"It's not an easy thing to do when you attempt to mesh politics with religion, but when the pope does it that should make the world take notice."

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Pope Francis speaks out against everything republicans stand for
By Willie Carlisle, November 27, 2013

On Tuesday, the sovereign leader of Vatican City and by default the head of the Catholic Church made headlines with sharp criticisms of those who worship money as their god. Pope Francis as has been his routine of late has transformed the role of pontiff into that of the head of a state. He has somehow managed to incorporate the social issues of today into those of religion and drawn sharp criticism from those of the ilk of Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin. As if being liberal is a bad thing, Sarah Palin labeled the newly appointed pontiff as being "too liberal" and later apologized as if she didn't mean what she asserted.

In his most recent statements, Pope Francis criticized the economic strategy Americans have lived under for the past 30 years known as Reaganomics. Under this structure tax breaks and incentives would go to the wealthy (job creators) and out of the goodness of their hearts they would create jobs and everyone would live happily ever after. Thirty years later according to the pope, those disenfranchised people at the bottom are still waiting for some benefits of that strategy to finally trickle down.

Pope Francis was quoted as saying:

“Some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world,” Francis wrote in the papal statement. “This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naive trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacra-lized workings of the prevailing economic system.”

“Meanwhile,” he added, “the excluded are still waiting.”

One might expect the leader of the Republican Party (Rush Limbaugh) and the de facto leader of the Tea Party (Sarah Palin) to criticize the pope's recent statements, but many liberals and progressives are waiting for the reactions of devout Catholics such as John Boehner and Paul Ryan to denounce the statement made by the leader of the church they claim to hold allegiance to. The pope without calling any names was making a direct challenge to those who would cut social programs such as S.N.A.P., Medicaid and Medicare and fail to pass any legislation that would benefit the less fortunate. Not to mention those who would be opposed to people at the bottom of the totem pole having access to heath care and affordable housing. Who in their right mind would be in opposition to raising the minimum wage for those of the working poor or passing a jobs bill for the millions of unemployed whose unemployment benefits have run out so long ago until they are not even counted in current statistics.

It's not an easy thing to do when you attempt to mesh politics with religion, but when the pope does it that should make the world take notice. One of the missions of Francis' papal tenure is ti transform the Catholic Church. Let's see, "Transform," that's what the president of our nation promised when he was elected five years ago. He has been called everything under the sun except a child of God. Only time will tell whether or not Pope Francis receives the same sort of treatment. But one benefit has already transpired by the pope's openness. Conservatives and the religious right can no longer claim some moral purity while billionaires and millionaires do everything within their power to depress and oppress those who are merely trying to eek out a living in a society that worships the almighty dollar while at the same time denying the principles of the faith they claim to live by. With the pope's example we may finally have an answer to the once famous question, "What would Jesus do."
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