I have been following this story for a while and I really think that Pope Francis is intentionally and strategically calling on western democracies to step it up with the application of principles to their economic and social systems. This has ramifications not just for the USA, where the call for fairness is likely to split the Catholic vote for potentially a generation, but also western Europe and the emergent economies of South America. This fascinates me because it is really a redefinition of liberation theology, which rose in south America in the 1960s as a response to the Churchs complicity in the subjugation of minority and indigenous populations, but which was highly criticized in the Vatican while the specter of communism was considered a greater threat. The role of the Catholic Church in shaping social and political thought may be one of the least understood but most import stories of the next decade. It will also play heavily in the 2016 US Presidential election, where the swing states of Florida, Ohio, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, New Mexico and potentially even Arizona which is rapidly approaching a tipping point, will all be heavily influenced by the subtext of this debate.
Posted on: Thu, 01 Jan 2015 19:48:22 +0000
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