Peggy Noonan has done it again. Peggy has put Pope Francis in perspective for us benighted conservatives who view Francis as a pretty far left Pontiff.
In her column in the WSJ this week (also available here) Peggy”s characterization of His Holiness comes off as her version of assessing Francis as a potentially great pope as judged by the crease in his cassock.
Acknowledging some of Francis’s ignorant statements about topics he seems to know little about, she nevertheless concludes that he “has filled the world with… sweetness, and has drawn the affection of non-Catholics around the world”.
She notes that “he has even made left-wing American Catholics, a grumpy lot, happy”. (As us spiritual types would say, “Amen to that!”)
Ms. Noonan generously noted that Francis’ speech before Congress was “spiritual and not pointedly political”.
Some of us might disagree that the not wholly underlying messages in the pope’s address were “not political”. His admonition to Congress to ban capital punishment sounded a tad political and his “defense of religious freedom” was so watered down that Barack Obama could agree with it.
Francis’ address to the UN in which he clearly endorsed the Iran nuclear “agreement” sure seemed to me to be a venture into purely “pointedly political” rhetoric. All in all, her column was pure Peggy. One must recall her endearing groupyesque paeans to Obama in the earliest days of his presidency.
Ms Noonan ended her column with this:
I close with the words of a New York businessman, a capitalist and Catholic. I asked him Wednesday how he was feeling about Francis. “If he lives he’ll change the world,” he said.
For the better? “I think so, hopefully in an aspirational way. Don’t tax me to death helping the less fortunate. Urge me to do good. And I will. And many will. For him.”
Francis, by all his policy endorsements at the UN, wants a world wide managed society which will put in charge people who care not a twit about his “aspirations” for religious freedom or abortion. The later are constant fights even now at the UN. Taxing or regulating to death will be de rigueur. Her friends current ability to help the less fortunate will be reduced or only as authorized. That is the relentless nature of bureaucracies Francis wants to empower. His is an historically negligent, irresponsible naivete at best.
DLH with R Mall
