One of the striking features of this pontificate is how few of the Pope’s statements have anything to do with Catholicism. Case in point:
Francis praised the United Nations’ Global Compact on Migration, which set objectives for how the movement of people can be managed. The United States, Italy, Hungary and Poland are among nations that boycotted the meeting in Morocco last year.
The pope again condemned the arms trade and possession of nuclear weapons, lamenting that past efforts at nuclear disarmament had given way to “the search for new and increasingly sophisticated and destructive weapons”.
He called for a more decisive commitment to combating global warming and for “rethinking our relationship with our planet”.
Go here to read the rest. Now this Pope is certainly not the first pontiff to confuse his political opinions with the Gospel, but the extent he has done it is both stunning and alarming. It brings to mind this statement by CS Lewis in The Screwtape Letters:
About the general connection between Christianity and politics, our position is more delicate.
Certainly we do not want men to allow their Christianity to flow over into their political life, for the establishment of anything like a really just society would be a major disaster.
On the other hand, we do want, and want very much, to make men treat Christianity as a means; preferably, of course, as a means to their own advancement, but, failing that, as a means to anything—even to social justice.
The thing to do is to get a man at first to value social justice as a thing which the Enemy demands, and then work him on to the stage at which he values Christianity because it may produce social justice. For the Enemy will not be used as a convenience. Men or nations who think they can revive the Faith in order to make a good society might just as well think they can use the stairs of Heaven as a short cut to the nearest chemist’s shop. Fortunately it is quite easy to coax humans round this little corner.
No better documents can be found for confusing Catholicism with politics than those of Vatican II where Man became the center of attention. Pope Francis is the perfect personification of that catastrophic council. We see it every day in his words and actions.