{"id":434,"date":"2009-07-13T06:58:00","date_gmt":"2009-07-13T06:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2009\/07\/the-audacity-of-the-pope.html"},"modified":"2009-07-13T06:58:00","modified_gmt":"2009-07-13T06:58:00","slug":"the-audacity-of-the-pope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/07\/the-audacity-of-the-pope.html","title":{"rendered":"The audacity of the pope"},"content":{"rendered":"

The New York Times’ conservative columnist Ross Douthat has offered his thoughts<\/a> this morning on the pope’s new encylical. What he has to say strikes me as both sensible, and necessary: <\/p>\n

When a pope criticizes legalized abortion, liberal Catholics nod and say that yes, they agree, it\u2019s a terrible tragedy … but of course they can\u2019t impose their religious values on a secular society. When a pope endorses the redistribution of wealth, conservative Catholics stroke their chins and say that yes, they agree, society needs a safety net … but of course they\u2019re duty-bound to oppose the tyranny of big government. And when the debate isn\u2019t going their way, left and right both fall back on flaccid rhetoric about how the papal message \u201ctranscends politics,\u201d and shouldn\u2019t be turned to any partisan purpose.<\/p>\n

\u201cCaritas in Veritate\u201d has been no exception. It\u2019s a \u201csocial\u201d encyclical, in the church\u2019s parlance, covering issues ranging from globalization and the environment to unions and the welfare state. Inevitably, liberal Catholics spent the past week touting its relevance to the Democratic Party\u2019s policy positions. (A representative blast e-mail: \u201cPope\u2019s Encyclical on Global Economy Supports the Principles of the Employee Free Choice Act.\u201d) Just as inevitably, conservative Catholics hastened to explain that the encyclical \u201cis not a political document\u201d \u2014 to quote a statement co-authored by the House minority leader, John Boehner \u2014 and shouldn\u2019t be read as \u201can endorsement of any political or economic agenda.\u201d<\/p>\n

Boehner is half right. The pope is not a Democrat or a Republican, and his vision doesn\u2019t fit the normal categories of American politics.<\/p>\n

But Benedict\u2019s encyclical is nothing if not political. \u201cCaritas in Veritate\u201d promotes a vision of economic solidarity rooted in moral conservatism. It links the dignity of labor to the sanctity of marriage. It praises the redistribution of wealth while emphasizing the importance of decentralized governance. It connects the despoiling of the environment to the mass destruction of human embryos.<\/p>\n

This is not a message you\u2019re likely to hear in Barack Obama\u2019s next State of the Union, or in the Republican Party\u2019s response. It represents a kind of left-right fusionism with little traction in American politics.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s precisely what makes it so relevant and challenging \u2014 for Catholics and non-Catholics alike. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Continue at the link<\/a> for the rest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The New York Times’ conservative columnist Ross Douthat has offered his thoughts this morning on the pope’s new encylical. What he has to say strikes me as both sensible, and necessary: When a pope criticizes legalized abortion, liberal Catholics nod and say that yes, they agree, it\u2019s a terrible tragedy … but of course they…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":365,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-434","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-links-r-us"],"yoast_head":"\nThe audacity of the pope - The Deacon's Bench<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/07\/the-audacity-of-the-pope.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The audacity of the pope - The Deacon's Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The New York Times’ conservative columnist Ross Douthat has offered his thoughts this morning on the pope’s new encylical. 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