Pope Francis Is The Enemy

Pope Francis is the enemy, at least according to Trump's former campaign advisor Steve Bannon and the anti-immigration "League Party" of Italy. And as reported in The Guardian, "Bannon has steadily been building opposition to Francis through his "Dignitatis Humanae Institute" whose honorary president is Cardinal Raymond Burke, the noted ultra-conservative...

​You might be wondering as to why I would be wasting my time on Bannon and the "religious" Far Right? Honestly, so am I! Nevertheless, the "religious" Far Right simply galls me, whether it is those professing Catholicism, Protestant Evangelism, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, or Whatever-ism... The refusal to relate their denial of the wisdom teachings of their Prophets and Saints to their reactionary and regressive political and religious opinions is simply stunning to me: as if, for example, Jesus could possibly be hateful towards a woman, a child, a refugee, or an immigrant: don't they remember the Story of the Woman At the Well, or the Parable of the Good Samaritan?

Of course, to be "religious" as the ultra-conservative, requires a truly radical (all the way to the roots) forgetfulness. This is precisely how the Saudi or the Iranian leadership can ignore their Prophet and saints like Rumi, Hafiz, and Rabia and commit untold atrocities and uphold outrageous oppression... how Buddhists in Myanmar can slaughter Muslims... how Jews in Israel can, with the help of American dollars, construct an apartheid state... the list of Far Right "religious" justifications and hateful actions is nearly endless... But, of course, even in America the rise of Trumpism, Neo-Nazism, and a surge of racism, bigotry, and right-wing hate / violence is only too evident...

​And so, of course, Pope Francis is the enemy. There is no small irony in how the Far Right considers Francis a liberal, while folks such as myself see him as just "this side" of the continuing conservative regressive policies and "traditions" of the Catholic Church... when what we need is the practice of remembrance. The root of the Christian / Catholic faith is, supposedly, the Person of Yeshua bar Alaha. (Jesus the Son of God). Remembrance is to "dwell in the embrace" of the words of Jesus, is it not? Remembrance is to celebrate sacred pleasure: didn't Jesus honor a wedding by his presence and, at least for awhile, turn himself into a winemaker to keep the party going?

​Remembrance is to recall -- as an action -- how Jesus honored women; how he counseled simple living and the sharing of resources; how he urged compassion for all those who suffer; how he blessed an extravagant justice in his support of workers;  and most importantly, how he insisted that we are all supposed to "love one another as I have loved you"...   Faith is life: action for the vivification of love in every sphere of human life: personal, political, economic, and cultural... Ultimately, faith is neither "left" nor "right", instead, it is transformational...

This is precisely why "faith" has to accept the inevitability of change. The insights offered to us by our ancestors in faith (every faith) are important, but at the very same time, they are as nothing for we are living now with our eyes, minds, and hearts pointing forward into new horizons. Yes! I love Francis and Clare of Assisi, Hildegard, Rumi, Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton, Lal Ded, Hafiz, and countless other saints, thinkers, and activists from the past. But looking ahead, I read Matthew Fox, Andrew Harvey, bell hooks, Riane Eisler, Amit Goswami, Elif Shafak, Adam Bucko, Arundhati Roy, Alice Walker, and John Philip Newell from among many others.

It does seem to me that the Far Right, regardless of particular faith, want us to live and think like that proverbial ostrich who looks around, is distressed by what is seen, and buries it's head in the sand, muttering all the while "I see nothing. I know nothing. I'll be okay if I do nothing." The mutterings of the ostrich is all you really need to know about the Far Right... perhaps they are so filled with self-loathing and hatred that they need to leave a dead planet in their wake... woe to our children if we keep electing them...