At least the cat-eating memes made sense. Over the weekend, American politics has taken a bizarre turn with Pope Francis weighing in on his flight back to Rome, implying that Kamala Harris is the ‘lesser evil’ of the presidential race – apparently snubbing the ‘man saved by God’.
Clarifying that both candidates are ‘anti-life’, the Pope hinted that America’s 72 million Catholics might want to vote for the lesser evil between a baby killer and an anti-migrant sinner without naming either party.
Yes, this is how the choice is being phrased and yes, the Pope has indicated a preference for abortion over borders.
The Pope has previously described those who build walls to stop illegal migration as ‘not Christian’ and committing a ‘grave sin’. These remarks surfaced while the Pope was discussing Trump’s famous (and celebrated) attempt to secure the southern border.
‘Both are against life, be it the one who kicks out migrants, or be it the one who kills babies,’ said Pope Francis.
‘Not voting is ugly. It is not good. You must vote. You must choose the lesser evil. Who is the lesser evil? That lady, or that gentleman? I don’t know. Everyone, in conscience, think and do this.’
NEW: Pope Francis says both U.S. presidential candidates are “anti-life” and tells people to vote for the “lesser of two evils.”
Francis should invite thousands of immigrants to live in the Vatican.
“Both are against life, be it the one who kicks out migrants, or be it the one… pic.twitter.com/2wWgvpIXM1
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) September 14, 2024
Catholics online have flocked to social media, calling the Pope’s comments a ‘gross false equivalence’ that compares ending the life of a child to enforcing a nation’s borders.
At roughly 21 per cent of the population, American Catholics should be a powerful voting bloc. If they followed the letter of the Faith, the majority would fall into the Republican camp and make them difficult to beat. Except, Catholics remain a difficult cohort to court.
Described as the ‘most maddening electoral group in American politics’ by Notre Dame political scientist David Leege – American Catholics are about as politically predictable as a herd of cats.
Ideologically, they are undisciplined and motivated more strongly by cultural and economic forces than by what their Faith has to say about policy. Detailed studies show Catholics change their vote as they move up the economic ladder and enter new social circles – shifting from conservative to progressive. Race also serves as a larger indicator for voting preference, with Black and Hispanic Catholics leaning left and White Catholics preferring Republican candidates. However, all Catholics have demonstrated a willingness to shift their vote on matters of the economy and broader cultural prosperity.
While plenty of American Catholics are planning to vote for the Democrats, it is difficult to find anything within the Kamala Harris platform that appeals to the stated values of the Catholic church.
Celebration of radical abortion policies, extreme LGBTQ+ agendas, and communist-style social programs may explain why the Pope has instead focused on the re-worked ‘saviour’ complex of green politics and migration. Here the Catholic church can pretend it is using its power and influence to ‘rescue the world’s poor’ from the evils of modernity. In this, it provides a spiritual sanctuary for the university lectures of capitalist sin and race guilt preached in every corner of the nation.
Green politics gives Catholic leaders a clear divide between the Republican and Democrat policy platforms without outright contradicting crucial pieces of the Faith.
Still, it is interesting to note that when polls in America are conducted on Catholics, they found respondents stubbornly split. On abortion, for instance, a 2013 combined poll showed that around 52 per cent of white Catholics believed it should be ‘legal in most cases’ compared to 43 per cent of Hispanics. It is a similar story on birth control which is opposed by Rome but supported by three-quarters of American Catholics.
The Catholic faith is growing, as are other religions, as uncertainty and fear increases. The globe is getting more religious, not less, and there is a particular interest from the youth in ultra-conservative and orthodox versions of faith.
Western politics has recently become the plaything of religious influence, with Islam making significant gains in the recent UK elections – fielding candidates in majority Labour areas and winning them on foreign interests rather than domestic concerns.
Even so, some of the more cynical among us may wonder if the Pope’s comments are more about aligning the Church with a new base of Democrat followers rather than providing spiritual guidance for the most powerful nation on Earth. The Pope has very little influence over the presidential race, but he does have an opportunity to use the election to grow the flock. On that, we can only speculate.
