Pope Francis is my homeboy

I’m not the least bit Catholic.

If you can imagine the most Catholic thing in the world, like Pope Francis or St. Peter’s Basilica, I am the farthest away from that as someone could possibly be.

But I couldn’t agree more with Time magazine’s decision to name Pope Francis their person of 2013. And that’s coming from a pretty big Miley Cyrus fan.

The Pope beat plenty of competition from some serious heavyweights. NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, President Barack Obama, Miley Cyrus, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Tex, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, Amazon’s founder Jeff Bezos, gay rights activist Edith Windsor and Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad were all up for the title.

So Miley may have twerked her way into some scandalous headlines, and Jeff Bezos wants drones to deliver packages to our front porches, but a 76-year-old man from Argentina managed to come out on top.

This is because Pope Francis was just the facelift needed to bring the Catholic Church into the 21st century.

Well, at least as much as it can right now. It’s still slow and steady wins the race, but at least the race is being run at this point.

In July, Pope Francis said, “If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?” That is huge, seeing as Pope Benedict XVI condemned homosexuality as a sin and a disorder.

He followed these remarks in September when he said the Vatican must stop obsessing over evolving social issues like abortion, contraception and homosexuality.
He’s never shied to demonstrate his ability to be both the Catholic leader of the world and a real person.

This is a guy who put on a clown nose while a newlywed couple visited the Vatican and someone who has taken selfies with young followers.

This is a guy who drives around in a 1984 Renault 4 that’s racked up 300,000 miles.
This is a guy who’s on Twitter and has more than 3 million followers.

Oh, and Sarah Palin also called him out on having a “liberal agenda.” So clearly the guys is doing something right. I can’t even get Sarah Palin to call me a liberal, hard as I have tried.

I want him to be my content, old uncle who would have slipped me sips of communion wine when I was still in high school.

The Catholic Church as an organization may have a while to go until social issues are a thing of the past and religion as a whole becomes a thing of mercifulness and not condemnation, but Pope Francis is charging in the right direction.

Catholics may be lucky to claim him, but he’s shown he’s ready to be a spiritual leader for the world.

­— wdmcdona@indiana.edu
Follow columnist Dane McDonald on Twitter @W_DaneMcDonald.