{"id":1348,"date":"2013-03-17T05:06:03","date_gmt":"2013-03-17T11:06:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/frankschaeffer\/?p=1348"},"modified":"2015-03-12T17:45:18","modified_gmt":"2015-03-12T23:45:18","slug":"pope-francis-and-the-far-right-counterattack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/frankschaeffer\/2013\/03\/pope-francis-and-the-far-right-counterattack\/","title":{"rendered":"Pope Francis and the Far Right Counterattack"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Here\u2019s a guest column \u201cIs Pope Francis a Fraud?\u201d<\/a> on the new pope by Andrew O\u2019hehir from SALON<\/a>.\u00a0I\u2019ts the best \u00a0commnetary on the the papacy, the recent history of the Roman Catholic Church and religion in general I\u2019ve read in a long time.<\/p>\n

Is Pope Francis a fraud?<\/a><\/h1>\n
After a right-wing coup crushed the reforms of Vatican II, one scholar says the last two popes are illegitimate<\/h2>\n
BY\u00a0 ANDREW O\u2019HEHIR<\/a><\/p>\n
aoh@salon.com<\/a><\/p>\n
It\u2019s easy \u2014 maybe too easy \u2014 for people with progressive political views to dismiss the Roman Catholic Church as a vile anachronism, a nightmarish patriarchy of aging pedophiles, woman-haters, homophobes and\/or closet cases that can offer nothing of value to the contemporary world. When it comes to the church hierarchy, and especially the Roman Curia, the corrupt and labyrinthine Vatican bureaucracy that makes the Soviet-era Kremlin look like a model of transparency, that point of view seems more than justified.<\/p>\n
But the church is not just the hierarchy, and as the spectacle of the last several days has demonstrated, there are millions or billions of people around the world \u2014 Catholics and non-Catholics alike \u2014 who wish the newly elected Pope Francis well and yearn to see in him the possibility of hope and renewal for this ancient, powerful and heavily tarnished institution that claims direct succession from the apostles of Jesus. As the first Latin American pope and the first Jesuit pope, Francis represents a break with tradition in several ways. Both the name he has chosen and his personal modesty and humility are meant to recall St. Francis of Assisi, one of the most adored figures in the Christian tradition, and no doubt also St. Francis de Sales, a 17th-century mystic, author and ascetic known for his devotion to the poor.<\/p>\n
But the former Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio emerges from a Jesuit order that has been largely purged of its independent-minded or left-leaning intellectuals, and his reputation at home in Latin America is decidedly mixed. While Francis seems to be an appealing personality in some ways \u2014 albeit one with a shadowy relationship with the former military dictatorship in Argentina, along with a record on gay rights that borders on hate speech \u2014 it\u2019s difficult to imagine that he can or will do anything to arrest the church\u2019s long slide into cultural irrelevance and neo-medieval isolation. His papacy, I suspect, comes near the end of a thousand-year history of the Vatican\u2019s global rise to power, ambiguous flourishing and rapid decline. It also comes after 40 years of internal counterrevolution under the previous two popes, during which a group of hardcore right-wing cardinals have consolidated power in the Curia and stamped out nearly all traces of the 1960s liberal reform agenda of\u00a0 Pope John XXIII<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0 Vatican II.<\/a>\u00a0A handful of intellectuals, both inside and outside the church, quietly believe that means Pope Francis isn\u2019t a legitimate pope at all\u2026<\/p>\n
CONTINUE TO READ THIS ARTICLE HERE
\n<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Here\u2019s a guest column \u201cIs Pope Francis a Fraud?\u201d on the new pope by Andrew O\u2019hehir from SALON.\u00a0I\u2019ts the best \u00a0commnetary on the the papacy, the recent history of the Roman Catholic Church and religion in general I\u2019ve read in a long time. Is Pope Francis a fraud? After a right-wing coup crushed the reforms […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1161,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[151,1794,315,1793,13,283,38,316],"class_list":["post-1348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-history","tag-politics","tag-pope-francis","tag-religion","tag-religious-right","tag-roman-catholic-church","tag-theology","tag-vatican-ii"],"yoast_head":"\nPope Francis and the Far Right Counterattack<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Here's a guest column "Is Pope Francis a Fraud?" on the new pope by Andrew O'hehir from SALON.\u00a0I'ts the best \u00a0commnetary on the the papacy, the recent\" \/>\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\/frankschaeffer\/2013\/03\/pope-francis-and-the-far-right-counterattack\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Pope Francis and the Far Right Counterattack\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Here's a guest column "Is Pope Francis a Fraud?" on the new pope by Andrew O'hehir from SALON.\u00a0I'ts the best \u00a0commnetary on the the papacy, the recent\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/frankschaeffer\/2013\/03\/pope-francis-and-the-far-right-counterattack\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Why I Still Talk to Jesus -- In Spite of Everything\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-03-17T11:06:03+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-03-12T23:45:18+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Frank Schaeffer\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Frank Schaeffer\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/frankschaeffer\/2013\/03\/pope-francis-and-the-far-right-counterattack\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/frankschaeffer\/2013\/03\/pope-francis-and-the-far-right-counterattack\/\",\"name\":\"Pope Francis and the Far Right Counterattack\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/frankschaeffer\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2013-03-17T11:06:03+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2015-03-12T23:45:18+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/frankschaeffer\/#\/schema\/person\/ee5633fedc91f64f8ad476644ee614d0\"},\"description\":\"Here's a guest column \\\"Is Pope Francis a Fraud?\\\" on the new pope by Andrew O'hehir from SALON.