Why Conservatives Are Losing Their Minds Over Pope Francis

There's a line in one of my favorite movies, O Brother, Where Art Thou? when the character of Homer Stokes (the Klansman running for governor) rails against a number of people including "Papists!"  The Papists!  It reminded me of what I'd read about John F. Kennedy running for President; how the south was leery of electing a Catholic for fear that his allegiance would be to Rome, not to the United States.  Apparently Kennedy's marital infidelity didn't clue them in on the fact that he was not the best Catholic.  But coming across Conservative media over the past few days has reminded me that there remains a strong anti-Catholic streak running through many southern conservatives.  It's related to anti-intellectualism and is upset that a Christian religion espouses so many socialist and, in their minds, liberal policies.

Most conservatives who have Christian affiliations are members of denominations with a strong American influence.  Baptists.  Methodists.  Lutherans (not the Evangelicals, though.) Non-Denomination Fundamentalists.  Even though most of these have their roots in England, all of these have a belief that the Good Lord has given America a divine mandate to practice Capitalism, expand its territory and be...well, American.  And most of these find a couple of common causes in Catholicism when it comes to abortion and same-sex marriage.  But when it comes to ending the death penalty, friendly treatment of illegal immigrants, eliminating wealth inequalities, leading in combating climate change, and the dreaded social justice, these Christians will treat Catholics with the same venom they reserve for liberal professors at Berkeley who teach survey classes in pornography.  The Catholic Church has existed nearly 1500 years longer than America.  It was here before us and it'll likely be here after us, and it could care less about American Exceptionalism.

Previous Pontiffs haven't been quite as vocal as Pope Francis (none of them had the full spectrum of a 24-hour news cycle re-tweeting their thoughts, either), so Conservatives are not in the mood to listen to a scolding/reminder of what Christianity really is.  Seeing His Holiness converse with President Obama and Raul Castro is guilt by association, because unless Pope Francis challenges Obama on his birth certificate or castigates the Castro regime for its decades of brutal dictatorship, the Catholic Church is somehow legitimizing these governments that Conservatives stand opposed to.  Because they're un-American.  So the Pope is un-American.

I could spend the next thirty minutes responding to all the talking points: The Catholic Church has so much money - why don't they practice some wealth redistribution?  What are they offering to do with all them Syrian im'grants? Cursory searches will show how much the Catholic Church has given to charity.  The Catholic Church still has a lot of PR to work on between the sexual abuse scandals and misappropriation of tithes.  But the problem here is that Conservatism is about having all the benefits of American Exceptionalism with none of the responsibility.  They see fit to call the Pope out on the areas where they disagree, whereas moderate Democrats at least have the decency not to discuss their differing views on abortion and same-sex marriage while Francis is a guest in our country.

The film Mississippi Burning was playing practically non-stop a few weeks ago and I probably watched it twice in parts.  It's a movie I've seen before.  Hackman gives a great performance.  One thing the film hits on very effectively is the anti-intellectualism that the South in particular held against the Civil Rights Movement, and the Catholic Church is basically the Ivy League of religious academia, so it's expected that this sentiment spills over to the Pope's pleas of love thy neighbor.  It's just a shame that in this regard,  nothing's really changed over the past sixty years.