At times it appeared America had found a new rock star. Pope Francis' pastoral visit to the United States set off an extraordinary show of affectionate zeal - by both the enthusiastically faithful as well as those less-typically possessed by religious ardor. It shouldn't surprise: by all accounts Francis is affable, humble, and infectiously joyful while neither affectatious nor saccharinely sentimental. His continual refrain that the church be both home and hospital to the spiritually wounded is well-received, as is his continued concern for life. He is, quite simply, likeable.
But the raucous applause is not entirely unanimous. On the other side are those who aren't entirely sure whether to be enthusiastic or not. For progressive Catholics, secularists, and left-of-center Protestants, eager to believe that his pontificate marks a turning away from traditional Catholicism, Francis' visits to, say, the Little Sisters of the Poor — with their lawsuit against Obamacare — or with Kentucky clerk Kim Davis — who was jailed for her refusal to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples — creates the irritating suspicion that Francis might actually be serious about the whole Catholic thing. Of course, their progressive consternation is shared among many of their antipodal friends on the political and theological right, if for opposite reasons. Some conservatives, worried about Francis not being serious about the whole Catholic thing, wonder if his perceived tendency to be oblique regarding issues like abortion and marriage, especially in light of his more explicit opinions on the death penalty, immigration, income equality, and climate change, signal fuzzy, subterranean, leftist sympathies.
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