites who brought more than enough to construct the Tent of Meeting — God’s house on earth.
Let’s give a chance not to realpolitik, but to regal-politiks. The politics of nobility, humility, and divine purpose.
—Rabbi Gadi Capela