These are the forces that see Francis as a progressive reformer, a long-awaited Catholic antidote to the religious right. None of that theological or doctrinal stuff, thank you. Just give us the humble pontiff, not like the other guy with his high church pomp and fancy red shoes. Francis — the pope who kissed a man disfigured by a gruesome disease! The one who lives in humble quarters! The pope who took it to trickle-down economics! By critiquing the excesses of religion and politics — a criticism that resonates in media circles — Francis has given the press permission to change its narrative about the church.
But woe to those who remake the pope in their own image. If you focus only on what you like about Francis’s papacy — whatever makes you feel comfortable and smug about your own religious and political convictions — you’re doing it wrong. And you’re not seeing the real Francis.
Slate’s Matt Yglesias hails Francis’s Nov. 24 attack on libertarian economic policies — part of a nearly 50,000-word document called “Evangelii Gaudium,” outlining the pope’s vision for sharing the Gospel. Yglesias emphasized that the pope is not making a call for charity but “specifically for economic regulation and democratic supervision of the capitalist system.” Yet Yglesias caveats his praise: “There’s a lot of stuff about Jesus in his thinking that I can’t really sign on to.”
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