There’s a special irony in the fact that a papacy which, from the beginning, has been characterised by a strong ambivalence about the United States – recall, for instance, the infamous “ecumenism of hate” essay in Civiltà Cattolica – appears to be ending in reliance on vintage American pragmatism, at least as far as its PR operation is concerned.
As the classic formula associated with William James goes: “Truth is what works.” For a pragmatist, if a proposition accomplishes some useful aim, then it’s true, with other principles of logic thereby rendered superfluous.
