Pope Francis Poses a Threat to the GOP Economic Order

Up until now, Republicans have been only too happy it inject religion into politics and make one's adherence - at least outwardly, if not in fact - a litmus test for running for office and, most of all, to hold public office. Ben Carson's recent anti-Muslim statements illustrate this reality.  Now, however, the same folks who readily prostitute themselves to Christofascists as a means to garner votes are up in arms that Pope Francis is pushing for action on climate change and arguing that religion and churches, such as the Catholic Church, have no business in raising the issue of, much less discussing climate change.  They take similar offense at the Pope's targeting the evils of vulture capitalism and support for labor unions.  A column in the Washington Post looks at the GOP hostility towards Francis and his message.  Here are excerpts:

The pope addresses Congress Thursday, and conservatives are fearing the worst. Their belief systems can tolerate a lot — laissez-faire economics, xenophobia — but Pope Francis’s emphasis on the Roman Catholic Church’s historic antipathy to capitalism has them in a dither.

The Wall Street Journal laments his overt embrace of the “progressive political agenda of income redistribution.” My Post colleague George F. Will writes that, “Americans cannot simultaneously honor him and celebrate their nation’s premises.”

It’s not clear, however, whether the Journal and Will’s argument is with the pope or with the Christianity of the saint whose name he took, or even more fundamentally, with the Nazareth carpenter whom Christians believe was the son of God.

Suppose, for instance, that the pope elects, in his address to Congress, to repeat one of that carpenter’s most famous quotes: “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.”

Based on past performance, can we expect some Republican congressman to leap to his feet and shout, “You lie,” or Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. to shake his head in dissent? Both occurrences greeted addresses to Congress by President Obama, speeches that were nowhere remotely as inflammatory as those in a recent papal encyclical, much less the Sermon on the Mount.

In place of our current system, Francis has recommended giving workers more power — in particular, promoting worker-owned and -run cooperatives. . . . . On the U.S. political spectrum, this kind of advocacy for worker control plunks you down firmly on the left: Indeed, the primary author of legislation that would promote worker co-ops if Congress ever sought fit to pass it is one Bernie Sanders. But Francis’s critiques of capitalism aren’t peculiar to the left wing of the church. 

Where Francis has departed from his predecessors is that he has moved from talking the talk to walking the walk. The simplicity of his lifestyle, his emphasis on spending time among the poor and giving workers more control of economies where the deck, as Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) has said, is stacked against them, are all radical departures from past papal practice. So, too, is the tolerance he has shown to gays, lesbians and divorcees — a tolerance that has roused the ire of church conservatives, for whom intolerance to these and kindred groups seems to express the essence of their Catholicism.

These conservatives lament that Francis has de-emphasized the church’s traditional fear and loathing of women and sex. How a church governed by male celibates should have come to view its areas of core competency as gender relations and reproduction is a good question.  By returning to the kind of issues that St. Francis and the Nazarene focused on — stewardship of the Earth, championing of the have-nots — Francis has been a great disappointment to those Catholics nostalgic for the spirit, if not the letter, of the Inquisition. 

A pope infused by the spirit of St. Francis of Assisi and Jesus poses a threat to the current economic order. Conservatives are right to fear and despise him, as they would be right to fear and despise his role models.

The final scene of George Bernard Shaw’s play “Saint Joan” places Joan of Arc in a dream sequence in which all her persecutors, once she’s safely dead and canonized, praise her and acknowledge her sainthood. When she asks them if she should return to Earth and live again, however, they answer with fear, loathing and a resounding “no.” That, in essence, is the conservatives’ response to Pope Francis, and to the spirit and faith he embodies. 

It would be delicious to see the tables turned on the GOP which has insidiously used religion to do evil and support greed.

