Since Pope Francis has been elected, he's offered criticisms of economic policies in capitalism, and has made statements about how it has affected the poor and how climate change is in part due to capitalism and big business. Many people interpret it as a radicalization of Catholic teachings in order to aide some sort of liberal agenda, while others argue it is merely Catholic teachings being put in place. This in turn escalates to a political level and the influence the Church has on liberal progressives and conservatives. This goes into further detail in an encyclical released by the Holy See earlier in the year.
For many years, people grouped the Catholic Church, among other Christian denominations, with the more right leaning Republican party due to their conservative views on topics such as abortion and same-sex marriages. Meghan J. Clark, an assistant professor of moral theology at St. John’s University in Queens, N.Y., aims to show how Pope Francis is breaking that stereotype. In her article, Francis Has Ended the Illusion of a Vatican-G.O.P. Alliance, Meghan says “...conservatives could conveniently distort or deny Benedict and John Paul II’s critiques of capitalism, of the Iraq war, and their support of the option for the poor”, Meghan says in response to those who support the idea that the pope is allied with the right leaners. Meghan continues with the idea that the pope is truly allied with the Gospel and not political ideologies, and he challenges both those on the right and the left to do some serious soul searching.
Michael Brendan Dougherty is a Senior correspondent for The Week magazine and he argues that Pope Francis' message is a bit to politically skewed, and perhaps a bit misguided. In his article, “The Pope Has Put Undue Political Spin on a Spiritual Message” Michael argues the Pope Francis' message about the poor is stuck 40 years behind, as statistics show that the number of people in poverty is dropping significantly. He also argues that, seeing as the pope has shown an interest in a proposal allowing the divorced and remarried communion, feeding the left to view this as “a papal blessing on their own political beliefs.”
Others still, argue that Pope Francis' message is stemmed straight from the gospel, and that any familiarity driving it towards a leftist agenda is a misunderstanding of the faith. Randy Boyagoda, in his article "Keep the Pope Out of America's Jagged Ideological Terrain", is in favor of this argument, saying that both liberals and conservative Catholics alike should get out of this idea and look at the deeper meanings behind Pope Francis' words. Randy wants to make it clear that the Pope asserts that human life matters, in the beginning, middle, and the end, and that human life is evermore imperiled by economic strife.
I believe that the Popes message is, and always will be, politically skewed to favor some sort of denomination. But for Catholics the message holds much more, we view the Pope as a person whom God's word is directly given. We are to take his words to heart, and meditate on them, giving way to a solution in order to better the world in our own way. Francis is a humble servant of God, who like the rest of us, is susceptible to injustice, but he does his best to communicate with the followers of the Church, in a way further the life of those who struggle.