Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life

If you watch television, Washington is not only dysfunctional, but also depraved and dumb. In “House of Cards,” on Netflix, power is pursued for its own sake; if you get in the way, you end up dead or destroyed. In HBO’s “Veep,” the vice president is completely self-absorbed and empty-headed. ABC’s “Scandal” is full of double lives and brutal violence. We’re a long way from President Bartlet of “The West Wing” and not even close to “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington."

President Obama will meet Pope Francis on March 27. The first African-American president will meet the first Latin American pope. Barack Obama and Jorge Bergoglio were outsiders, a new senator and an old Jesuit with, it appeared, little chance that they would lead the most powerful nation and religious institution on earth. Both were elected as reformers, committed to change in Washington and the Vatican. The president was Time’s person of the year and a Nobel Prize-winner, but that seems long ago. The pope is riding a wave of enthusiasm onto the cover of not only Time, but Rolling Stone as well.