Giles Fraser writes:
Dorothy Day. Wow. I nearly dropped my Corbyn tea mug.
OK, Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King. They were predictable names to wave in front of a joint session of Congress. Even Thomas Merton could be filed away under spiritual.
But in giving a shout out to so emphatic a socialist and anti-war activist, who helped to establish the Catholic Worker Movement – and indeed someone who had an abortion in her youth – the pope was living up to every Republican fear.
“We believe in loving our brothers,” Day once said, “by working for better conditions and the ultimate owning by the workers of their means of production.”
This was Christian socialism, red in tooth and claw. And also emphatically pro-life.
“The cause of life … is the
primary reason for my present visit,” the pope said earlier in the week. That’s to
be expected from him.
Except, his pro-life position is becoming extremely confusing to those – on both the right and the left – who think that pro-life means anti-abortion.
Since the US culture wars began, and in particular since Roe v Wade in 1973, being pro-life has become almost synonymous with being anti-abortion.
So much so that many American Catholics think there is nothing strange or inconsistent about being pro-life and, say, in favour of the death penalty – which is pretty bizarre if you think about it.
“I am against the death penalty,” the pope told Congress bluntly. He was being pro-life.
The pope is shocking Americans across the political spectrum because he reminds them that the pro-life philosophy is so much more than the abortion issue.
Yes, he thinks “the innocent victim of abortion” is a pro-life concern, but also “the children who die of hunger or from bombings, the immigrants who drown in search for a better tomorrow, the elderly or the sick who are considered a burden; the victims of terrorism, wars, violence, and drug trafficking, the environment devastated by man’s predatory relationship with nature – at stake in all of this is the gift of God, of which we are noble stewards but not masters”.
And it is interesting that on this “pro-life” visit, the pope has talked so much more about climate change than any other issue. Indeed, one gets the impression that the so-called “bedroom issues” don’t bother him all that much.
What makes matters even more confusing is that the pope talks as though being pro-life is a philosophy of the left, or at least a philosophy of the weak and the vulnerable, as opposed to the pro-choice philosophy which, because it is all about individual choice, is really the bastard love child of western capitalism and thus a value of the right with all its over-emphasis on individual freedom
Unbridled capitalism is “the dung of the devil” according to Pope Francis. As he put it back in July:
“Once capital becomes an idol and guides people’s decisions, once greed for money presides over the entire socioeconomic system, it ruins society, it condemns and enslaves men and women, it destroys human fraternity, it sets people against one another and, as we clearly see, it even puts at risk our common home.”
This is why the American liberal left is seriously confused. The pope seems to be considerably to their right and considerably to their left at the same time.
Dorothy Day is so much more radical than Sister Act’s Whoopi Goldberg, who has been condemning the pope’s visit and his pro-life agenda.
Personally, like Hillary Clinton, I think that abortion should be “legal, safe and rare”. But there is something important about the pope’s challenge to the liberal pro-choice lobby – that their moral language has been drawn too much from the market place.
Capitalism is intrinsically pro-choice. It believes in individual autonomy and the maximal freedom of the individual from the influence of government.
If this is where the pro-choice lobby find their moral inspiration, it should be no surprise that they make little sense of a red pope who refuses the moral language of the market.
Except, his pro-life position is becoming extremely confusing to those – on both the right and the left – who think that pro-life means anti-abortion.
Since the US culture wars began, and in particular since Roe v Wade in 1973, being pro-life has become almost synonymous with being anti-abortion.
So much so that many American Catholics think there is nothing strange or inconsistent about being pro-life and, say, in favour of the death penalty – which is pretty bizarre if you think about it.
“I am against the death penalty,” the pope told Congress bluntly. He was being pro-life.
The pope is shocking Americans across the political spectrum because he reminds them that the pro-life philosophy is so much more than the abortion issue.
Yes, he thinks “the innocent victim of abortion” is a pro-life concern, but also “the children who die of hunger or from bombings, the immigrants who drown in search for a better tomorrow, the elderly or the sick who are considered a burden; the victims of terrorism, wars, violence, and drug trafficking, the environment devastated by man’s predatory relationship with nature – at stake in all of this is the gift of God, of which we are noble stewards but not masters”.
And it is interesting that on this “pro-life” visit, the pope has talked so much more about climate change than any other issue. Indeed, one gets the impression that the so-called “bedroom issues” don’t bother him all that much.
What makes matters even more confusing is that the pope talks as though being pro-life is a philosophy of the left, or at least a philosophy of the weak and the vulnerable, as opposed to the pro-choice philosophy which, because it is all about individual choice, is really the bastard love child of western capitalism and thus a value of the right with all its over-emphasis on individual freedom
Unbridled capitalism is “the dung of the devil” according to Pope Francis. As he put it back in July:
“Once capital becomes an idol and guides people’s decisions, once greed for money presides over the entire socioeconomic system, it ruins society, it condemns and enslaves men and women, it destroys human fraternity, it sets people against one another and, as we clearly see, it even puts at risk our common home.”
This is why the American liberal left is seriously confused. The pope seems to be considerably to their right and considerably to their left at the same time.
Dorothy Day is so much more radical than Sister Act’s Whoopi Goldberg, who has been condemning the pope’s visit and his pro-life agenda.
Personally, like Hillary Clinton, I think that abortion should be “legal, safe and rare”. But there is something important about the pope’s challenge to the liberal pro-choice lobby – that their moral language has been drawn too much from the market place.
Capitalism is intrinsically pro-choice. It believes in individual autonomy and the maximal freedom of the individual from the influence of government.
If this is where the pro-choice lobby find their moral inspiration, it should be no surprise that they make little sense of a red pope who refuses the moral language of the market.
The Pope's climate change conversion is the most desperate attempt to get positive overage on the Leftwing BBC that I've ever seen.
ReplyDeleteAs Stephen Glover writes today, the Warmist craze in general and the Kyoto Protocols in particular-which America rightly refused to ratify-was the main cause of the current Volkswagon fiasco and the ongoing scandal of dangerous diesel cars.
Yes, the Pope is desperately concerned about his coverage on the BBC. Of course he is.
DeleteIt is no wonder that your party has pretty much collapsed in the last few hours.