Not my Pope … but …
Those of you who know me know I have a complicated relationship with religion. It began with my birth in Mormon Utah and continued with a brief but serious flirtation with evangelical Christianity in my late teens and twenties. I was a virulent atheist for a while and mellowed into a skeptical agnostic. The best that I can say is, in the words of Manuel Garcia O’Kelly from The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, “I don’t know Who is cranking; I’m pleased He doesn’t stop.”
One thing I have never been is Catholic. I didn’t go to Catholic school, didn’t have Catholic friends, lived most of my life in white-bread Protestantism. What I know about Catholicism is largely historical, and that history is not good. The 20 centuries of Catholic oppression is so infamous and awful that any reference to it short of a book must be summary.
Therefore, I won’t drag you through a recitation about the inquisition, the crusades, persecution of the Jews, injustice toward women, the African slave trade, collusion with Nazi Germany, oppression of science and scientists (most famously Galileo), notorious and despicable abuse of children, and so on. Like I said: summary.
I hasten to add, while the institution known as the Catholic Church was responsible for much more evil including that mentioned above, it never touched me directly. My distaste for it is the result of my knowledge of its history of wickedness, and compassion for others who endured it.
Even so, I believe that Jorge Mario Bergoglio, known to the world as Pope Francis, was as decent a human being as one could be under the circumstances. I am sorry he had to spend part of the last full day of his life on earth with someone as irredeemably evil as JD Vance. Vance is a recent convert to Catholicism but differed sharply with the Pope’s belief that immigrants should be treated with compassion and dignity. No sane person free from corruption and a twisted childhood could read those words and disagree with the Pope.
It surprises me not at all that Marjorie Taylor Greene, someone who recently converted FROM Catholicism, would stoop to writing a vile excretion on X in the wake of the Pope’s passing. Writes Greene: “Today there were major shifts in global leaderships. Evil is being defeated by the hand of God.”
Former Republican representative Adam Kinzinger reposted Greene’s disgraceful tweet with words of his own: “This is absolutely appalling. I’m not catholic, but I would suggest that any catholic out there reconsider support for this…. Bridge troll.”
Both Vance and Greene are intolerant fanatics. It is part of the paradox of intolerance that both must never be tolerated. The first thing that dies in the land of intolerance is a nuanced understanding of the world. I understand that Pope Francis was a good man because I could see past the history of misdeeds of the church and into the heart of the man who led it. Greene sees only layers upon layers of her own bigotry. Vance acknowledged the Pope as a spiritual leader but disagreed with his message of tolerance and compassion. Both were wrong.
Such is the unsupportable world of the MAGA fanatic. Such is the sort of thing Pope Francis spoke against. He wasn’t my Pope, but I wholeheartedly endorse his compassion for immigrants, and his opposition to MAGA.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.