Pope Francis Derangement Syndrome XV. Wherein a disappointed Judge Napolitano calls Pope Francis a “false prophet.”

o I go to Fox News—for where else does one go?—and I find Judge Napoli­tano rav­ing on about the pope again. He has raved before. He has been doing this at least since Rush Lim­baugh first cried “Hav­oc!” and let slip the dogs of war. In his lat­est col­umn, he tells us that the pope is a “false prophet” and has dis­ap­point­ed many Roman Catholics.” (That’s the title.) So here we go again: It’s Pope Fran­cis Derange­ment Syn­drome. It nev­er ends.

Mr. Napoli­tano starts by not­ing his self-iden­ti­ty as a “tra­di­tion­al­ist Roman Catholic.” With­in the breast of such an one is “fear and trem­bling over what [the pope] might say.” For rea­sons of their own, tra­di­tion­al­ists always qua­ver in a state of near-pan­ic.

I Dreamt the Impossible

From the arti­cle: “The papa­cy is an office cre­at­ed per­son­al­ly by Our Lord. Its occu­pants are direct descen­dants of St. Peter.”

Direct descen­dants. Well, okay, I sup­pose the word can be used that way. But it’s more clear to say the pope is a suc­ces­sor to St. Peter, not a “descen­dant.” Right? I would­n’t say Pres­i­dent Oba­ma is a “descen­dant” of George Wash­ing­ton. Would you?

“Its role and author­i­ties,” Mr. Napoli­tano pro­ceeds,

have evolved over the cen­turies, but the core of its respon­si­bil­i­ties has always been the preser­va­tion of tra­di­tion­al teach­ings about faith and morals and safe­guard­ing the sacra­ments.

Yes. As far as it goes. But this is a point on which it is impor­tant to be more precise—not because Mr. Napoli­tano says too much but because he says too lit­tle. And what he leaves out is impor­tant in the dis­cus­sion that fol­lows.

Vat­i­can I, in Pas­tor Aeter­nus, spoke about the role of the pope. (I quote from Vat­i­can I here in def­er­ence to the most sen­si­tive feel­ings of the tra­di­tion­al­ist judge.) Note how it begins:

The Eter­nal Pas­tor and Bish­op of our souls [i.e., Christ], in order to con­tin­ue for all time the life-giv­ing work of His redemp­tion, deter­mined to build up the Holy Church, in which, as the House of the liv­ing God, all who believe might be unit­ed in the bond of one faith and one char­i­ty.

Christ found­ed the Church for the care and redemp­tion of souls. He said to Peter, “Feed my sheep” (John 21:15–17). Now, that does indeed mean that the pope will be a teacher of right doc­trine; the sheep must be fed with truth. But the pope is a pas­tor as much as a teacher. The “core” of the pope’s duty is to guard doc­trine, yes, but it is also to teach and to care for souls. Mr. Napoli­tano is not wrong—not here—but he is incom­plete.

Pas­tor Aeter­nus goes on to speak about the pope’s unique role among bish­ops.

• The pope has “pri­ma­cy of juris­dic­tion over the uni­ver­sal Church of God.”

This is a pri­ma­cy that is giv­en “to Simon alone.” The coun­cil goes as far as to say that those who deny this are “per­verse” and “anath­e­ma.” (Note that, in Church usage, “anath­e­ma” means “excom­mu­ni­cat­ed.”)

• Peter’s pri­ma­cy has per­pe­tu­ity.

It is for all time. It must “remain unceas­ing­ly in the Church” and “will stand firm to the end of the world.” Nor can the pope teach error. It is not quite right to say that the pope has a duty not to teach error; the Holy Spir­it pro­tects the pope from doing so. It is not pos­si­ble in the first place.

“The dis­po­si­tion of truth remains” in “who­ev­er suc­ceeds Peter in this chair.”

• The pope is “the true vic­ar of Christ, and the Head of the whole Church, and the Father and Teacher of all Chris­tians.”

He has author­i­ty “to pas­ture, to rule, and to gov­ern the Uni­ver­sal Church.” This goes far beyond mere­ly say­ing that the pope must safe­guard the sacra­ments and the deposit of faith. Indeed he must. But accord­ing to the Coun­cil he is also the Church’s supreme leg­is­la­tor. His author­i­ty is uni­ver­sal.

