Our Prime Minister on His Knees

 

First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for everyone, for kings and all who are in high positions, so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity.

! Timothy 2:1-2 NRSVue

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is at the Vatican with his wife and daughter today, congregants for the first official mass conducted by Pope Leo. I've noted before that Carney is a practicing Roman Catholic, regularly attending worship. 

It can be a challenge for any political leader to hold firm to the separation between church and state. Doing so doesn't mean that spiritual values and religious commitment are inconsequential. God knows that there are many leaders in our world today who have tossed their moral compasses out the window. 

I appreciated an article from Politico about Carney in Italy and I'll share a few paragraphs here that I find encouraging: 

Attending Sunday’s liturgical service offers Canada’s new prime minister an opportunity to reflect on how his faith informs his views on markets, money and policy-making. Carney makes no apologies for the overlap. 

“We all need to avoid compartmentalization — the division of our lives into different realms, each with its own set of rules,” Carney wrote in his 2021 book, “Value(s): Building a Better World For All.” 

Six years earlier, Catholic newspaper The Tablet named the then U.K. central bank governor “Britain’s most influential Catholic.” 

The prime minister credited Pope Francis with the inspiration for his book. In 2014, the pope joined Carney and a range of policymakers at the Vatican to discuss the future of the market system. 

Carney described how the pope used the metaphor of wine and grappa to illustrate a greater economic point. The pontiff compared the market — which he defined as “self-interested” — to grappa, a distilled liquor made from wine-making residue. 

“Your job is to turn the grappa back into wine, to turn the market back into humanity,” the pope told the group. “This isn’t theology. This is reality. This is the truth.”

Here is the link to the article https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/16/mark-carney-pope-leo-xiv-rome-00352715?cid=apn

Scripture encourages us to pray for leaders so as PM Carney prays and worships with Pope Leo today, we can pray for both of these persons of Christian faith now and in the days ahead.