The Pope, Climate Change, and American Conservatives

It’s very interesting to watch American conservatives, including conservative Catholics, freak out over the Pope talking about issues that are not their own. With the pope deemphasizing the fight against abortion and gay marriage and talking about poverty and, now, climate change, one can almost feel conservative Catholics wanting to call Pope Francis illegitimate. We should hardly be surprised that American conservatives are only interested in institutions that reinforce their current policy positions, i.e. Rick Santorum saying “The church has gotten it wrong a few times on science, and I think we probably are better off leaving science to the scientists and focusing on what we’re good at, which is theology and morality.” Theology and morality. Right. Because poverty and climate change is not moral issues to Santorum, but are to the leader of his church, they are not moral issues.

Given how often these very people threw terms like “cafeteria Catholic” at pro-choice Catholics who were unhappy with the direction of the church, one wonders if we might see a move the other way, with conservatives temporarily distancing themselves from the Catholic Church because the Pope doesn’t want the world’s environment transformed in catastrophic ways.