In its dog­mat­ic def­i­n­i­tion on this point, Vat­i­can I is at pains to express just how absolute the pope’s author­i­ty is:

Hence we teach and declare that, by the appoint­ment of our Lord, the Roman Church pos­sess­es a supe­ri­or­i­ty of ordi­nary pow­er over all oth­er Church­es, and that this pow­er of juris­dic­tion of the Roman Pon­tiff, which is tru­ly epis­co­pal, is imme­di­ate; to which all, of what­ev­er rite and dig­ni­ty, both pas­tors and faith­ful, both indi­vid­u­al­ly and col­lec­tive­ly, are bound, by their duty of hier­ar­chi­cal sub­or­di­na­tion and true obe­di­ence, to sub­mit, not only in mat­ters which belong to faith and morals, but also in those that apper­tain to the dis­ci­pline and gov­ern­ment of the Church through­out the world, so that the Church of Christ may be one flock under one Supreme Pas­tor through the preser­va­tion of uni­ty both of com­mu­nion and of pro­fes­sion of the same faith with the Roman Pon­tiff. This is the teach­ing of Catholic truth, from which no one can devi­ate with­out loss of faith and of sal­va­tion.

Imag­ine that! Who­ev­er denies the uni­ver­sal author­i­ty of the pope will lose his faith and sal­va­tion. Vat­i­can I did not mince words. (That’s Vat­i­can I, Mr. Napoli­tano.) From the judg­ments of the pope there is no appeal, for there is no author­i­ty high­er than the pope. (That’s Vat­i­can I, Mr. Napoli­tano.)

• In his teach­ing author­i­ty, on ques­tions of faith and morals, the pope is infal­li­ble.

He is pro­tect­ed from error by the Holy Spir­it. “The first con­di­tion of sal­va­tion is to keep the rule of the true faith,” and the true faith is to be found in Peter.

The pope’s abil­i­ty to pro­tect the deposit of faith is “invi­o­lable,” by the help of the Holy Spir­it. It is not just that the pope may not teach error; he can not teach error. And again, Vat­i­can I declares that any who say oth­er­wise are “anthema”—excommunicated.

I Thought it Was You

Now, I went into all that for a reason—which will become plain as we go through Mr. Napoli­tano’s screed at Fox News. Let us return to what he has to say:

While the papa­cy is a monar­chy, the teach­ing author­i­ty in the Church is ‘the bish­ops under the pope.’ This means that a pope intent on change ought to con­sult with his fel­low bish­ops.

Let’s stop here. Like so much else in what Mr. Napoli­tano has said, there is a sort of truth in this, but it requires some clar­i­fi­ca­tion and speci­fici­ty.

The phrase “bish­ops under the pope” to describe the teach­ing author­i­ty of the Church derives, as near as I can tell, from Fr. John Hardon’s Ques­tion and Answer Catholic Cat­e­chism. As Mr. Napoli­tano presents it, it seems to sug­gest that the Church’s teach­ing author­i­ty is in the bish­ops, and not at all in the pope. That may not have been what he meant to say, but the ambi­gu­i­ty is there.

More­over, to describe the teach­ing author­i­ty of the Church, Mr. Napoli­tano’s use of Fr. Hardon is incom­plete. Here is what Fr. Hardon actu­al­ly says:

424. Who, then, has the gift of infal­li­bil­i­ty in teach­ing?

The pope and the com­mu­ni­ty of bish­ops under the pope pos­sess the gift of infal­li­bil­i­ty in teach­ing.

So it’s not just “the bish­ops under the pope,” but the pope too.

The Church’s offi­cial doc­u­ments do not use the word “under” but “in com­mu­nion with.” That may seem like a triv­ial dis­tinc­tion. But what it means is that, in order to be infal­li­ble, the bish­ops must teach con­sis­tent­ly with the pope’s teach­ing.

When the Cat­e­chism tells us this, it starts with the author­i­ty of the pope:

891. The Roman Pon­tiff, head of the col­lege of bish­ops, enjoys this infal­li­bil­i­ty in virtue of his office, when, as supreme pas­tor and teacher of all the faithful—who con­firms his brethren in the faith he pro­claims by a defin­i­tive act a doc­trine per­tain­ing to faith or morals.

