A Pope for the Poor?

Why Francis is "radically mainstream" By Aidan Coyne

Source: The Toronto Star

On April 28, Pope Francis caused another stir among internet circles with a tweet which stated plainly that “inequality is the root of social evil.” This seemed to be yet another example of the Pope going “off script,” and ostensibly in a very liberal and left-leaning fashion in accordance with his reputation. Are the Holy Father’s free market and conservative Catholic critics correct? Is Pope Francis a loose cannon, or an ill-informed economist? The simplest answer is no. In fact, when examined correctly, it becomes clear that while Francis’ message is undoubtedly radical, it is equally orthodox and clearly at home in the Church’s tradition.

The question of the orthodoxy of Francis, or how “in-line” he is with the position of the Catholic Church and his predecessors, is surprisingly clear. When looking at what the Church currently teaches and has taught in the past, his positions are unoriginal and perhaps even boringly consistent. This can be seen in papal writings dating from the encyclical Rerum Novarum in 1891 to the supposedly “right wing” US bishops who wrote in 2007 that the “weak, vulnerable, and most in-need deserve preferential concern.” The stereotype in the United States of the Catholic Church as a body of stuffy, out-of-touch Republicans is wholly inaccurate and exists as the result of our polarized and politicized media.

This is the crux of the criticism that the Pontiff has faced; namely his critics tend to be examining his message through their own biased and prejudiced lens which distort and misinterpret the Pope’s moral messages as political suggestions straight from the Democratic party platform. This same tendency is what drove the media to label the previous two popes as “conservatives,” when the reality is that their ideologies are far more murky and complex.

The Pope is not an American politician, and whoever occupies the Vatican is unlikely to win the unreserved support of either political faction because of what the Catholic Church teaches and stands for.

Why then has Pope Francis attracted worldwide attention for his supposed radicalism? This is because his message is radical in the sense that it is a strong challenge to the world’s business as usual. This may seem to contradict my defense of Francis’ orthodoxy, but this is because the Catholic doctrine is itself extreme in the eyes of outsiders. So yes, his message does come across as radical but only due to the fact that Jesus Christ was an even more strident critic of the wealthy than Francis. After all, this was the leader who told a potential follower that he must give up all possessions to become his disciple, who claimed that a rich person entering the Kingdom of Heaven was like a camel passing through the eye of a needle and said “woe to you rich, for you have received your comfort”. This is what the blogger Artur Rosman has called the “ruthless demands of the Gospel.” With standards like these, it’s no wonder indeed that “all fall short of the glory of God.”

The Church’s role is partly to challenge people to strive for perfection and holiness, even if it makes people uncomfortable, as Pope Francis’ words sometimes do.

Viewed within this framework, even the fiercest proclamations of Francis’ reign seem tame. It’s important that we as Americans refrain from trying to interpret every word from the Pope’s lips as political statements; Pope Francis is no Thomas Piketty, or Barack Obama and he is not promoting a political platform, but instead a moral agenda. In other words, both conservatives and liberals need to stop using the Church as another football in their political game, not even as a Hail Mary pass.