Democrats have for years dealt with a Catholic hierarchy more focused on the personal and sexual areas of disagreement between the party and the church than on the areas of agreement such as poverty, workers' rights, and the death penalty. Republicans have responded with glee to the church's sexually conservative slant and implicit permission to ignore issues like poverty ... but that puts them in a tough place these days. Now there's a pope who's much more focused on poverty, peace, and even climate change, and he's about to be the first pope to visit Congress.
Republicans have settled on their excuse for ignoring Pope Francis on issues of inequality and peace: Where they agree with him, they embrace him as the voice of the church speaking on faith. Where they disagree with him, they dismiss his words as mere politics, not religion.
“He was making a political decision, and his opinions there are no more important than anybody else’s — and I’m saying that as a Catholic,” said Republican Rep. Peter King of New York, as he disagreed with Pope Francis over the Iran nuclear deal and his push for nations to welcome Syrian refugees.
Some even suggested the holy father should keep his day job.
“The pope should maybe stick to religion,” said Catholic Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), when asked about the pontiff’s views on climate change. King once told POLITICO that Francis is “a better pope than a politician.” “There is nothing in the New Testament about global warming. … It would please me if he would not touch on that at all. … We should hope he emphasizes moral issues instead of things like global warming.”
Well, then. It would please the infallible Steve King. (And let's face it, this pope had a strike against him with Steve King from the very beginning, what with being from Latin America.)
Avoiding war. Helping refugees. Preventing the wealthy nations and people of the world from creating catastrophic climate change that will disproportionately afflict the poor nations and people of the world. Republicans are comfortable wiping all of these away as not moral issues that Pope Francis therefore cannot speak about and expect to have Republicans listen. After all, everyone knows that morality only involves sexual organs.