The teach­ing author­i­ty of the pope is “by virtue of his office.” Only once it first says that does the Cat­e­chism move on to the author­i­ty of the bish­ops:

The infal­li­bil­i­ty promised to the Church is also present in the body of bish­ops when, togeth­er with Peter’s suc­ces­sor, they exer­cise the supreme Mag­is­teri­um.

So this author­i­ty is con­tin­gent on their being “togeth­er with” the pope. The pope’s author­i­ty is not con­tin­gent on his being “togeth­er with” bish­ops. It is inher­ent in his office itself.

Lumen Gen­tium 22 expands upon that with an impor­tant qual­i­fi­ca­tion:

But the col­lege or body of bish­ops has no author­i­ty unless it is under­stood togeth­er with the Roman Pon­tiff, the suc­ces­sor of Peter as its head. The pope’s pow­er of pri­ma­cy over all, both pas­tors and faith­ful, remains whole and intact. In virtue of his office, that is as Vic­ar of Christ and pas­tor of the whole Church, the Roman Pon­tiff has full, supreme and uni­ver­sal pow­er over the Church. And he is always free to exer­cise this pow­er. The order of bish­ops, which suc­ceeds to the col­lege of apos­tles and gives this apos­tolic body con­tin­ued exis­tence, is also the sub­ject of supreme and full pow­er over the uni­ver­sal Church, pro­vid­ed we under­stand this body togeth­er with its head the Roman Pon­tiff and nev­er with­out this head.

Vat­i­can II does not water down one thing Vat­i­can I said on this point.

But Mr. Napoli­tano’s real claim in all of this is in his last sen­tence. “A pope intent on change,” he says, “ought to con­sult with his fel­low bish­ops.” Since the con­text here is Church teach­ing, what “change” is he talk­ing about? Tell us, sir. Church teach­ing does not change, and no pope can change it. You told us as much when you said that the pope must pro­tect the deposit of faith. Did you not? And do you now mean to tell us that a pope may change Church teach­ing, so long as he has the con­sent of bish­ops? Where did you acquire any such notion? Tell us, sir. Cer­tain­ly you got it from no Church doc­u­ment I know of. But if you have one you are hid­ing from us, I would respect­ful­ly ask you tell us what it is. We are tuned in to Fox News, sir.

The Future Not So Bright

Now Mr. Napoli­tano switch­es gears to a plaint about Vat­i­can II. The Coun­cil, he says, “triv­i­al­ized the Mass and blurred the dis­tinc­tions between the cler­gy and the laity.” But at least John XXIII and Paul VI “con­sult­ed their fel­low bish­ops.”

Of course they did. This was a teach­ing coun­cil, not a change to church law or pro­ce­dure. But it is impor­tant to note (cf. Lumen Gen­tium 22) that no coun­cil has any author­i­ty unless it is con­firmed by the pope. The pope can veto the bish­ops, but the bish­ops may nev­er veto the pope. A pope con­sults with bish­ops in order to under­stand the mind of the Church, not because they some­how con­fer valid­i­ty on what the pope says or does.

And when Mr. Napoli­tano says that Vat­i­can II “triv­i­al­ized the Mass” and “blurred the dis­tinc­tions between the cler­gy and the laity,” I can only guess that he’s refer­ring to the intro­duc­tion of the Novus Ordo as well as the New Evan­ge­liza­tion. But he does not tell us how he thinks the Mass was triv­i­al­ized, or dis­tinc­tions between cler­gy and laity blurred, so one can not refute the claim. He leaves it hang­ing in air. I can only say it is impor­tant to dis­tin­guish between what Vat­i­can II did and the abuse of Vat­i­can II. That’s a con­stant bat­tle. But with­out more detail from Mr. Napoli­tano, I don’t know what to tell him.

He goes on:

The con­sul­ta­tions [at Vat­i­can II] were frac­tious and bel­liger­ent, but both popes got what they want­ed: a water­ing down of litur­gi­cal prac­tices and an eas­ing of rules safe­guard­ing the sacra­ments.

