!!!!

THE POPE’S STRANGE NEW RESPECT

The Transom

17 June 15

Over the next few days, you will see an explosion of strange new respect for Pope Francis in the wake of his climate-focused encyclical, which will only be the latest expression of this pope’s opposition to a competitive global economy and his ignorance regarding the best path toward helping the Third World. Here’s an early example. http://vlt.tc/1yvw

.

The odd thing is that this encyclical will arrive at a moment when most of the climate change activists have become very disappointed in their progress, and in the lack of movement on the part of American politics. The forces arguing against dramatic policy steps and restrictions targeting climate change have largely been successful in recent years. And in a time when American concerns are focused on wage stagnation and the cost of living for middle class staples, climate has largely become the sort of policy which matters to the 1 percent and few others.

.

What will follow on this announcement is obvious: every journalist who has dutifully ignored any obligation to ask Democrats who are Catholics about why they break with the pope and the Catholic Church on issues like abortion, marriage, and religious liberty will rush to ask Catholic Republicans about why they do not agree with Pope Francis on the issue of climate. Jeb Bush was asked about this just the other day. http://vlt.tc/1yvy  “I hope I’m not going to get castigated for saying this by my priest back home, but I don’t get economic policy from my bishops or my cardinals or my pope,” Bush said. “And I’d like to see what he says as it relates to climate change and how that connects to these broader, deeper issue before I pass judgment. But I think religion ought to be about making us better as people and less about things that end up getting in the political realm.”

.

Social teaching encyclicals are nowhere near as binding on Catholics in the way that Catholic teachings on marriage and abortion are – but that’s not going to be the way that the media covers the topic. On either side, unfortunately – here’s Rod Dreher. http://vlt.tc/1yvx  “[H]ow is it that Jeb Bush has been a Catholic convert for 25 years, and doesn’t grasp that Catholic Christianity is not focused only on personal piety, but has a broad social dimension as well? On what grounds does he oppose abortion, then? On what grounds did he fight to keep Terri Schiavo alive as her governor? Does he reject what the Catholic Church teaches about the poor? What a disappointing statement. Bush is no better than liberal Catholics who reject the Church’s teachings on abortion, marriage, and other areas that inconvenience their consciences.”

.

This argument is so extreme that I wonder if it’s an act of purposeful trolling. It also seems to me, ignorant non-Catholic as I am, to conflict with this. http://vlt.tc/1yvz  But for the politicians, conservative Catholics should use this as an opportunity to make the case for their less popular views in a bold way. Protecting God’s creation is important, after all, and cherishing His gifts to us – whether it is a planet as a whole or the life in the womb, inhabited as each is with a spark of the divine.