As Pope Francis comes to the United States this week, Catholic conservatives find themselves in a bit of a conundrum. The people most inclined to fawn upon the Pope's every word now have to deal with a pope who places a heavy emphasis on issues such as climate change and global poverty, the exact opposite of the conservative script.
Many of these Catholics, previously staunch supporters of such conservatives as John Paul II and Benedict XVI, have reacted in varying ways to Pope Francis. Some have tried to avoid commenting on him all together or say that his comments on climate change are outside his spiritual realm. Others, such as Republican Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona, say they will boycott his Congressional speech because he speaks like a "leftist politician."
My Gut Reaction: All these years, conservative Catholics have claimed they are the true standard bearers of the faith. In reality, their true god is capitalism.
Analysis below the fold...
Conservative Catholics in the United States have downplayed statements even from popes they admire that pose any threat to their true gods, capitalism and the free market. As the Rolling Stone article linked above described, the conservative Catholic commentator George Weigel claimed that statements in Benedict XVI's encyclical Caritas in Veritate critical of unrestrained capitalism were put in by liberal aides rather than the Pope himself.
Weigel has tried a similar tactic with Pope Francis, trying to claim that his comments on the environment were not as important as his statements on conservative bread and butter issues such as abortion. As Weigel stated in a recent article on National Review Online:
While there is a settled Catholic moral understanding that we have a responsibility to be stewards of creation, there is no settled Catholic teaching on “the climate crisis,” either as to its nature or as to the possible remedies for whatever it might be. And while we’re at it, Bob, Catholic understandings of abortion, contraception, and “same-sex marriage,” while informed by religious faith and revelation, have been consistently argued in the public square on moral-philosophical grounds that anyone willing to engage an argument, rather than bloviate, can engage.
As Rolling Stone pointed out, this negative reaction traces its roots to a conservative Catholic embrace of free market economics during the 1980s, part of John Paul II's attack on the Soviet Union. A close look at those condemning Pope Francis reveals that what these conservatives really care about is capitalism. For example, a libertarian think tank, the
Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty, has condemned the Pope's recent encyclical
Laudato Si for not embracing libertarian economics, as well as its stance on climate change.
What Weigel, Gosar, and the Acton Institute ignore is that if one ignores climate change, one ignores the Catholic responsibility to be stewards of creation. Essentially, they have set up capitalism as an idol that supersedes the dictates of morality, especially regarding the earth. They worship money, not Christ.