Now, how does the tra­di­tion­al­ist rogue know that that is what John XXIII and Paul VI “want­ed”? That’s quite an accu­sa­tion to make. Slan­ders, sir. Would Mr. Napoli­tano care to back it up for us? And what “litur­gi­cal prac­tices” were “watered down” by the Coun­cil? What “rules safe­guard­ing the sacra­ments” were eased by the Coun­cil? He does not say.

But he goes on:

The result was a dis­as­ter. Few­er Catholics went to Mass, con­fu­sion about for­mer the­o­log­i­cal norms reigned, and a gen­er­al tenor per­vad­ed the faith­ful that the Church nev­er real­ly meant what it preached. For­mer Catholics con­tin­ued to stay away, new Catholics bare­ly showed up, and many tra­di­tion­al faith­ful became demor­al­ized.

That is all no doubt true. But if we are to rea­son our way through all this, it would be good if Mr. Napoli­tano were to tell us what spe­cif­ic doc­u­ment of Vat­i­can II led to all that. This, he does not do. (But we are tuned in to Fox News, sir.) So the post hoc ergo propter hoc fal­la­cy begins to rear its head. How does Mr. Napoli­tano know that Vat­i­can II is to blame, rather than a sec­u­lar trend in mod­ern soci­ety and those who used Vat­i­can II as an excuse? Again, he does not tell us. (But we are tuned in to Fox News, sir.)

Pope St. John Paul II and Pope Bene­dict XVI, he says, “attempt­ed to roll this back.” Yes, they did. But they did not do so by dis­pens­ing with the Coun­cil, nor by amend­ing it. They empha­sized what the pope emer­i­tus has called the “hermeneu­tic of con­ti­nu­ity.” (And let me point out here that Fran­cis affirmed this him­self.)

Vat­i­can II is not to be read as a break with the pre-con­cil­iar Church; that’s a mis­read­ing of the Coun­cil. The last two popes spent their years in the Chair of Peter being very clear about that. Mr. Napoli­tano’s pecu­liar brand of Vat­i­can II Derange­ment Syn­drome does not per­mit him to admit this.

Caught Up in a Web of Lies

At this point—and you knew this had to come, dear reader—Mr. Napoli­tano begins his assault on Pope Fran­cis. The pope, he tells us, “wants to use moral rel­a­tivism to take the Church in two dan­ger­ous direc­tions.”

Before I explain what these two direc­tions are, I would like to ask Mr. Napoli­tano where he thinks the pope has expressed moral rel­a­tivism. I can only think it would be in his inter­view with Euge­nio Scal­fari which made alarmed head­lines.

Now, I have already refut­ed the idea that the pope was express­ing moral rel­a­tivism there. (It was my most-read post. But I digress.) It lat­er turned out that Mr. Scal­fari fab­ri­cat­ed the quo­ta­tion at the root of it all. (Do you not read these things, Mr. Napoli­tano?)

Any­way, I digress. The two direc­tions into which Nr. Napoli­tano thinks the pope will lead the Church are “an assault on the fam­i­ly” and “an assault on the free mar­ket.” I am used to hear­ing the last of those, but the first makes me ball up on the floor in a laugh­ing fit. An assault on the fam­i­ly? Two days after Mr. Napoli­tano wrote those words, we learned how good a prophet he was when the pope spoke at the World Meet­ing of—what was it?—Families. Here is his “assault on the fam­i­ly,” dear read­er:

[T]he most beau­ti­ful thing that God did … was the fam­i­ly. … All of the love that God has in him­self, he gives it to the fam­i­ly. And the fam­i­ly is real­ly the fam­i­ly when it is able to open its arms and receive all that love. …

[W]here did [God] send his son? To a palace? To a city? No. He sent him to a fam­i­ly. …

Do you know what he loves most? To knock on the door of fam­i­lies, and find fam­i­lies who love each oth­er, who bring up their chil­dren to grow. …

Fam­i­lies have a cit­i­zen­ship which is divine. The iden­ti­ty card that they have is giv­en to them by God. So that with­in the heart of the fam­i­ly, truth, good­ness, and beau­ty can tru­ly grow. …

For­give me, but I have to say, the fam­i­ly is like a fac­to­ry of hope. It’s a fac­to­ry of res­ur­rec­tion.

