Holy Cow! WHATS UP WITH THIS POPE?!

[Tommy_Carcetti]

46. True Catholic theology is a lot less conservative than one might think.

There's always been an underlying call for social justice in Catholic teachings. In some Catholic religious orders, such as Jesuits (of which Francis is one), that never really went away.

However, that teaching has been obscured over the years. In part due to the Vatican's regal largesse that harkens back to the Middle Ages and never fully went away.

In part due to the bureaucratic mess that is the Church's hierarchy and their horrid mismanagement of scandals such as the child abuse scandals over the past couple of decades, and the resulting public relations debacle.

And, specifically to the United States Catholic Church, the focus on taking strong socially conservative positions on issues such as abortion, contraception and gay marriage. Free market economic conservatives of the Ayn Rand ilk, knowing that their positions lacked great public appeal since they almost exclusively benefited the top 1%, chose within the construct of the Republican Party to "marry" their cause with the social conservative cause, which had significantly stronger support. This, in turn, resulted in those social conservatives choosing to adopt those stauch economically conservative views, even though they were almost diametrically against their own best interests, because they are viewed to be "on the same side." So you had poor but socially conservative people essentially hating the poor.

But if you put those matters aside, Catholic teaching has always taught a great responsibility towards the poor and less fortunate. It's a damn shame that that message is too often lost for reasons that are the Church's own fault. But a good local pastor will help orient his parishioners back to that primal focus. Thankfully, as a Catholic, I've never lost sight of that message, although it is easy to do so.

It's one of the main reasons I haven't given up on the Church despite my constant misgivings with much of its leadership.