Evangelicals and Far Right Catholics to Release New Anti-Gay Manifesto

While we continue to see the evil of fundamentalist religious belief in the form of ISIS in the Middle East, here at home in America our own home grown religious extremists are planning to release a new anti-gay screed manifesto next month.  Those who have seen the batshitery report that it “reads like a declaration of war,” and claims that anyone accepting gay marriage is no longer fully Christian much in the way ISIS condemns Sunni Muslims for reject its  more extreme tenants.  Among the signers of the screed are Rick Warren; Timothy George, dean of Beeson Divinity School at Samford University; Mark Galli, editor of the evangelical magazine Christianity Today; Daniel Akin, president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, and psychologically disturbed former unwed mother Maggie Gallagher. No doubt their affiliated hate groups will make another money beg concurrent with the release of the "manifesto."  

Meanwhile, the biggest irony is that while Republicans condemn ISIS and call for military action against it, they continue to embrace equally sick and insane Christofascists here in America.  Religion News Service has details.  Here are highlights:

A high-profile alliance of conservative Catholics and evangelical Protestants is set to issue a sweeping manifesto against gay marriage that calls same-sex unions “a graver threat” than divorce or cohabitation, one that will lead to a moral dystopia in America and the persecution of traditional believers.

“If the truth about marriage can be displaced by social and political pressure operating through the law, other truths can be set aside as well,” say the nearly 50 signers of the statement, which is to be published in the March edition of the conservative journal First Things.

The declaration adds that some people “are already being censured and others have lost their jobs because of their public commitment to marriage as the union of a man and a woman.”

Social conservatives have rallied around a number of cases that they say herald a gloomy future, including the recent dismissal of the fire chief in Atlanta, who had given employees a copy of his book in which he detailed his beliefs, based on his Christian faith, that homosexuality was “vile.”

This latest statement, “The Two Shall Become One Flesh: Reclaiming Marriage,” comes from the group Evangelicals and Catholics Together, a coalition formed in 1994 under the aegis of former Nixon aide Charles Colson, an evangelical, and the Rev. Richard John Neuhaus, a Catholic priest.

The document declares, however, that a “faithful Christian witness cannot accommodate itself to same-sex marriage,” and it suggests that believers who accept gay marriage are no longer fully Christian.

Far Right Catholics Declare War on Pope Francis

Over the weekend a column by Ross Douthat ran in the New York Times that more or less declared war on Pope Francis' attempt to move the Roman Catholic Church out of the Middle Ages.  The column demonstrates the mindset of far right Christians - both Catholic and Protestant - who are terrified by anything that challenges their childish, myth based beliefs and requires that they engage in thought and analysis instead of parroting what has been spoon fed to them from pulpits occupied by those who are little better than demagogues.  In a post today, Andrew Sullivan correctly described the sickness of those like Douthat.  Here are highlights:

[I]n Ross’s column, there is a clear assumption that his side of the debate owns the church, that any contrary views to his are an outrageous, treasonous and unprecedented attack on the institution itself, that any accommodation of mercy for those caught in the cross-hairs of the teachings on sex and marriage and family is somehow a “betrayal” of the core faith. Not a misguided idea – but a betrayal.

This is nonsense and panic, but it is a useful insight into the theo-conservative psyche. Notice the language used to describe a civil, rare and open debate of issues that the church is grappling with. This process – in which the theocons won on their core issues – is “a kind of chaos,” it’s “medieval” and “dangerous,” it sows “confusion.” It is as if these questions cannot even be debated (which was, of course, the view of John Paul II and Benedict XVI), as if faith itself is so fragile and so rooted in unquestioning blind obedience to a body of teaching that makes no distinction between central and more marginal issues, that any Pope that actually seeks to have a conversation about these questions is a threat to the church itself.

And what are these questions that are so dangerous to consider? That some divorced Catholics who sincerely want to be part of the life of the church should be allowed some participation in the sacraments; that a gay relationship should not be defined and condemned solely for its sexual nature – but can be appreciated for other virtues, such as mutual love and sacrifice; that doctrine should never be imposed without an option for mercy. These are not violations of the core teachings – that marriage is for life and must be always open to life; that non-procreative sex inside or outside marriage is always sinful – but attempts to acknowledge that human beings are involved here, and that exclusion and cruelty and contempt are not the only options for those following the teachings of Jesus.

But for Ross, it appears that mercy is an attack on inviolable truth, rather than its essential Christian complement.  . . . . If your faith cannot admit of doubt, of debate, of conversation … then it is a white-knuckled faith in the religion of total certainty, rather than the calm faith of those who know we do not have all the answers to every pastoral question.