The fam­i­ly is a “fac­to­ry of res­ur­rec­tion”! Does that sound to you like an “assault on the fam­i­ly”? If Mr. Napoli­tano is an hon­est man, he will take those words back. (We are tuned in to Fox News, sir.)

But what he had in mind as an exam­ple of the pope’s “assault on the fam­i­ly” is the pope’s eas­ing of the require­ment for an annul­ment. Mr. Napoli­tano seems par­tic­u­lar­ly per­turbed that the pope made this change “with­out con­sult­ing his fel­low bish­ops.” (As though the pope need­ed to.) It’s called a motu pro­prio, sir. Per­haps you’ve heard of it. The words mean “on his own impulse.” The pope issues them strict­ly on his own uni­ver­sal author­i­ty as leg­is­la­tor of the whole Church. Remem­ber Vat­i­can I? Remem­ber Pas­tor Aeter­nus? It’s not a change in Church teach­ing, but in law and pro­ce­dure. I don’t recall any tra­di­tion­al­ist com­plain­ing that Pope Bene­dict XVI failed to con­sult bish­ops when he issued Sum­mo­rum Pon­tif­i­cum. Did you, Mr. Napoli­tano?

And how does Mr. Napoli­tano know that Pope Fran­cis did­n’t con­sult bish­ops in the first place? Does Marc Ouel­let send him e‑mails from the Con­gre­ga­tion of Bish­ops to apprise him of their meet­ings with the pope? I’d like to know. I’m sure you would too, dear read­er.

Now, for the record, the changes the pope made to the annul­ment process were these.

• It elim­i­nates the require­ment that, when a grant of nul­li­ty is declared, a sec­ond tri­bunal review and affirm the deci­sion.
• It declares that appeals are no longer to be sent to Rome but to the Arch­dioce­san tri­bunal.
• It per­mits a fast-track process, allow­ing review by the bish­op when both par­ties are agreed and the case for an annul­ment is par­tic­u­lar­ly clear.

How this con­sti­tutes an “assault on the fam­i­ly,” Mr. Napoli­tano does not say. In what fol­lows in his arti­cle, he seems more wor­ried that it is an assault on jus­tice:

Fair annul­ment tri­als are cost­ly and time con­sum­ing, often tak­ing years from the ini­tial fil­ing to the final appeal. Until now. Last week, Pope Fran­cis arbi­trar­i­ly ordered the entire process to be com­plet­ed in 45 days or few­er. For con­test­ed mat­ters, a fair tri­al in 45 days is impos­si­ble. So, to meet his dead­line, more annul­ments will be grant­ed admin­is­tra­tive­ly, not on the mer­its.

Well, that last part is no more than fear and spec­u­la­tion, but Mr. Napli­tano errs on one impor­tant point.

The 45-day require­ment is only for the fast-track process as men­tioned above. These are cas­es in which the grounds for nul­li­ty are par­tic­u­lar­ly clear from the out­set. And there would not be “con­test­ed mat­ters” here since both par­ties must be agreed to annul the mar­riage. So Mr. Napoli­tano seems to be rely­ing on rumor, or on mis­re­port­ing or mis­un­der­stand­ing in the media, not on what the actu­al doc­u­ment says. (The Latin text is here, for a tra­di­tion­al­ist and legal schol­ar like Mr. Napoli­tano will be able to read Latin. For those of us who are not as bright as he, here is an Eng­lish sum­ma­ry.)

And it is impor­tant to note, also, that Mitis Iudex does not change the Church’s teach­ing on mar­riage. Dr. Edward N. Peters, a canon lawyer who actu­al­ly read and under­stands the doc­u­ment (and who is also skep­ti­cal about some parts of it) is clear on this point:

Mitis does not change one jot or tit­tle of Church teach­ing on mar­riage. It recites the unchange­able nature of Church teach­ing on mar­riage and the impor­tance of hav­ing an eccle­si­as­ti­cal pro­ce­dure to inves­ti­gate the char­ac­ter of mar­riages entered into by the faith­ful.

Dr. Peters does not like the fast-track process because he under­stands, as Mr. Napoli­tano does, that an annul­ment is a legal process designed to answer a legal ques­tion. In fair­ness, there is a point to be made there. But Mr. Napoli­tano’s crit­i­cism on this point is not based on an accu­rate under­stand­ing of what is in Mitis Iudex, and he utter­ly and mali­cious­ly mis­rep­re­sents the pope’s inten­tion in issu­ing the motu pro­prio.

