I HAVE always been turned off by stuntmen and clowns. I am not qualified to decide whether Pope Francis is a clown, but he is certainly a stuntman. On arriving last week in the USA, he declined the limousine and opted for a ride to the White House in a little Fiat. Mind you the number plate, issued by the Vatican State, was SCV-1 – that’s Status Civitatis Vaticanae 1 – which, being translated, means “I’m Number One”.

I don’t want to sound churlish but I couldn’t help remembering Jesus words to the Scribes and Pharisees when they paraded their virtue in order to earn spiritual brownie points. Jesus said: “Don’t do it. Do you good deeds in secret and your heavenly Father will reward you openly.”

You might say the Pope’s choice of vehicle for his arrival in the US was a calculated act of ostentatious humility or conspicuous modesty: a stunt.

And so was his “simple meal with the poor” which followed – and which was, of course, comprehensively witnessed by the cameramen, the TV and the social media circus.

I don’t begrudge the Pope his very left wing views. He has a right to them. But he does not have the right to pass off his own ecclesiastical-Marxism as if this were the fundamental doctrines of Christianity.

The Pope is supposed to be infallible when he speaks ex-cathedra – from the throne – on spiritual matters. But he is certainly far from infallible when he speaks on economic matters.

For example, recently the Pope referred to capitalism as ”the dung of the devil” – thus showing us something of the dung of his own historical understanding: for it is capitalism which has raised more people out of poverty than any other economic system in history.

I confess, I am of the old-fashioned persuasion. I think that – just as it is the prime task of the plumber to mend pipes - so it is the first responsibility of a priest to talk about the Christian faith. I don’t see spiritual leadership – or even scientific integrity – in the Pope’s homily to the US Congress on the evils of global warming. Shouldn’t he be talking about something else? Such as the gospels, the sacraments of the church, the need we all have to repent of our sins and to try to be a bit better tomorrow than we were in all our yesterdays?

Then he tells the Americans they should be inspired by Moses. In the next breath he says they should abolish the death penalty.

He seems to forget that it was Moses, delivering the Ten Commandments, who declared the moral rightness of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. He says that rich nations should welcome migrants “in the spirit of love” but omits any mention of practicalities such as how many? The wholesale welcome of millions – among whom many are our declared enemies – has the capacity to ruin our western civilization and to murder the Christian civilization which created it.

I’m Church of England priest and a writer. I have decided views on politics, arts, music, the conduct of society and a dozen other topics. But if, as their priest, I were visiting a family in the parish, I would not regale them with my political prejudices. I think the Pope should place himself under the same restraint. Don’t just accept the political agenda, Francis, but instead offer the political agenda something it can look up to.

I mean the Christian faith. A Pope ought to know something about that.