LAST WORD: Last week, I lamented the fact that Pope Francis — recently deceased — never saw fit to call me , despite the standing policy at the Independent that I be interrupted should he ever do so. I concluded the column with a quasi woo-woo expression of openness to a call from the grave or the Great Beyond, whichever was more convenient. I can’t say I got exactly either, but what I got this past weekend was as close to one as is humanly possible. You might describe it as the spiritual equivalent of secondhand smoke.
Since I am out of town for a few days, I thought it would work for me to quote the letter the pope wrote to the American bishops this February entirely on the subject of immigration and the mass deportations. The last time I quoted anything in its entirety, it was an article published by the News-Press for which I and this newspaper were sued by Wendy P. McCaw, then the paper’s owner. Let’s hope the same does not happen again. I think the pope will cut me some slack.