Next, Mr. Napoli­tano turns to the pope’s recent changes for the Year of Mer­cy, per­mit­ting priests to remove an excom­mu­ni­ca­tion with­out wait­ing for the bish­op. He gen­er­al­ly gets the facts right on that, but watch how he begins: “The Church has taught for 400 years that abor­tion is mur­der.”

Come again? No, the Church has taught that for two thou­sand years, stretch­ing all the way back to the Didache (2:2), the teach­ings of the twelve apos­tles. “Thou shalt not mur­der a child by abor­tion.” That was writ­ten in the first cen­tu­ry, Mr. Napoli­tano, not the sev­en­teenth. (I tweet­ed this to the poor man. I nev­er got a response, or a cor­rec­tion. So it goes.)

He goes on: “He said he did this because he was moved by the anguished cry of moth­ers con­tem­plat­ing the mur­der of their babies.”

That’s a par­tic­u­lar­ly crude way of putting what the pope said:

The tragedy of abor­tion is expe­ri­enced by some with a super­fi­cial aware­ness, as if not real­iz­ing the extreme harm that such an act entails. Many oth­ers, on the oth­er hand, although expe­ri­enc­ing this moment as a defeat, believe they they have no oth­er option. I think in par­tic­u­lar of all the women who have resort­ed to abor­tion. I am well aware of the pres­sure that has led them to this deci­sion. I know that it is an exis­ten­tial and moral ordeal. I have met so many women who bear in their heart the scar of this ago­niz­ing and painful deci­sion. What has hap­pened is pro­found­ly unjust; yet only under­stand­ing the truth of it can enable one not to lose hope. The for­give­ness of God can­not be denied to one who has repent­ed.

The pope does have compassion—not with those “con­tem­plat­ing mur­der,” but with those who feel trapped and, more impor­tant­ly where this dis­cus­sion is con­cerned, who have repent­ed. They’ve repent­ed, Mr. Napoli­tano. The pope’s words are very much like Pope St. John Paul II’s in Evan­geli­um Vitae 99. (One must always keep­ing telling these folks with PFDS that Pope Fran­cis is not at all new in what he says.)

I would now like to say a spe­cial word to women who have had an abor­tion. The Church is aware of the many fac­tors which may have influ­enced your deci­sion, and she does not doubt that in many cas­es it was a painful and even shat­ter­ing deci­sion. The wound in your heart may not yet have healed. Cer­tain­ly what hap­pened was and remains ter­ri­bly wrong. But do not give in to dis­cour­age­ment and do not lose hope.

Pope Fran­cis’s com­pas­sion is the same as St. John Paul II’s.

Woke Up to Reality

But now Mr. Napoli­tano gets tru­ly amus­ing: “I doubt [Pope Fran­cis] will defend these deci­sions before Con­gress.

Defend them before Con­gress? What, is Con­gress the pope’s judge? The pope owes an expla­na­tion to the U.S. Con­gress? What form of Amer­i­can­ism is this? But instead of treat­ing his address to Con­gress in light of a sub­poe­na to a grand jury, as the pope should, he will, says Mr. Napoli­tano,

• “assault the free mar­ket”;
• “tell Con­gress that the world is an inher­ent­ly unhealthy place because of human work.”

Once more, we find out how good a prophet Mr. Napoli­tano is when we read the pope’s speech and find that the pope told Con­gress

• to pur­sue the com­mon good;
• to enact just leg­is­la­tion;
• to help the poor and elder­ly;
• to hon­or the mem­o­ry of great Amer­i­cans;
• to com­bat vio­lence done in the name of reli­gion;
• to seek peace and jus­tice;
• to pro­mote reli­gious voic­es;
• to not be a slave to the econ­o­my;
• to encour­age the dreams of the peo­ple;
• to pro­tect all life;
• to seek the reha­bil­i­ta­tion of crim­i­nals;
• to fight pover­ty and hunger;
• to use nat­ur­al resources, tech­nol­o­gy, and enter­prise to pro­mote pros­per­i­ty.

