There’s something weird about Pope Francis being on the cover of Rolling Stone. Seems kinda’ sad to me. I do find it hilarious when publications which have declared the Church irrelevant for years put the pope on their cover in order to seem relevant.
Anyway, here’s some of the quotes that jumped out at me:
They compare Pope Benedict XVI to Freddy Kruger.
After the disastrous papacy of Benedict, a staunch traditionalist who looked like he should be wearing a striped shirt with knife-fingered gloves and menacing teenagers in their nightmares, Francis’ basic mastery of skills like smiling in public seemed a small miracle to the average Catholic
They compare Pope Francis to Bill Clinton. Ugh.
But Francis, like Bill Clinton, thrives on personal contact, and he spends the better part of an hour greeting believers
OK. Is Rolling Stone the only publication in the world that doesn’t realize putting the words “personal contact” and “Bill Clinton” in the same sentence isn’t a metaphor, it’s a punchline?
Rolling Stone thinks it knows Jesus better than previous popes.
Francis famously replied when asked his views on homosexual priests) and – perhaps most astonishingly of all – by devoting much of his first major written teaching to a scathing critique of unchecked free-market capitalism, the pope revealed his own obsessions to be more in line with the boss’ son.
Cornel West said the same thing Cornel West always says, which is just liberal boilerplate responses. Namely, it sounds like he hates the Catholic Church but loves Pope Francis.
The reaction on the other side of the spectrum has been less complicated. “Pope Francis is a gift from heaven, a prophetic voice willing to be a critic of capitalism and imperialism,” says Cornel West, long a leading voice on the Christian left. “I don’t want to fetishize the pope. He heads a deeply patriarchal and homophobic organization that I’m critical of. But I love who he is, in terms of what he says, and the impact of his words on progressive forces around the world.”
I’m sure there’s more but I got kinda’ bored reading it. It’s pretty long. But the undercurrent of the piece seems to be that Pope Francis is going to change everything.
All in all it just seems a little silly to me. Silly. And kinda’ sad.
