Charles C. Haynes: In words and gestures, Pope Francis re-awakens the American ideal

  At a cultural moment when celebrity trumps character in America, it took a humble priest from Argentina to remind us of the better angels of our nature – and of the kind of nation we must aspire to build in the 21st century.

  Pope Francis arrived in our public square as a self-described migrant, and for a refreshing week in late September his message of compassion and justice drowned out the divisive, ugly, sometimes hateful rhetoric of this political season.

  Temporarily pushed out of the headlines was trash talk about immigrants, demonizing language about American Muslims, and the puffed-up buffoonery that passes for political discourse in 2016 America.