Wait, what was that last one again?

• to use nat­ur­al resources, tech­nol­o­gy, and enter­prise to pro­mote pros­per­i­ty.

Imag­ine that, Mr. Napoli­tano! In fact, the pope said much more, quot­ing from Lauda­to Si, that fever­ish lefty green encycli­cal:

Busi­ness is a noble voca­tion, direct­ed to pro­duc­ing wealth and improv­ing the world. It can be a fruit­ful source of pros­per­i­ty for the area in which it oper­ates, espe­cial­ly if it sees the cre­ation of jobs as an essen­tial part of its ser­vice to the com­mon good.

Holy St. Andrew, the pope’s pro-busi­ness! The pope’s in favor of human beings work­ing!

But let us hear what else the pope encour­aged Con­gress to do.

• to fight envi­ron­men­tal dete­ri­o­ra­tion;
• to end armed con­flict;
• to pro­tect fam­i­ly and mar­riage.

“Assault on the fam­i­ly,” did you say, Mr. Napoli­tano?

• to defend lib­er­ty and jus­tice and let the oppressed go free.

The pope does not tell Con­gress how to achieve any of these things. He is con­tent on leav­ing that to them. How curi­ous I don’t find an assault on the free mar­ket! How curi­ous I don’t find an assault on human work!

Mr. Napoli­tano next goes on to charge that the pope fails to see that cap­i­tal­ism helps the poor. Now, this is a claim that I have spent many words refut­ing, and I will not do so again here. (I am not tired, but I am hoarse.) I will just direct Mr. Napoli­tano to this, this, this, this, this, this, and this for a fuller under­stand­ing of what the pope was talk­ing about in Evan­gelii Gaudi­um and Lauda­to Si.

It is enough to say here that the gist of it is that the pope does not attack the free mar­ket itself but a mar­ket which depends upon con­sumer greed and is unchecked by the moral law.

It is enough to say that the pope’s cri­tique of unchecked mar­kets is no dif­fer­ent than the cri­tique of every oth­er pope before him who addressed that sub­ject, at least as far back as Leo XIII in Rerum Novarum.

And it is enough to say that if the pope prais­es busi­ness as a “noble voca­tion” because it “increas­es wealth,” he is hard­ly a threat to cap­i­tal­ism as such.

That Mr. Napoli­tano is embar­ras­ing­ly igno­rant about these mat­ters is clear when he sug­gests that the pope “take note of the recent and beau­ti­ful $200 mil­lion facelift” to St. Patrick­’s Cathe­dral.

“It was paid in full,” he says, “by rich Catholic cap­i­tal­ists who employed hard­work­ing arti­sans and labor­ers to do the work.”

Real­ly it was? You think the pope does not know this? And what built and paid for all those beau­ti­ful Goth­ic cathe­drals in the Mid­dle Ages? Was it cap­i­tal­ism? No, Mr. Napoli­tano, it was not. Cap­i­tal­ism did not exist then. It did not build the Church of Trent.

Now he brings his arti­cle to a close:

The pope has seri­ous­ly dis­ap­point­ed those who believe the Roman Catholic Church pre­serves and teach­es the Truth. The Truth is Christ risen and uni­ty with Him. It is not a debate about the min­i­mum wage or air con­di­tion­ing.

Well, you know, St. James tells us that God con­demns the rich who fail to pay their work­ers a just wage (James 5:4), so I would hard­ly think the min­i­mum wage is unim­por­tant to “the truth in Christ” and “uni­ty with Him.” What­ev­er you did to the least of these you did to me, and if you fail to pay a just wage to the least of these you are also with­hold­ing it from Christ. That wrecks your uni­ty with him.

These are not mere sec­u­lar con­cerns, Mr. Napoli­tano, that the pope should stay out of, as though there were some area of life, called the “sec­u­lar” or the “polit­i­cal,” that you can wall off from the moral law and say, “Stay out of that, Church.” The idea that there is some such safe haven is a Mod­ernist heresy. You’re a tra­di­tion­al­ist, Mr. Napoli­tano, as you your­self tell us. You don’t know what the Mod­ernist here­sies are? Pope Fran­cis refus­es to accept a Mod­ernist heresy and you think that makes him a “false prophet”? Tell us more.