Weekend Roundup: When Politics Fails, Look to Unifiers Like Pope Francis and Yo-Yo Ma

When politics divides instead of unites, walls off instead of embraces, what, or who, can bind fractured societies? Spiritual authority and the arts step into the breach when political leaders fail.

Pope Francis has become, in effect, the planet's pastor and reconciler-in-chief, washing the feet of the poor and incarcerated, taking in refugees at the Vatican, meeting with Muslim clerics, venerating China's long civilizational heritage and declaring that climate change and inequality are moral issues. Above all, his humility challenges the example of power through the power of example, exhibiting a reverence for human dignity in all its diversity. 

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