I don’t know if it is really accurate to say that Pope Francis is splitting from the GOP, but he isn’t following their party line on abortion, contraception, gay rights, tax policy or climate change, primarily because he is both more moderate and more sane than the Republicans. He also has a much healthier respect for the intelligence and integrity of the scientific community. And this is going to become much more apparent next year.
Next year, as part of a speech he’ll give to the United Nations General Assembly, Francis will issue an edict urging the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics to do what they can to fight climate change.
“He’s modeling the church as a place for open disagreement,” said Vincent J. Miller, who chairs the University of Dayton’s Catholic theology program. “In that sense, one of the most important changes he’s making is that conservative politicians are now openly disagreeing with him,” Miller said.
Perhaps it is because Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI were such hardliners on social issues that American Catholics have developed the habit of picking and choosing which papal policies they will respect and which they will ignore. So, there is no guarantee that taking the reality-based community’s position on climate change will make much discernible difference in the voting patterns of Catholics in America. Republican Catholics may simply ignore the pope on that particular issue, just like millions of Catholics have ignored papal instruction on birth control.
Still, it creates difficulties for a political party when their positions are opposed by the Vatican, as pro-choice Democrats have known for quite some time. When the pope tweets “Inequality is the root of social evil,” and criticizes “trickle-down” economics as a “crude and naïve” theory, that is going to have an effect, especially over time.
Perhaps most importantly, the idea that a “good” Catholic is a Republican will weaken and perhaps even shift.
We hear a lot of talk about the Democrats’ difficulty in attracting white working-class voters. Among that group, the Dems have always done better with Catholics than Protestants, which can be seen by looking at the religious affiliation of white Democrats in Congress. I think we should anticipate an even better performance in upcoming elections, as the Francis Effect begins to take hold.
I find it simply hilarious to watch the spasmodic convulsions on the right every time this pope opens his mouth and says something that is in direct contradiction to their sacredly held ideological views. The opinion piece earlier this month on the Fox News website, written by a professed Catholic, was chock full of all kinds of amusing assertions and fantastical viewpoints. Of course, they start with labeling him the “Catholic Church’s Obama”. And it’s all downhill from there. He is accused of exhibiting “humility” and “compassion” simply for appearances sake to appease the evil leftists. He is accused of the “apologizing” for the church. Sound like a familiar accusation? They make fun of his statement that we should “get to know each other, listen to each other and improve our knowledge of the world around us.” Oh my god!!! Why in the hell would ANYONE want to do something so anti-Christian as that!!!
The pope is apparently also responsible for the fact that secularism is on the rise and that fewer and fewer people are claiming Catholicism as their faith. Why, Catholics are deigning to actually use birth control at levels on par with the general population. Horror of fucking horrors!!! And he is “vacuously talking about the poor” because he desperately wants to see his name portrayed positively in the media.
And this nuttiness just goes on and on and on. The obvious attempt to turn the pope into some sort of ultra-radical caricature is directly out of the right-wing political playbook.
I cannot wait until Pope Francis makes his first trip here next year. It will be comedy gold watching conservatives find ways to publicly villify him without coming across as complete and utter shitheads. Maybe Fox News will get a break and some pretty young white girl will turn up missing somewhere and they can break away from the trivial visit by the pope and cover something more in their wheelhouse.
I loved when he auctioned off expensive gifts he’d received [an expensive car, for example] and gave the $ to the poor.
The official left position on organized religion is that it’s a crutch for the weak-minded, and a tool of the oppressors.
But for everyone else, last priest, last aristocrat, guts, etc.
(Exceptions for the Dalai Lama, of course. Non-Western, even appeared in an Apple ad.)
Thank you for your attention in this regard.
Nice to see a Pope that is following more of the teachings of Jesus. I was very impressed with the compassion that he showed for the homeless on his birthday. Sending out 400 sleeping bags to them. I enjoy watching this Pope speak loud and clear about wrongs he sees.
w the new Pope: Gov O’Malley out there commuting death sentences to life:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/omalley-maryland-commute-death-sentences
When I was a kid, most Catholics in the northeast were Democrats.
Maybe they will be again. Younger Catholics are socially liberal.
When I was growing up in the Midwest, most Catholics were Democrats. It will be interesting to see if it changes in places like Wisconsin & Missouri, as well as Illinois. Outside Cook County, it is red.
actually the collar counties are mostly purple and even trending blue but the rest of your point is very valid
Glad to hear that about the collar counties. DuPage County used to be such a Republican stronghold; sounds like that is changing. However, downstate, especially in the rural areas, is getting redder. Southern Illinois used to have a lot of Yellow Dog Democrats. Rare breed today.
that’s true
” the Dems have always done better with Catholics than Protestants,”
That’s because most Catholics were immigrants or the children of immigrants. Many immigrants were white, you know.
