Stop Fawning Over Pope Francis at the Expense of Women and Gay Rights

[DirkGently]

60. "Fawning" is bad. Biblical social norms are bad. Economic justice is good. Not that complicated.

I think the key nonsense here is "fawning." No, no one should be "fawning" over a Pope. Or any religious leader. Or any political one. I think everyone here could agree immediately that there is no basis for overwhelming, unadulterated praise and love for the leader of the Catholic Church.

So we could all be done right there. No fawning. No one's pro fawning. That's ridiculous.

But that's a bit of a straw man argument, and what's really being suggested is that it's wrong to acknowledge the leader of the Catholic Church saying or doing anything right, which is frankly kind of insane and smacks of the weird American religious bias against Catholics.

First off, OUR crazy homophobes and misogynists are Protestants. There are all kinds of polls lying around showing American Catholics are not only more progressive than other religious people, but on the actual issues for which the Catholic Church takes so much righteous blame. Abortion. Birth control. Gay rights. Your basic American abortion doctor killer or gay club bomber will be a Baptist or some other Protestant sect. So let's not get all fuzzy about where the core of insanely regressive social theory lies amongst ourselves. It ain't the Vatican, and it's always a bit off when people charge in and attempt to blame Catholicism for all of the stupid ideas contained in Christianity.

Secondly, we routinely acknowledge steps in the right direction from bad institutions and the leaders of the same. All kinds of Christian, Jewish, and Muslim leaders are applauded for making worthy comments about tolerance or peace or taking care of the poor. All of them subscribe to holy books that say gay people and women are subject to savage mistreatment in the name of "God." It's nice that some talk around the Old Testament, and never mention the horrible stuff, but if we're going with institutional crimes, no Western religion gets a pass.

Obama, for example, is a Christian, and therefore subscribes to a Bible that has all the nutty Catholic crap in it too. And, he is the leader of a racist, sexist, homophobic country. Within recent memory, he expressly opposed gay marriage on religious grounds. He "evolved," whether out of conscience, public pressure, political expedience, or (most likely) a combination of the three. But we do not say he is therefore lying when he says something good or makes a change for the better because he is the leader of a country with a lot crimes to answer for and a lot of horrible ideas still on the books.

Thirdly, the Pope giving mere "lip service" to a better idea like economic justice over a worse one, like homophobia, is a real thing with real value. He may be the theoretical "king" of the Church, but he can no more erase every intolerant Catholic policy with a wave of whatever that stick is he has than Obama can open Guantanamo tomorrow, or tell the states to stop preventing gay people from adopting children.

Finally, if we propose that we need to tell the Catholic Church that it is not okay until it starts rejecting the horrible ideas embedded in Christianity and embracing the good ones, the way you do that is to DO THAT. Just like any leader of any screwed up organization with a mountain of sins and anti-progressive policies, we recognize an improvement, or a faint nod in the right direction, while continuing to condemn the abominable.

And yeah, the racist, creepy, horrible Paul family is right on drug laws and right on getting out of wars in the Middle East, for Jesus' sake. We don't have to lie and pretend they're wrong about everything because they're wrong about a lot of important things, because we are not robots or children. No one is buying that noise, and it doesn't look any smarter or sound more convincing when it is dragged out over and over again. People are not all one thing. No one thinks that. If Michele Bachmann says something smart someday, we should all say, "Hey, that was pretty smart." Because otherwise you end up lying to try to support or attack a person, and right and wrong become superfluous.

Economic justice is good, whether it's coming from the mouth of the Pope or a Senator or god-forbid-a-Republican. We can acknowledge good without "fawning" over someone, or forgetting that they are completely, unforgivably wrong about drone strikes or abortion or same sex marriage. If we want leaders to do better things and stop doing worse things, we acknowledge when they get it right, even a little bit.

The rest is a lot of hot air.

Thank you.