Maureen Mullarkey is back! You might recall her blog piece on the Pope in First Things that caused Mark Shea a conniption fit, and led the editor of First Things to disavow what she wrote. Go here to read all about it. Now, at The Federalist, she is making her case that Pope Francis is a Leftist:
Go here to read the rest. That Francis is a man whose heart is on the Left politically I doubt that most honest people could deny with a straight face. His off the cuff remarks all aim in that direction, and when he talks or writes about political and economic issues it is almost always with a perspective that comes from the Left. Is that all he is? Of course not. His Catholicism makes him persona non grata on the Left in regard to such issues as abortion and gay marriage. However, I think that Pope Francis has come to the conclusion that differences with the Left on these issues do not preclude alliances with the Left on issues where his views coincide with theirs.
All popes have political beliefs and an unfortunate number of popes have attempted to enlist the sanctity of the Church in support of causes where prudence would have dictated silence as the best policy for the Church. Silence is obviously an option of last resort for the current pontiff.
Well, yes, PF is by default, a leftist: as the quote from Evangelii Gaudium which electrified me the first time I read it, demonstrates.
But also, he is not much of a deep thinker, as his confused and almost-stream-of-consciousness writing shows, and as his academic history shows. So, he likes to coin what he thinks are glittering [actually bizarre] metaphors (ex. trads are “self-absorbed Promethean neo-pelagianists”; his own curia he calls “procedural machines” afflicted by “spiritual Alzheimers”) and which are not helpful for him nor helpful at all to his opponents, and are much more telling of his shallow level of analysis. This way he sees himself as a “visionary” when I actually think King Lear on the moors makes more sense and evidences a deeper empathy.
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Speaking of bizarre Vat 2 visionaries: I hope Mr. McClarey will discuss at some point the passing of the famed prophet of post-V2, Richard D. McBrien, today, formerly chairperson of Notre Dame’s once-proud theology dept.
Sometime after a decent interval of De mortuis nihil nisi bonum.
Wait, I lost track, are you talking about Francis or Shea? 😉
Seriously though, that so many religious folk (not just Catholics) align themselves with leftism even as they condemn rightists for a fraction of the sins the left pulls is a baffling riddle. (well besides the answer of, “The Devil invests everything in PR.”)
God Bless Maureen. She won’t be silenced. It never ceases to amaze me how Francis’ criticisms apply accurately to himself. I mean, talk about opinions that hold a “crude and naive trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power.” In fact, I think we’re about to get a global warming encyclical that “has never been confirmed by the facts.”
“Those who leave the tradition of truth do not escape into something which we call freedom; they only escape into something else, which we call fashion”.
– Chesterton.
The desire to be fashionable is a dominant theme in the Left. To hell with truth as long as your liked and admired.
The poor bastards.
“Meanwhile, the excluded are still waiting” for Catholic Truth.
Those who are getting ready to deny Church doctrine and steal Jesus’s Church should write their schemes in pencil-God has the eraser and it is the eraser of the ultimate term limits power. Guy McClung, San Antonio
Of course, Francis is a leftist. Mark Shea luvs him!
Sad thing is, only arguments against the Pope being a Leftists that I can think of boil down to “but the Left in America has too many explicitly counter-to-binding-teachings beliefs that I think the Pope doesn’t share.”
It’s pretty obvious he’s a leftist. He also seems to suffer from some CINO afflictions. Seems he is personally opposed to abortion and such, but does not want to push his opposition to it that far, for fear of losing contact with fellow leftists on other “more pressing” issues. He probably does personally see poverty as the “root cause” of abortion, and therefore believes fighting poverty is more effective than outlawing it, as many “pro-life” leftists do. I get the impression that he sees practical results as more important than principle.
As for economics, it seems corruption is the problem, not necessarily capitalism per se. A marxist economy run by angels might work – but there are no angels to run it. Capitalism, subject as it to corruption as anything else, seems to be the least damaging system around. Distributism is intriguing, but not sure how it could play out in the current milieu without a heck of a lot of disruption.
The protection the Holy Spirit offers is spare. Trying to make sense of the succession of papal statements on usury would be challenging enough.
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The thing is, there are large masses of people who do not have good native judgment. They have to be taught something explicitly to grasp it. (I think Ronald Reagan would be a satisfactory example of someone who often made good decisions without much schooling). If they have to be taught something, they have to have an affinity for that department of knowledge. Clerics are verbalizers whose work involves a great deal of personal interaction and who live within a donation economy. That’s not an ideal matrix for grasping and talking sense on the subjects related to economic activity. Add to this Francis’ intellectual deficits vis a vis John Paul and Benedict and his long residence in Argentina (a country which vies with Greece for the title of occidental nation with the stupidest political society) and you get quite a witches brew there.
How sad it is that because of this Pope’s meanderings and babbling I am forced, for the first time in my life, to throw out the baby with the bath-water: I have quit reading all his homilies, pronouncements etc. More time to read more salutary tracts.
