Caught Between Pope Francis and Ayn Rand: Our Struggle with the Pontiff

In the wake of the fading honeymoon between the media and Pope Francis, excitement is more universally giving way to a sense of uneasiness. In the beginning, it seemed they not only found an ideological Pope, but one whose ideologies were identical with their own; an answered prayer for the left-leaning news industry. This was so comically seen on the cover of The Advocate, a pro-homosexual marriage publication, with a bright profile of Pope Francis next to his infamous “who am I to judge” quote. But like the pervading familial breakdown that Francis decries, the marriage between him and the MSM was bound to end in divorce.

For example, the popular perception that Pope Francis is bent on pulling the rug out from under the Catholic hierarchy doesn’t quite gel with his excommunication of the Australian priest who advocated for women’s ordination and homosexual marriage. His alleged sympathies for homosexual marriage doesn’t fit with his call for every child to have a mother and father. He denounced abortion, euthanasia, and embryonic stem cell research as “sins against God.” Yet, his harsh criticisms of capitalism are no secret. It would seem he is playing both conservative and liberal, Republican and Democrat; and Americans find it a very foolish strategy.

But the evidence for something neither conservative nor liberal at the root of the Pontiff’s thought is abundant because it centers on a theme which consistently appears in his public discourse. In the Apostolic Exhortation Evangelium Gaudium, His Holiness remarks “Our world is being torn apart by wars and violence, and wounded by a widespread individualism which divides human beings, setting them against one another as they pursue their own well-being.”[1] He later added this individualism creates economic inequality. This January, he claimed the love of a mother is an antidote to individualism and war. Similarly, without brothers and sisters “freedom and equality can be filled with individualism and conformity,” he said this February.

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