Is Pope Francis Shaming the GOP Toward Change?

One of the most shocking examples of the hypocrisy of today's Republican Party is the manner in which the party claims to embrace - dare we say worship? - Christian values even as it pursues policies that are the absolute antithesis of the Gospel message of love, care for the poor and less fortunate.  Paul Ryan's budget proposals which savage the social safety net and which would leave millions of citizens in extreme dire straights is but one example.  Another is the way in which in the eyes of the GOP, if one is not a white, heterosexual conservative Christian, one is not viewed as even fully human.  Running in a head on collision with this GOP mantra of stealing from the poor to give to the rich (a reverse Robin Hood approach, if you will) is Pope Francis' statements on social justice.  A piece in The Daily Beast looks at how the GOP may be called out on its ugly policies from this unexpected quarter.  Here are excerpts:

When Jeb Bush stepped up this month to declare illegal immigration “an act of love,” he provoked precisely the conservative pile-on you’d expect. The right’s favorite crabby uncle, Charles Krauthammer, dourly pronounced the comments “bizarre.”. Rep. Raul Labrador accused Jebbie of pandering.  Noted intellectual Donald Trump declared Bush’s thinking “ridiculous” and “dangerous.” And God help anyone who ventured onto sites like RedState.com. Most perfectly, fake-winger Stephen Colbert eulogized, “He will be missed.”

In the midst of all the huffing and grumping, it was easy to miss the smaller, quieter sounds of satisfaction emanating from some of Bush’s fellow Catholics, particularly those on the social-justice-minded end of the spectrum. For these faithful, the governor’s assertion—with its decidedly biblical ring—was yet another sign of the change in conversation being driven, even within the fetid swamps of U.S. politics, by the wildly popular Pope Francis.

[D]ebate continues to rage throughout the church over the question of just how radical this pope really is, and the degree to which he might shift the Catholic spotlight from issues of sexual morality onto those such as poverty, immigration, torture, and even the environment.

“A fair number of bishops have always been deeply committed to the social doctrine of the church, but that isn’t what made headlines,” says Michael Sean Winters, who writes for the National Catholic Register. “Now it makes headlines.”

And where the headlines go, the politicians soon will follow.   Case in point: In his first pastoral visit last July, the pope journeyed to Lampedusa, a tiny island off the coast of Sicily through which more than 200,000 migrants and refugees have entered Europe since 1999. Lamenting “global indifference” to the plight of migrants and refugees, Francis threw a wreath into the Mediterranean in remembrance of those who had lost their lives there.

[T[he pope makes it awkward for political leaders of faith to ignore the human costs of poverty or the need for immigration reform, asserts Winters. “It’s really hard to justify, say, your opposition to immigration as coherent with your religious principles when you have the pope and the bishops out front saying otherwise.”

Sure enough, in the wake of Bush’s “act of love,” the proudly Catholic Bill O’Reilly rushed forward to claim that Jeb had stolen the line from him.  Meanwhile, Marco Rubio, a champion of comprehensive immigration reform until it tanked his popularity with the GOP base, felt compelled to wade back into the issue—even if his on-the-one-hand-on-the-other-hand, good-immigrants-versus-bad-immigrants hair-splitting made him look more impotent and befuddled than ever.

Carr acknowledges that while “the tone and the content of the discussion” have changed, “what is not clear is whether that leads to a change in policies or priorities.”

Indeed, Rep. Paul Ryan may talk a good game about the poor, but his policies still give social-justice advocates an ulcer. Similarly, John Boehner may have invited the pope to address a joint session of Congress, but that doesn’t mean the speaker is looking to become his party’s point man on immigration reform.

Still, the wheels of government—like those of the church—move slowly. And just getting Washington talking about these issues in even a slightly new way is seen by many social-justice advocates as a solid first step.

“There is a palpable sense among those of us on the Catholic left that the wind is at our back in a way that it has not been in at least 40 years.”

Despite these positives by Pope Francis, until he does a thorough house cleaning of the hierarchy of those who aided, abetted and covered up sexual abuse and until he truly changes Church dogma on sexual issues, the "change" he is bringing to the Church will be largely just smoke and mirrors.  Better PR skills do not equal real change.