Ahahaha ““Please, Max, don’t make waves.” Good one Maureen!
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Thanks for this post Donald.
Anzlyne: ” Ahahaha ““Please, Max, don’t make waves.” Good one Maureen!
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Thanks for this post Donald.”
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My sentiments exactly.
Shea is wetting his pants big time on this one, he never disappoints. I don’t think most rational people would think Maureen was comparing the pope to Hitler, but since when are lefties rational?
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/markshea/2015/01/not-at-all-crazy-revenge-of-the-francis-haters.html
Steve D; My eyes are aching and my dander is up. I followed your link.
I see TAC got honorable – and hateful – mention in the com boxes at Marks Shea’s leftist blog regarding Pope Francis being a leftist. I usually read works by neither Pope Francis nor Mark Shea. The Bible and the Church Fathers are much better resource material.
Hmmm… *check’s the link*
Ah, so when it doubt, don’t attack the source, attack the followers. I wonder how Shea would like it if I started employing that tactic on the Church…
[post crazy things Shea has said]
“Congratulations Catholicism! You’ll be very happy with such a flock and with luck you’ll keep them away from the rest of us.”
…Somehow I don’t see that going over well with him.
Let’s see what comments he’s left in reply to others…
*checks original article* Weird, I don’t see anyone calling the Pope a nazi, just a joke. Then again I guess in Shea land if someone used a joke about ducks to convey an idea, he’d then ran about them comparing the Pope to water fowl.
This being the man who used to rail about people needing “insensitivity training.”
Because it’s one of the few places where you can be honestly debated. It’s not our fault you’d rather stay in your own echo chamber than face challenges to your own ego. I’d say come over here and debate like a friar but we know how unlikely that is.
*shrug* If he’s got to make stuff up to have something to object to, he’s clearly not got a point.
But Foxfier, making stuff up is a lie. And we all know how much Shea is against lying! Why otherwise it’s totally consequentialism.
I think that Mark Shea’s problem is one that he shares with Pope Francis, and it is, much to their mutual chagrin, that most faithful Catholics are closer in alignment of their belief, faith practices, and prayer-life to those of Willie Robertson and the Duck Dynasty family than to Shea, PF, Blaise Cupich, Card. Kasper, etc.
They simply dont grasp the divide between them and “us”..
“The Bible and the Church Fathers are much better resource material (than the Pope’s writings and teachings.)”
Few things are more hilarious than watching self-styled Super Catholics inadvertently embrace Protestantism.
The Church Fathers were Protestants? The things one learns on the internet!
Whatever happened to Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical Libertas which expressly condemned liberalism (i.e., leftism) in paragraphs 15 and 16 if I recall rightly? Yes, I read the Popes too – Leo XIII, Pius XII, JP II and B XVI. And even the encyclicals of the very 1st Pope – 1st & 2nd Peter of all things!
Paul W Primavera: “I see TAC got honorable – and hateful – mention in the com boxes at Marks Shea’s leftist blog regarding Pope Francis being a leftist. I usually read works by neither Pope Francis nor Mark Shea. The Bible and the Church Fathers are much better resource material.”
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The Church Fathers are the Church Triumphant. In heaven to help us get to heaven too.
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Donald McClarey: The Church Fathers came before and stayed before Protestantism. When we say:”Saints preserve us” The Church Fathers say: “Yes”.
I doubt Smith 187 has read and analyzed the 80+ circumambulatory pages of Evangelii Gaudium: were he to have done so, early on in this pontificate one would have seen the lack of analytical depth or historical ground work of Bergoglio that was typical of the prior two pontiffs. P Francis certainly dismisses “all that” as some form of “spiritual Altsheimers” in one of his now-typical off-hand insults.
Having some fair amount of experience with the Glass – Bead Game Circles of university Jesuits, they are particularly afflicted by a fatal attraction for “Visionary Prophets” that emotionally thrill them. Those who are pre-anointed as these visionary – types become self-fulfilling in their role: Everyone falls in line with the cooing praise of the nutty visionary. Now we have consensus for some foolishly fatal decision. Voices of criticism are silenced as “divisive”, today’s ultimate curse-word. Decisions are thus made that are “irreversible”: institutions fail, mysteriously, support drifts away, and all the little monkeys sail off in the little brass boat.
Yay for Visionaries and their fevered adherents!
c matt: “It’s pretty obvious he’s a leftist. He also seems to suffer from some CINO afflictions. Seems he is personally opposed to abortion and such, but does not want to push his opposition to it that far, for fear of losing contact with fellow leftists on other “more pressing” issues. He probably does personally see poverty as the “root cause” of abortion, and therefore believes fighting poverty is more effective than outlawing it, as many “pro-life” leftists do. I get the impression that he sees practical results as more important than principle.”
Excellent analysis, now I see why he told us not to push the abortion issue. Of course the contraceptive mentality is the root cause of abortion, but then again tnat would alienate his fellow lefties. Seems kind of devious,