On this Feast of St. Francis<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A story about Pope Francis. Much is being made about our new Pope right now. In this story, American Catholics are overwhelmingly happy with\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2013\/10\/on-this-feast-of-st-francis.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"On this Feast of St. Francis\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A story about Pope Francis. Much is being made about our new Pope right now. 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A story about Pope Francis<\/a>. \u00a0Much is being made about our new Pope right now. \u00a0 In this story<\/a>, American Catholics are overwhelmingly happy with him, especially his statement that it\u2019s time to put the fighting over gay marriage and abortion and such things aside. \u00a0Two possibilities there. \u00a0Either they are misreading what he\u2019s said, or those who are worried have reasons to worry. \u00a0I say this since there\u2019s not a reasonable person in the world who doesn\u2019t know that, on the whole, the majority of American Catholics use contraception, support abortion rights, and now support gay marriage. \u00a0The majority numbers vary per topic, but that thing known as liberalism wouldn\u2019t have made it this far without the crucial support of American Catholics. \u00a0At least in the United States. \u00a0Not all of course. \u00a0But poll after poll after study after poll says the majority.<\/p>\n

So time will tell. \u00a0It might be, as Charlotte Allen of the L.A. Times suggests<\/a>, that Francis is simply the first Pope of the Post-Western age. \u00a0As we watch the sunset on the civilization that Catholicism built, and the origin of industrialization, science, enlightenment, liberty, Democracy, Mozart, Shakespeare, Film, Light Bulbs, Technology and an endless list of things we enjoy and take for granted, Pope Francis may simply be pointing to a world that no longer cares about such things, or at least the civilization that brought them. \u00a0What that means, I don\u2019t know. \u00a0Is he a reformer? \u00a0A radical? \u00a0A revolutionary? \u00a0Only time will tell. \u00a0But on this feast day of that Saint of Saints that even atheists and fundamentalist Protestants tip a hat to, it\u2019s worth taking a step back and watching a man help remind us of why the name Francis was so special to begin with.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"