Pope Francis is a Catholic Pope. Which is why he makes American pols uncomfortable

Americans tend to see our politics as some sort of Universal Spectrum of Ideological Reality. Right vs Left. Republicans vs Democrats. Conservatives vs. Liberals. Each position on each political and social question in the world can be neatly pinned to that spectrum, and people are expected to treat it as a package deal. Republicans believe A, B, C. Democrats believe X, Y, Z. Those are global constants that are nearly natural law, right?

Except, of course, they are not. Political spectra in the rest of the world are quite different. Who favors (or disfavors) birth control, or national health care, or abortion, or defense spending, or tax cuts, or immigration, or climate change legislation, or social welfare programs, all of those things don't necessarily neatly line up with American political verities (themselves not necessarily all that old and set in stone).

Which is why American politicians (and the pundits who preach to them) can't figure out Pope Francis. Is he some Marxist radical who wants to overthrow America's economic system in favor of a welfare state that favors carbon reductions over profit margins? Is he a sexual radical who plans to throw open the doors to gay priests marrying their three closest boyfriends? Is he going to radically change Church teaching on abortion, divorce, homosexuality, married clergy, male clergy, and everything else Catholics hold dear, the way he's completely changed Church teaching on the economy and evolution?

To ask that question betrays profound ignorance of church teaching. The Catholic Church has long been very conservative on social issues, while being very liberal on economic issues. That profound cross-cut on American political lines continues to baffle, leading to manic-depressive reactions to the Pope's pronouncements from the American Left and Right alike.

And, honestly, though he's pushing through some evolutionary changes in how the Church behaves, there's very little he's said, socially or economically, that is significantly different from his predecessors. He's not the same man, but he has the same job and, with a Latin American perspective, the same fundamental beliefs.

So, no, he's not going to okay gay marriage — but he's certainly been willing to talk about welcoming gay people into the church. He's going to criticize American Darwinian economics, but he's also not going to seek Marxist collectivism, and he's not going to say anything that earlier Popes (or, for that matter, Jesus) preached.

He's a Catholic Pope. He's a less rigid and prickly than Benedict, and less overtly conservative in style than John Paul II, but he's not going to propose radical changes. He's going to teach what he feels is right, no matter who agrees with him — and if it doesn't line up with American political party positions, well, that's no skin off his nose.

No, Pope Francis Is Not a ‘Progressive’ or a ‘Liberal’—He’s a Priest
How to read the pontiff as he visits the United States of America

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