Pope Leo XIV addressed the College of Cardinals this weekend outlining several challenges that the new Papacy will face in the future. Much of it is a continuation of Francis' policies. Despite the Media spin against Francis, the new Pope emphasized that Francis built on the legacy of his predecessors Benedict and John Paul, specifically outlining "the missionary conversion of the entire Christian community; growth in collegiality and synodality; loving care for the least and the rejected; courageous and trusting dialogue with the contemporary world in its various components and realities." The Pope added that, "These are evangelical principles that have always inspired and guided the life and activity of God’s Family. In these values, the merciful face of the Father has been revealed and continues to be revealed in his incarnate Son, the ultimate hope of all who sincerely seek truth, justice, peace and fraternity (cf. Benedict XVI, Spe Salvi, 2; Francis, Spes Non Confundit, 3)."
One would logically assume that Christians would not see anything especially controversial in any of this. However, mainstream Christianity and American Churchianity are two remarkably different things. Religion---like everything else in Postmodern America---is largely a business, and a highly politicized one at that. Leo's three immediate predecessors were routinely attacked throughout American pulpits and press; either by the Churchian Left who see God as President of the Universe whose policies are determined by Opinion Polls and Social Media Status; or the Churchian Right who see God as the CEO of the Universe obsessed with Power and Profit. Both are in conflict with the opening words of Leo's Address which proclaimed that the fundamental basis of his policy is "the return to the primacy of Christ in proclamation."
Placing Christ's teachings over American Political narrative was bound to be met with contempt; but Leo's concluding words have sent the New Right Punditocracy into paroxysms of rage. Leo stated: "Sensing myself called to continue in this same path, I chose to take the name Leo XIV. There are different reasons for this, but mainly because Pope Leo XIII in his historic Encyclical Rerum Novarum addressed the social question in the context of the first great industrial revolution. In our own day, the Church offers to everyone the treasury of her social teaching in response to another industrial revolution and to developments in the field of artificial intelligence that pose new challenges for the defense of human dignity, justice and labor."
Pope Leo XIII's encyclical was published in 1869 and warned of the dehumanizing trends of both Godless Communism and Godless Capitalism. The New Right has no issue with critiques of the first, but critiques of the second amount to sheer blasphemy in their eyes. Artificial Intelligence is, of course, the basis of Neocon Scientism and is seen by Techno-Fascists like JD Vance and Elon Musk as the foundation of a New World Order. Likewise, any appeal to things like upholding human dignity, social justice, and the rights of labor so obviously counters the entire New Right narrative that any such defense is bound to be spun as a political attack.
To this end, one of the Neocon toady sites, American Greatness featured an article by a self-described Pentagon operative and Corporate Trial Lawyer writing under the appropriate pseudonym of Cynical Publius. The author fumes that Leo is following too closely in the footsteps of Francis by not being sufficiently obsequious to the New Right's Agenda and succumbing to quaint ideals like mercy.
"It is not an exaggeration to say that Pope Francis showed great antipathy towards the USA, Donald Trump, and conservative American Catholics," he snorts, and after hypocritically citing the New Testament teachings on actual mercy says, "These Biblical quotes and other Scripture from the Old and New Testaments have given rise to a belief in many Catholic circles that President Trump’s policies on illegal immigration are incompatible with Jesus’ teachings on mercy. So, what is a MAGA Catholic to do? Well, my answer is this: rest easy, your faith and your patriotism are not in conflict; it just seems that way thanks to a mainstream media overtly eager to wrest all Christians away from support for President Trump and his MAGA agenda."
Which is simply a roundabout way of saying that we should ignore Christ's teachings on the subject and put our faith in the Neocon Agenda instead. While he tries to pad his argument with a few platitudes in the sense of 'sure there may be a few immigrants who don't deserve to be treated as subhumans,' it is very clear from Cynical Publius' tone that those deserving of mercy are very, very few in number. Statements like "Moreover, it is unmerciful to encourage illegal immigration merely so Democrats can pay sub-minimum wage to their nannies and lawn guys. Illegal immigration is unmerciful to the illegal immigrants as well as American citizens. President Trump’s policies are enacting a degree of mercy that your predecessor refused to acknowledge. Does Heaven open its borders to Hell?" show where his priorities lie. Obviously, he's quite satisfied with based and Red-Pilled immigrants like Musk and Thiel, but the rest can go to Hell as far as he's concerned.
The Corporate Trial Lawyer further asserts that: "In fact, and as I said above, I believe this is a false dilemma created by an unethical, lying American mass media that seeks to chase Catholics and other Christians away from support for our president. After all, even Pope Francis said, 'one must recognize the right of a nation to defend itself and keep communities safe from those who have committed violent or serious crimes while in the country or prior to arrival.' Did you already know he said that? The American media did not want you to!"
On the contrary: it was Controlled Opposition media sites that kept Francis' actual words in the background and promoted the fake narrative that the late Pope favored Open Borders. In fact, the entire hoax of an immigrant invasion poisoning our blood was based on the lie that Biden's Government had an Open Borders policy which has been debunked fairly regularly but promoted by Neo-Nazis, of which this Administration has no shortage.
If the Neocon New Order is incompatible with the Traditions of the Church; that is the fault of the Political Class, not the Church Hierarchy. The Vatican is under no obligation to sacrifice the Gospel for the Dark Enlightenment. Maybe the people who call themselves Conservative Christians are the ones who need to examine their values. We need to begin asking ourselves if the dehumanized Techno-Fascist utopia envisioned by self-appointed 'elites' is the kind of world that we prefer to one premised on the ideals of the Gospel.
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