By former Assemblyman Steven Sanders
We’ve witnessed this scene before…the frenzied throngs of mostly young people greeting the arrival of the Beatles to the United States in 1964. The multitudes who lined the streets of New York City to get a glimpse of Charles Lindberg in 1927 or John Glenn in 1962, when they came to town following their historic trips, one across the Atlantic in a tiny airplane and one after orbiting the Earth in a capsule. We cheered the victorious soldiers such as General Douglas MacArthur or sports figures being celebrated for great achievements. Those public icons captured the passion and imagination of a nation. They were superstars of the highest order whose feats became legendary. Now comes Pope Francis with the same impassioned welcome…but why?
Pope Francis comes from humble beginnings in a small village in Argentina. Had he attempted to migrate to the United States as a young man, Donald Trump and others might have looked askance at yet another Latino trying to cross the border and somehow subvert America.
So what is it about this Pope that makes men, women and children crave a fleeting view and literally swoon at his sight? And to be clear, this magnetism is not only found amongst the Catholic faithful, it is interdenominational and it is a phenomenon. Pope Francis arrived in the United States last week to a tumultuous welcome by the great and the ordinary, by the nation’s highest leaders and by the homeless. By Catholics, Protestants, Jews and yes Muslims.