It’s an almost textbook case in which those who regard themselves as morally superior claim ownership of a church created … for sinners. There is a clear rebuke to that mindset: So the last will be first and the first last, for the called are many and the chosen ones are few.

Far Right Catholics Not Pleased with Pope Francis

Having grown up Catholic in the 1950's and 1960's I certainly had in depth exposure to far right elements of Roman Catholicism and people who seemingly put legalism and a desire to look down on others far ahead of the message of the Gospels in terms of love for others, helping the poor and hungry, etc.  This sick element in the Catholic Church continues to exist, including within the ranks of the morally bankrupt hierarchy which happily engaged in the worldwide sex abuse scandal cover up.  While no formal or official changes have yet occurred in the Church's dogma, the very different tone being set by Pope Francis - especially in contrast to that set by Nazi Pope, Benedict XVI - is not welcome in far rights circles of the Church.  A piece in the New York Times looks at the unhappiness with Francis among those who are, in my view, modern day Pharisees like so many "conservative Christians."  Here are highlights:

SMYRNA, Ga. — When Pope Francis was elected in March, Bridget Kurt received a small prayer card with his picture at her church and put it up on her refrigerator at home, next to pictures of her friends and her favorite saints.

She is a regular attender of Mass, a longtime stalwart in her church’s anti-abortion movement and a believer that all the church’s doctrines are true and beautiful and should be obeyed. She loved the last two popes, and keeps a scrapbook with memorabilia from her road trip to Denver in 1993 to see Pope John Paul II at World Youth Day. 

But Ms. Kurt recently took the Pope Francis prayer card down and threw it away.  "It seems he’s focusing on bringing back the left that’s fallen away, but what about the conservatives?" . . . . 

Now I feel kind of thrown under the bus.” 

In the eight months since he became pope, Francis has won affection worldwide for his humble mien and common touch. His approval numbers are skyrocketing. Even atheists are applauding.

But not everyone is so enchanted. Some Catholics in the church’s conservative wing in the United States say Francis has left them feeling abandoned and deeply unsettled. On the Internet and in conversations among themselves, they despair that after 35 years in which the previous popes, John Paul II and Benedict XVI, drew clear boundaries between right and wrong, Francis is muddying Catholic doctrine to appeal to the broadest possible audience. 

They were particularly alarmed when he told a prominent Italian atheist in an interview published in October, and translated into English, that “everyone has his own idea of good and evil” and that everyone should “follow the good and fight evil as he conceives them” — a remark that many conservatives interpreted as appearing to condone relativism. He called proselytizing “solemn nonsense.” 

They were shocked when they saw that Francis said in the interview that “the most serious of the evils” today are “youth unemployment and the loneliness of the old.” It compounded the chagrin after he said in an earlier interview that he had intentionally “not spoken much” about abortion, same-sex marriage or contraception because the church could not be “obsessed with the transmission of a disjointed multitude of doctrines.”

Steve Skojec, the vice president of a real estate firm in Virginia and a blogger who has written for several conservative Catholic websites, wrote of Francis’ statements: “Are they explicitly heretical? No. Are they dangerously close? Absolutely.

“There have been bad popes in the history of the church,” Mr. Skojec said. “Popes that murdered, popes that had mistresses. I’m not saying Pope Francis is terrible, but there’s no divine protection that keeps him from being the type of guy who with subtlety undermines the teachings of the church to bring about a different vision.” 

Most American Catholics do not share Mr. Skojec’s objections. A poll released last month by Quinnipiac University found that two in three agreed with Francis that the church was too “obsessed” with a few issues. 

Some conservative Catholics are sharing prophecies online that foretell of tribulations for the church. In one, an Irish woman predicted that Benedict would be held hostage. Others cite the German mystic Anne Catherine Emmerich, who wrote of a “relationship between two popes,” one who “lives in a palace other than before,” which some now see as a reference to Benedict, who resigned as pope early this year but still lives in Vatican City. During this time there arises a “false church of darkness.”