#29 OF 45 - THIS UNHAPPY BOOK REPORT ON "THE POLITICAL POPE"

# 29 OF 45 - THIS UNHAPPY BOOK REPORT ON "THE POLITICAL POPE"

IN PURSUIT OF THE TRUTH - BLOGGER. CINOPS BE GONE - TUESDAY, JAN. 28, 2020

 

George Neumayer - "The Political Pope" - Center Street, N.Y. 2017, Excerpts

Rolling Stone's Pope p. 177-183

 

In 2015, Rolling Stone ran a cover story on the pope, titled "Pope Francis: The Times They Are A-Changin'," which praised him for scolding conservative Catholics and drawing attention to "income equality." The article glorified in his utility to their hip causes. The libertine magazine also found much to approve in his past, such as the time he mocked Church leaders by saying they "want to stick the whole world inside a condom."

 

Rock stars and celebrities, excited by the progressive and permissive direction of the papacy, now visit the Vatican Chapel for first time to a rock performer, David Evans, aka "The Edge," from band U2.

 

In 2016, Pope Francis handed out awards to actors George Cloony, Richard Gere, and Salma Hayek fo their promotion of the arts through a papal charity called Scholars Occurrentes. While he didn't mind receiving the help of these socially liberal celebrities, he drew the line a donation from the government of the "center-right" president of Argentina, Mauricio Macri, who gave the organization $1.2 million. Pope Francis made a show of returning that donation. "Critics of the Macri administration said the Pope's rejection of the donation reflected his distaste for the president's introduction of austerity measures," reported the Guardian.

The "Cool pope" and Feminism

The "cool" pope often pays homage to modern feminism and criticizes his predecessors for their alleged sexism. He has said " that the feminine presence in the Church has not fully emerged because the temptation of machismo has not left space to make visible the role women are entitled to within the community.' He has also said that "women in the Church are more important than bishops and priests."

 

In 2016, Vatican launched a magazine called Women-Church-World  which had begun as a supplement in L'Osservatore Romano, to provide feminists with a platform to criticize the Church. In its first edition, the magazine editorialized that the Church's life. In its previous supplement form, it had run an article in favor of women preaching at Masses, which canon law forbids....

 

"The Meetin is the Message"

The leftist press also admires the audiences that he grants to avant-garde activists. For a pope who likes to say that the "meeting is the message," these encounters clearly hold subversive value to him. For example, in 2015, he granted the transgender activist Diego Lejarraga an audience after Lejarraga complained in a letter that the Church had "marginalized" him. According to Lejarraga, Pope Francis phoned him twice after receiving his letter and then invited him to the Vatican. Lejarraga told the Spanish press that Francis reassured him that God loves all his children "as they are" and the "Church loves you and accepts you as you are."...

 

Yet when it leaked out during his visit to America that Pope Francis had met Kim Davis, the Kentucky clerk imprisoned briefly for declining to issue gay-marriage licenses, the liberal elite expressed disappointed in the cool pope. But he moved quickly to win back their affection. He authorized his press secretary to spin the meeting as a meaningless gesture, akin to a random rope line greetings....

 

Once liberals heard these reports, he returned to their good graces. As one liberal pundit put it to his colleagues, only half-facetiously, "You Can Like the Pope Again! Vatican Distances Pope from Kim Davis." A grateful cast on NBC's Saturday Night Live depicted Pope Francis in a skit untangling himself from Kim Davis's embrace....

The Church Muddled

St. Ignatius established the Jesuit order to advance the "Church militant." But Pope Francis in a bid to be popular wit the liberal elite, prefers a Church muddled....

 

George H. Kubeck