I LOVE Pope Francis

The challenge confronting Pope Francis this week as he visits Washington, New York and Philadelphia — where he will give most of his addresses in Spanish — is how to reach these many faces of American Catholicism: the fervent and the fallen-away; the liberals and the traditionalists; the anxious, shrinking white working-class churches in some areas, and underserved largely immigrant churches in others.

Francis is in many ways the right man for the moment. He is the first pope from Latin America. He is a son of immigrants who carried their faith with them from Italy to Argentina — a living bridge between the old immigrant church and the new.

And though Francis chose to visit the church’s declining East, he is in many ways addressing Hispanics in the West — the church’s future, and the nation’s — at a time when immigration and the change it brings are very live issues.

Two and a half years into his papacy, Francis is already much beloved.

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