Placing The Cannons

Almost one week after the fateful decision to elect Meisner’s and Mahony’s candidate to the Papacy (though one suspects the latter would have voted for St. Pius X if he had thought this brings him some advantage) it might be worth spending some words about The attitude of the secular, liberal press toward the Holy Father up to now.

It seems to me the secular press has the same problems we traddies have: we know this Pope is more or less influenced by Modernism, and they know this Pope will be, broadly speaking, Catholic. But on the respective good side, we hope he will be a very robust defender of life, marriage and Catholic sexual morality, and they hope he will be a useful Mini-Chavez, propelling them into a sort of Obama stratosphere where illegal immigration, increased taxation and general socialist whining become the new Vatican currency, generously distributed to leftist governments all over the planet.

Not knowing whether thePontiff is to be counted among the useful instruments of their ideology or a threat to it, they choose a cautious middle. They can’t praise him up to the sky, because they’ll be in trouble if he start to seriously bite, but at the same time they can’t attack him too harshly, because they risk losing what could become their best ally by some measure.

Notice, therefore, the cautious attitude not rabidly criticising the Pope for being Catholic, but merely shooting some salvo about his work at the time of the Argentinian dictatorship and the “dirty war”. The rumours – or slander – being largely base on a former guerrillero, it will be easy to dismiss him as an unreliable source should the necessity arise; but if it should become clear that the Pope is to be considered an enemy, the early “dirty war” accusations will allow he Guardian, the New York Times and the others to say “we told you so”.

For leftists this Pope is a bit of an eel, and they seem to wait to see how much political capital can be harvested from him. If the harvest proves plentiful, expect the past to be examined in light of the Pope’s “struggle against economic oppression” and the Pontiff to be praised as a Great Revolutionary. If, however, the harvest fails, expect a torrent of mud like you’ve never seen in your life.

The leftists’ cannons are already in place, and are ready to fight. I hope Pope Francis will accept battle, and relish in it.

Mundabor