\u00a0I'ts the best \u00a0commnetary on the the papacy, the recent\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/frankschaeffer\/2013\/03\/pope-francis-and-the-far-right-counterattack\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/frankschaeffer\/2013\/03\/pope-francis-and-the-far-right-counterattack\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/frankschaeffer\/2013\/03\/pope-francis-and-the-far-right-counterattack\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/frankschaeffer\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Pope Francis and the Far Right Counterattack\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/frankschaeffer\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/frankschaeffer\/\",\"name\":\"Why I Still Talk to Jesus -- In Spite of Everything\",\"description\":\"It isn\u2019t about "correct belief" but about life, love and character.\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/frankschaeffer\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/frankschaeffer\/#\/schema\/person\/ee5633fedc91f64f8ad476644ee614d0\",\"name\":\"Frank Schaeffer\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/frankschaeffer\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/4be7268c44448a37f02f8b6a0f50dc56?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/4be7268c44448a37f02f8b6a0f50dc56?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Frank Schaeffer\"},\"description\":\"Frank Schaeffer is an American author, film director, screenwriter and public speaker. He is the son of the late theologian and author Francis Schaeffer. He became a Hollywood film director and author, writing several internationally acclaimed novels including And God Said, \\\"Billy!\\\" as well as the Calvin Becker Trilogy depicting life in a fundamentalist mission home-- Portofino, Zermatt, and Saving Grandma.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/frankschaeffer\/author\/frankaschaeffer\/\"}]}<\/script>\n","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Pope Francis and the Far Right Counterattack","description":"Here's a guest column \"Is Pope Francis a Fraud?\" on the new pope by Andrew O'hehir from SALON.\u00a0I'ts the best \u00a0commnetary on the the papacy, the recent","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/frankschaeffer\/2013\/03\/pope-francis-and-the-far-right-counterattack\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Pope Francis and the Far Right Counterattack","og_description":"Here's a guest column \"Is Pope Francis a Fraud?\" on the new pope by Andrew O'hehir from SALON.\u00a0I'ts the best \u00a0commnetary on the the papacy, the recent","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/frankschaeffer\/2013\/03\/pope-francis-and-the-far-right-counterattack\/","og_site_name":"Why I Still Talk to Jesus -- In Spite of Everything","article_published_time":"2013-03-17T11:06:03+00:00","article_modified_time":"2015-03-12T23:45:18+00:00","author":"Frank Schaeffer","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Frank Schaeffer","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/frankschaeffer\/2013\/03\/pope-francis-and-the-far-right-counterattack\/","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/frankschaeffer\/2013\/03\/pope-francis-and-the-far-right-counterattack\/","name":"Pope Francis and the Far Right Counterattack","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/frankschaeffer\/#website"},"datePublished":"2013-03-17T11:06:03+00:00","dateModified":"2015-03-12T23:45:18+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/frankschaeffer\/#\/schema\/person\/ee5633fedc91f64f8ad476644ee614d0"},"description":"Here's a guest column \"Is Pope Francis a Fraud?\" on the new pope by Andrew O'hehir from SALON.\u00a0I'ts the best \u00a0commnetary on the the papacy, the recent","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/frankschaeffer\/2013\/03\/pope-francis-and-the-far-right-counterattack\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/frankschaeffer\/2013\/03\/pope-francis-and-the-far-right-counterattack\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/frankschaeffer\/2013\/03\/pope-francis-and-the-far-right-counterattack\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/frankschaeffer\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Pope Francis and the Far Right Counterattack"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/frankschaeffer\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/frankschaeffer\/","name":"Why I Still Talk to Jesus -- In Spite of Everything","description":"It isn\u2019t about "correct belief" but about life, love and character.","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/frankschaeffer\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/frankschaeffer\/#\/schema\/person\/ee5633fedc91f64f8ad476644ee614d0","name":"Frank Schaeffer","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/frankschaeffer\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/4be7268c44448a37f02f8b6a0f50dc56?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/4be7268c44448a37f02f8b6a0f50dc56?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Frank Schaeffer"},"description":"Frank Schaeffer is an American author, film director, screenwriter and public speaker. He is the son of the late theologian and author Francis Schaeffer. He became a Hollywood film director and author, writing several internationally acclaimed novels including And God Said, \"Billy!\" as well as the Calvin Becker Trilogy depicting life in a fundamentalist mission home-- Portofino, Zermatt, and Saving Grandma.","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/frankschaeffer\/author\/frankaschaeffer\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/frankschaeffer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/frankschaeffer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/frankschaeffer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/frankschaeffer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1161"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/frankschaeffer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1348"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/frankschaeffer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1348\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/frankschaeffer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/frankschaeffer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/frankschaeffer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}