
COMMENTARY: Pope Francis, on Jan. 11, became the third pope to be given the highest civilian honor in the U.S.
Careful observers of papal-presidential relations were mildly surprised when President Joe Biden did not include Pope Francis in his final list of Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients on Jan. 4.
Alongside the Congressional Gold Medal, which is voted upon by both the House of Representatives and the Senate, the Presidential Medal of Freedom is the nation’s highest civilian honor.
Biden awarded it in 2022 to Sister of Social Service Simone Campbell (2022) of “Nuns on the Bus” fame, and Jesuit Father Greg Boyle, who worked with troubled youth in Homeboy Industries. It would follow that a Catholic president who has given the medal to Catholic leaders would do the same with the Holy Father.
With his name absent from the Jan. 4 list, it was simply assumed that Biden would give the award during his visit to Pope Francis on Jan. 10 in Rome. When that trip was canceled due to the Los Angeles fire emergency, the White House announced that the medal — awarded “with distinction” — had been bestowed on Pope Francis on Jan. 11, making him the third pope to receive the medal.
The Presidential Medal of Freedom was established under President John F. Kennedy, but he was assassinated before he had the opportunity to bestow the medals upon the 31 members of the inaugural cohort.
President Lyndon B. Johnson awarded those medals just two weeks after JFK’s death, and he added two of his own, giving the medal posthumously to JFK himself, as well as Pope St. John XXIII, who had died earlier that year.
From the beginning, then, the Presidential Medal of Freedom has had a Catholic — and papal — presence.
LBJ would award the medal to Holy Cross Father Theodore Hesburgh of the University of Notre Dame the following year. Other prominent Catholics would be honored, too; Cardinal Terrence Cooke of New York (posthumously) and Mother Teresa were both chosen by President Ronald Reagan. President Bill Clinton selected Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of Chicago.
Other prominent honorees have been known for the prominence of their Catholic faith: William F. Buckley Jr., Lech Wałęsa, Cesar Chavez, and Sargent and Eunice Shriver.
President George W. Bush awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Pope St. John Paul II on his visit to the Vatican in June 2004 — the precedent for Biden’s intended visit this month.
While it does not diminish the honor, given the precedent of John XXIII and John Paul II, it was expected that Pope Francis would be honored by Biden. Indeed, it was a surprise that it did not happen at the G7 Summit last June when Biden and Francis met in Italy. It would have been close to the 20th anniversary of John Paul’s medal.
John Paul also received the Congressional Gold Medal in 2001. The gold medal, while much older, is not awarded as often. There have been about 670 Medal of Freedom recipients since 1963; only 184 gold medals have been awarded dating back to the American Revolution. Each Congressional Gold Medal requires a law to be passed by Congress and signed by the president. The U.S. Mint then designs a unique medal and casts it in gold for presentation to the recipient.
Congress had something of a Catholic spree of gold medals at the turn of the millennium, awarding them to Father Hesburgh (December 1999) and Cardinal John O’Connor of New York (March 2000) in the last months of his life. Then in July 2000, Congress awarded gold medals in a kind of Cold War victory salute: John Paul and Ronald Reagan.
Upon receiving the Congressional Gold Medal at the Vatican in January 2001 from a delegation of congressional leaders, John Paul professed to be “honored by the gracious gesture,” while noting that “it is not for the Successor of the Apostle Peter to seek honors.” The See of Peter is both above and beyond worldly prestige.
The ceremony followed the closing of the Great Jubilee by only two days, so John Paul used the occasion to highlight “all that the Church says and does to defend human dignity and to promote human life.”
“In the years of my ministry, but especially in the Jubilee Year just ended, I have invited all to turn to Jesus in order to discover in new and deeper ways the truth of man,” John Paul added. “I gladly accept the Congressional Gold Medal as a recognition that in my ministry there has echoed a word that can touch every human heart.”
More than 20 years into his papacy, John Paul was used to seeing his image on Vatican coins, but a specially commissioned gold medal with his visage upon it likely prompted his reminder that “the Bible tells us that man and woman have been created in his very image and likeness (cf. Genesis 1:26).” That was the image toward which he wished to point.
Honors for popes and presidents are strange things. Every president from JFK to Clinton has himself received it — save for Richard Nixon. An omission can send the message. George W. Bush and Barack Obama have not yet been selected but are in the queue. Biden received his as vice president from Obama.
As for popes, various nations grant them honors, and they are graciously received. But the status of the Holy Father as universal pastor means that, in some sense, it is a bit like parishes honoring their own bishop. It is often welcome and fitting, but also something to be expected.