This past Sunday, Cuban President Raul Castro visited with our Holy Father, Pope Francis, in anticipation of the pope’s visit to Cuba this September. In his interview afterwards, Castro indicated that he is thinking about returning to the faith and going back to Mass due to Pope Francis. Castro said that he reads everything that our Holy Father writes and is very impressed by his approach.

Even Al Gore, our former vice-president, stated: “I think Pope Francis is quite an inspiring figure really,” Gore said at the University of California, Berkeley. “A phenomena. I’ve been startled with the clarity of the moral force that he embodies.”

Gore adds: “Well I’ve said publicly in the last year, I was raised in the Southern Baptist tradition, I could become a Catholic because of this Pope… He is that inspiring to me. And I know the vast majority of my Catholic friends are just thrilled to the marrow of their bones that he is providing this kind of spiritual leadership.”

This is incredible! Thanks be to God, Pope Francis, through words and example, is calling these public figures to the Church. However, the question, not to be a downer, is what will they discover when they come to the Church? The Church is more than just the outreach, as incredible as it is, that our Holy Father is making toward the secular culture. It is the consistent teaching of over 2,000 years of the fonts of revelation, namely Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition, as correctly interpreted in the Magisterium, which is the teaching power of the Church.

Figures like President Castro and Vice-President Gore will encounter more than just a single individual whom they like personally and whose teaching resonates with them personally. They will encounter a figure in our Holy Father, Pope Francis, who is the true Vicar of Christ, the true successor of Peter. Francis’ teaching as the pope is consistent with Pope Benedict XVI, St. John Paul, and so many other popes from the time of the Lord Jesus’ great commission in Matthew 16.

Our hope is that many, many people will be drawn to the Lord Jesus and to the Church by the incredible example of the Christian life given to us by our Holy Father. We also hope that those who come to the faith through the example of Francis will realize that they do not believe in a single, human individual, even one who is, by his motto, “Miserando atque eligendo” (“By Having Mercy and By Choosing”).

Of all people, Pope Francis, the meekest of men and the humblest of clerics, would certainly view these two potential conversions as the work of Jesus and the work of His body, the Church, and perceive matters through the Sacred Scriptures.

Wouldn’t it be great if Gore and Castro became Catholics? Imagine the people who would, due to their influence, finally be open to the faith? Pray for them! Pray that they might discern this issue, the most important issue since it involves their eternal salvation, wisely and well, and that our Holy Father may lead them to where he wants them to be, namely Christ Jesus.

One doesn’t become Catholic because of one person, even if it is the pope. They become Catholic because the saintly example of one like Pope Francis has led them to the faith and that they embrace and believe the Catholic faith in its entirety.

Pray that each and every one of us, from the pope on down, may lead others to the beautiful truth of the Catholic faith by what we say and what we do!