This article by Mary Hunt at Religion Dispatches exhibits the kind of grudging attitude toward Pope Francis that is emerging in a section of the Catholic Left. It appears deaf to the pope's call to reach out to the poor and marginalized unless he is willing to sign on to their agenda for sexual liberation, as if Jesus did not spend a great deal of time preaching about the poor and, shall we say, rather less time advocating for same sex marriage. (This grudging attitude has its counterpart on the Catholic Right as well, as I have noted in previous posts.)
Unsurprisingly, Ms. Hunt does not once - NOT ONCE! - mention the poor and Pope Francis' call for the Church to go to the peripheries of society to be with the poor, to learn from them, to bless them and be blessed by them, to see in their wounds the wounds of Christ. Who really has the time to care about the poor when you can write for Religion Dispatches? After all, perhaps one can be marginalized even while placing "Ph.D" after your name. Perhaps.
But, it was this paragraph that set me over the edge:
On the plane ride home, the Pope was asked about a brewing Vatican scandal involving Monsignor Battista Ricca who runs the residence where Francis lives and who was recently appointed as part of the group overseeing the Institute for the Works of Religion, commonly referred to as the Vatican bank. Lots of rumors have surfaced about Ricca, specifically related to gay activity, which the pope suggested amounted to nothing on initial investigation. He left the impression that sometimes youthful indiscretions plague one unfairly later in life. I rather like his approach, as who hasn’t had such experiences? I await such understanding when it comes to well-thought-out decisions mature women make to have abortions.
Does the analogy strike anyone else as morally obscene? Msgr Ricca's alleged youthful indiscretions may unfairly plague him, resulting in his not getting a promotion in the curia. An abortion takes a life. But, in Ms. Hunt's confused moral universe, such analogies are not alarming, they are just part of the agitprop of liberation that has plagued the Catholic Left for years now and is repeated without thinking. Why such unthinking, repulsive "analysis" is published is beyond me. If Catholics on the Left are not willing to stand up for the unborn, we have, and should have, no credibility when we stand up for the undocumented or the unemployed or the other "un's" in our society, the very people the Holy Father has asked out to embrace. We know where Ms. Hunt stands. Where is the rest of the Catholic Left going to stand?
