Pope's Speech To Congress Reveals That He Is, Indeed, A Leftist
09/24/2015 06:41 PM ET
Pope Francis addresses a joint meeting of Congress on Thursday, making history as the first pontiff to do so. AP
Pope Francis addresses a joint meeting of Congress on Thursday, making history as the first pontiff to do so. AP View Enlarged Image
Faith And Politics: Seventeen Catholic popes have served since the U.S. declared independence from Britain 239 years ago, but Francis is the first to address both houses of Congress. Wish we could say it was worth the wait.
As it turned out, the historic address was loaded with left-wing claptrap about social justice, blood money, moral equivalence and environmentalism.
Early in the speech, for example, Francis cited Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr. as emblematic of America's "fundamental values." Fair enough. Then he named two others most have likely never heard of — Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton.
Day, who co-founded the Catholic Worker Movement, supported Castro's revolution and liked to say that "there is a Christian communism and a Christian capitalism." And while Merton may not have been a textbook leftist, he's been fully embraced by liberals and socialists in pursuit of their various causes.
Whatever their spiritual gifts — and Dorothy Day is up for sainthood — it's telling that these are the people Francis chose to feature.
Francis' plea to fight climate change revealed a glaring blind spot of his. At one point, he said "we must be especially attentive to every type of fundamentalism." But he had just sided with environmental fundamentalists who would be just as destructive if they had their way.
Francis then lectured on illegal immigrants, advising that Congress "must not be taken aback by their numbers." But this too was muddleheaded. In his opening, he said Congress' specific duty is to "satisfy common needs" and help the country "grow as a nation."
How exactly does letting murderous thugs into the country, or making it easy for terrorists to slip in with waves of "refugees," satisfy those obligations?
Where Francis was strongest was when he stuck to his knitting — urging, for example, "the voice of faith continue to be heard" and that we have "respect for our differences and our convictions of conscience."
With Christians increasingly being attacked in America for their faith, those words are welcome.
Francis also spent some time defending families. "How essential," he pointed out, "the family has been to the building of this country! And how worthy it remains of our support and encouragement!"
He rightly warned that the family is "threatened, perhaps as never before, from within and without," and that "fundamental relationships are being called into question."
It was a much needed reminder of something that is undeniably true: Families are the bedrock of a prosperous, healthy and safe country. New Census data once again make this plain: Just 6.2% of married couples are below the poverty line, to cite just one statistic, vs. almost a third of single moms and 16% of single dads.
The Catholic Church is big and sprawling, with billions of adherents around the world, all of whom are free to have different opinions on things like economic policy, immigration and the weather.
But no one should be misled: On all these issues, Pope Francis is, despite his recent protestations, about as leftist as they come.
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