“Many immigrants were white, you know.”
Like East European Jews, Catholics from southern Europe (Italians, Portuguese, Greeks) were not considered white by the WASPs and Irish. For that matter, it took a very long time before the Irish were considered white.
David Roediger, in Working Toward Whiteness, says that these groups were not considered white until the 1920s. I would say that they were not really considered white until the late 1960s.
Full disclosure, in the 1960s I attended a high school located in a very ethnic Italian neighborhood in Brooklyn (think: Saturday Night Fever) in which the students were about 45% Jewish, 45% Italian, and 10% Irish. Growing up, I knew only a handful of Protestant kids, and not from the schools I went to.
As you can imagine, I knew very few Republicans.
A similar ethnic neighborhood where I grew up. Fewer Jews (about 10%), many more Polish and German, a few WASP’s, whose fathers owned and controlled everything (Republican suburb). But we were considered white, just a lower form of white, i.e. mothers didn’t get the vapors if their sons wanted to marry an Italian or Pole.
Daughters were a different story, but I have to admit that all the ethnicities shared this to a large extent, as each considered themselves superior to the others.
Among my generation there was high mixing between Italians and poles. Italian boys (me too) preferred those tall blonds and Polish boys preferred short dark Sicilian girls. I can’t speak for the others, but Italian girls always reminded me of my sister.
There’s a lot to like about a world leader that’s not haranguing us to war, unlike many and actually seems to care for the less fortunate among us. I’m hoping he can hammer down on the American bishops while he’s at it. If the bishops want to escalate the war on women, perhaps they should get out of the public health care business.
Yes, and here again is the whole frustrating paradox we are faced with when it comes to the fact that religion is so intertwined with our politics. Caring for the poor and needy was purportedly a significant part of the message if Jesus. Yet it is almost exclusively the poor who suffer as a result of policies such as those implemented by Genesys. If you are a woman and happen to live in Flint and are impacted by this policy, but have sufficient financial means, the you just run down the road to Ann Arbor and have your tubes tied. But if are a poor person living in north Flint then your only option is the Foster Friess’ prescription of putting an aspirin between your knees.
This is the kind of ridiculous shit you get when you are forced to depend on “faith based” organizations as the primary providers for helping the poor. Don’t get me wrong, they do a lot of wonderful things. But when a poor person is held captive, and with limited choices in their health care options, simply because of a conflict with the religious doctrine of the only provider available to them, then the whole system is just majorly fucked up.
Yep. You mix religion and politics and you engage the ultimate slippery slope. Any law breaking becomes sin, blasphemy, heresy and a death sentence.
Perhaps ten thousand years ago the Jew/”Christian”/Muslim/Mormon Cult of Male Domination usurped the Woman’s proper role in the ordering of the world and everything – everything: War, religion/politics… pornography, history – enforces that domination. All of it built on lies.
The titular head of evil is never-the-less evil, regardless how groovy he sounds.
Technically the last two popes also made lots of similar statements about the badness of war, of governments that create poverty and of the need for anti-poverty programs, and of being pro-environment. But in the US the news media – heavily influenced by the right wing media – basically flat-out ignored those statements and focused on abortion and gays. It’s easier when the news media tended to put only those Catholics on TV who agreed with extremists like Pat Robertson and Scalia. It also helped that the last two Popes tried to pack the Cardinal ranks with similar people.
But, I state that only to remind people that the official Catholic teachings (per the catechism, and often contradicted by Catholic practices) have always been anti-war, pro-social programs, anti-accumulation of wealth, and pro-environment.
Perhaps most importantly, the key teaching has been the primacy of conscience – meaning, literally, that you should follow your own conscience in making decisions instead of whatever dogma the local clergy is trying to ram down your throat.
The difference is that Francis is pushing all of the teachings – and most importantly the primacy of conscience – and explicitly rejecting the Republican notion that the only important Catholic teachings are the ones that coincide with what the War Industry wants.
iirc that was a component of Vatican II. And conservative Catholics don’t exactly accept Pope John XXIII and the reforms he initiated.
When Pope Benedict resigned (how often do you see a pope resign?) and Pope Francis was elected, I thought this was a turning point. He is fearless, so it will be enjoyable to hear the GOP Catholic surrogates in Congress and the media wail and gnash their teeth.
What finally turned urban ethnics “white” in the 1960s/70s was “urban renewal” aka dying out and destruction of old central city ethnic communities. In NYC, this crystallized in the Ocean Hill/ Brownsville school strike. Ethnics were pitted against darker minorities by cynical manipulation of identity politics on both sides, and this turned many ethnics toward the right, though often only partially. A slight majority of Catholics (barely over half), a large majority of Jews (about 3/4), voted for Obama in 2012, and I still think some of the Reagan working class and their children will come back if the Democrats get their act together.
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1722878.The_Strike_That_Changed_New_York