Nicolas Senèze of La Croix has presented his new book, How America Wants to Change Popes, to Pope Francis. The Holy Father’s response was a comment: “For me it is an honor that Americans attack me.” There are various conjectures about the meaning of this remark. I am inclined to read it through the lens of Matthew 5:12: “Be glad and rejoice, for your reward is very great in heaven. For so they persecuted the prophets that were before you.”

I hope that M. Senèze’sbook will name names and follow the money, so that we can know who is who in the little known American Catholic right. Catholic reactionaries  have been engaged in a long-standing conspiracy against Pope Francis, and I would like to know who they are. They are probably the same rich authoritarians that fund the Republican Party and a throng of right-wing Catholic organizations. 

The right-wingers are loud in their denunciations, but are, especially the wealthy ones, rather closed-mouth about the goals of their various conspiracies. Their favorite drink, politics aged-in-the-barrel with a religion chaser, very often induces paranoia. Hence the smoke, and fog, confusion and camouflage. The Catholic right in America stands in need of bright light and fresh air. Otherwise our assumption that they are merely chaplains of capitalism will go unchallenged.