Tag Archives: Joint Session Of Congress

Superhuman Political Force for the Poverty Panel

NBC News reports:

It’s being dubbed “the Francis effect” and it’s hitting Washington, DC.

From 4500 miles away Pope Francis is exerting his influence on everything from foreign policy to summits on poverty. Pope Francis got a big shout out on Tuesday from the leader of the free world as a great example of someone who understands what’s important.”Nobody has shown that better than Pope Francis, who I think has been transformative just through the sincerity and insistence that he’s had that this is vital to who we are,” President Barack Obama said during a panel discussion at Georgetown University.

“And that emphasis I think is why he’s had such incredible appeal, including to young people, all around the world.”

Why does the Francis adulation from Obama go on and on and on? Is the Pope more sincere?  Is he ‘transformative,’ whatever that liberalspeak means?  What does it say when something is ‘vital to who we are?’  Does Pope Francis really have an ‘incredible appeal’ especially including young people, or is it just non-stop well-funded hype?

I know one thing: it’s not filling up Churches, but we don’t need those any more anyway.  You can ‘kneel before the poor’ anywhere, can’t you?

Well, not in Georgetown.

The three day Catholic-Evangelical leadership summit at Georgetown is a direct response to the pope’s call to help the poor.

It’s been answered by an influential lineup of people on vastly different ends of the political spectrum. Speakers include ideological opposites from progressive Senator Cory Booker, a New Jersey Democrat and former conservative presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty to members of Opus Dei, a Roman Catholic lay organization, to Nuns On The Bus, a Catholic groups focused on social justice.

Democrats, dissidents, and a Romney Republican.

“It’s been a long time since we’ve seen a pope have this kind of influence in the United States,” said E.J. Dionne, Washington Post columnist who moderated the poverty panel including President Obama.

…and the whole thing run by a left-wing Wapo pundit.  Does anybody ever help the poor by actually doing something for them?  I’ve never met a poor broke person who would be interested in moderators of ‘poverty panels.’

However, it’s too early to say whether Tuesday’s talk will lead to change.

“If they care about these problems, Americans can change the politics that would, over the next five to 10 years, make a huge difference. And I’m not talking about changing Republican-Democrat. I’m talking about making poverty and the opportunity to escape from poverty a higher issue on both parties’ agendas,” said Robert Putnam, the Peter and Isabel Malkin Professor of Public Policy at Harvard.

I guess if both parties adopted your big government redistribution platforms it wouldn’t matter if they were Republican or Democrat, you’re right.

The report presents some silly charts showing how beloved and respected Pope Francis is.  Then it talks about how important Catholics in Congress supposedly are.  It all boils down to a sort of superhuman papal political force.

The president said he can’t wait to host the pope and if he can spur the least effective congress in history to action, it might just be a certifiable miracle.