Anna March writes a hate-filled screed against the Pope:
Don't buy his populist rhetoric. The new pope is every bit the sexist homophobe as his predecessors
THE IMAGE OF Pope Francis is that he is a breath of fresh air, more progressive on social issues than his predecessor and a kinder, gentler pope. But when the facts are examined, you see that he is none of these things. There is an enormous disconnect between who the pope really is in terms of his
policies and his public relations image, as crafted by the Vatican’s PR man, previously with Fox News. The current PR mission is all about reversing the incredible decline in fundraising under the last pope from the U.S. Catholic Church in particular. Pope Francis has made any number of statements that seem to indicate change and progress that are not reflected in policy. In fact, in the wake of such comments from Pope Francis, the Vatican often makes a point to explicitly state that no church policy has changed.
While the pope transmits a populist vibe—particularly about the economy— he is an old-school conservative who, despite his great PR, maintains nearly all of the socialpolicies of his predecessors and keeps up a hardline Vatican “cabinet.” He has done virtually nothing to change the policies of the church to match his more compassionate rhetoric. People excuse the pope, claiming that he doesn’t have much power to make changes, but this simply isn’t true. Further, it is ludicrous to suggest that a man who denies comprehensive reproductive health care (including all forms of birth control including condoms and abortion) and comprehensive family planning is a man who cares about the poor of this world. The bigotry of homophobia and sexism cloaked in religion are still bigotry and sexism. By giving to the church, American Catholics aren’t supporting “progress,” they are supporting oppression and in this way are complicit in the bigotry, sexism, and oppression of the church.
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The new sexist, nun-hating, poverty-perpetuating, pedophile-protecting homophobe is the same as the old sexist, nun-hating, poverty-perpetuating, pedophile-protecting homophobe, but gosh how the media loves him
In late October and early November 2013, reports were beginning to circulate that Pope Francis may appoint the first female Cardinal. However, the Vatican quickly crushed that notion, calling it “not remotely realistic.” Francis himself said “…it is a line that has come from who knows where…” However, the impression stuck that Pope Francis is progressive about women in the church.
Likewise, it has been widely reported that Pope Francis has struck, as The New York Times called it, “a more compassionate tone than his predecessors” regarding homosexuality. Where Pope Benedict XVI wrote in 2005 that homosexuality is “a strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil,” Pope Francis said in 2013, “If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?” In fact, he has judged plenty. Salon compiled his 5 worst quotes on homosexuality. Again, though, the media widely circulated the story about his seemingly revolutionary comments about gays, and the pope’s reputation as progressive on gays in the church was set.
In April of 2014, Pope Francis announced his plan for a fall meeting of senior clerics to discuss topics including contraception and gay marriage. In his piece in The Los Angeles Times, Henry Chu pointed out that, “Hardly anyone expects the pope to propose sweeping changes to Catholic doctrine at the synod in October despite widespread criticism that the modern world has left the church behind. Indeed, Francis has unequivocally upheld heterosexual marriage and procreation as God’s established, sanctified ideal.” Nonetheless, the perception remains that Pope Francis is better about social issues than his predecessor.
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“Family planning is a powerful tool in combating poverty. However, universal access to family planning is not yet a reality, particularly not among the poorest. Worldwide, 200 million women would like to delay or prevent pregnancy, but are not using effective contraception.” Nicholas Kristof wrote in The New York Times, “We should all be able to agree on voluntary family planning as a cost-effective strategy to reduce poverty, conflict and environmental damage.”
But Pope Francis and the Catholic Church could care less about these tools to combat poverty. It is not merely that the church tells its faithful that they’re committing a mortal sin by using birth control and decrees that a woman who has an abortion isautomatically excommunicated. The Catholic Church is also the single largest non-government provider of health care services in the world. That such an entity does not provide these basic services and actively lobbies against them in predominately catholic countries, such as the Philippines, and keeps them unavailable for all but affluent women is an abomination. American Catholics, who have the easy ability to simply ignore the church’s teachings on these directives, and do as a matter of course, are willing to support a church that denies poor women in numerous parts of the world access to the same services they can—and do —utilize.
Salon has declared that it's ok once again to openly hate the Catholic Church and those who declare allegiance to her. Anna March's concluding paragraph says it all:
The church has a right to promote its beliefs and Pope Francis has a right to wage the best, smartest PR campaign he can—even if it is smoke and mirrors. But it’s wrong for a lazy media to tout Pope Francis as a reformer when he’s nothing of the sort. I hope the media will stop promoting Pope Francis as a liberal.
We should not allow comforting rhetoric to distract us from the actions of a church that continues to enact and enforce policies that hurt women, homosexuals, and the poor. We should look at the ways in which our dollars in the collection plate are used. For many years the prominent writer Anna Quindlen, a liberal feminist, remained a Catholic while publicly and vehemently disagreeing with the church on social issues. But in 2012 Quindlen was quoted as saying, “Enough … every time I sit in this pew I ratify this behavior, and I’m not going to ratify it anymore.” The great Catholic activist Dorothy Day said of people, “It is best to disregard their talk and judge only their actions.” Catholics would be wise to take her advice.
In other words, Catholics need to become Protestants. And to not do so is to engage in homophobia, bigotry and intolerance.
Welcome to today's leftist mind and tomorrow's persecution toward the orthodox. Coming to a parish near you.
