Conservative taxpayers fund PBS and find themselves presented as the focus of evil in the modern world.
On Ash Wednesday, the PBS show Amanpour & Co. focused on the Catholic Church and Pope Francis. Host Christiane Amanpour focused on how "reforms" like "landmark" blessings for same-sex couples are receiving "fierce pushback" by "very, very dyed-in-the wool conservatives" in the American church. Words like "liberal," "left," and "progressive" were never used to identify the Pope or his leftist supporters. The guest was one of those -- Kim Daniels of Georgetown University, a member of the Vatican Dicastery of Communications.
Amanpour: "So talk to us about the significance and the backlash of what the Pope has done for the LGBTQ community. And I just want to remind you that a long time ago, 2013, you know, more than 10 years, he said, if a person is gay and seeks God and has goodwill, who am I to judge?"
Daniels said she loved the question, that the Holy Father has a "global vision of renewal. It's a hopeful vision. It's a dynamic vision. And what he says is he says, it's not about making the church a fortress. It's about the church being a home with open doors where everyone is welcome."
Then Amanpour lamented "the pope's reforms have drawn whether -- on many, many issues, have drawn fierce pushback from the very, very dyed in the wool conservatives," including clergy from African countries that "have practically criminalized being gay." She added:
AMANPOUR: The pope in turn has said the following, no one is scandalized if I give a blessing to an entrepreneur who perhaps exploits people, and that is a most serious sin. Whereas they are scandalized if I give it to a homosexual. This is hypocrisy. We all have to respect each other. Everyone. How, though, does he think that he can convince everybody?
DANIELS: Well, again, it's about proposing. It's not about imposing. This is an idea of welcome and mercy. And Pope Francis is saying that God's mercy is overflowing.
Amanpour then turned to a routine trope of the Left, that the Catholics in the pews are all liberal Democrats, and the conservatives have no real constituency:
AMANPOUR: And do you think the -- you know, many of the lay people who come to church agree with the pope? Do you have any way of knowing how -- you know how much support there is? Because as you say, from the United States, where you are, there's a -- it's a center of resistance, right? There's a real sort of central group of very important Catholic cardinals who just don't like this pope at all or his reforms or his attempts at reforms.
Cardinal Raymond Burke is the most critical. He's constantly being critical. He's been stripped of his pension. The pope moved him out of his house. And he recently had a meeting with him. And when Cardinal Burke came out and people said, how did it go? He said, well, I'm still alive. Why is the United States such a focal center of resistance against these kinds of reforms?
If they had a conservative on for rebuttal, they could say "hey, Kim, is the part where the church is an open door, and the Pope is all about welcome and overflowing mercy, and not imposing?" At that time, a Vatican official quoted the pope as saying that Burke was "working against the Church and against the papacy" and that he had sown "disunity" in the Church. So the people who loved dissent now punish it.
Daniels said the Pope has an approval rating of 80 percent among American Catholics, "so, certainly within the Catholic Church, broadly in the United States, it's an amazingly positive view of this -- again, this hopeful, dynamic vision of renewal for the Church."
The expert neglected to explain to those outside the church that Catholics believe every pontiff is chosen by the Holy Spirit, so to disapprove of Pope Francis might feel like an opposition to God. (Also a poll of American Catholics is going to include a lot of people who don't go to church.) Daniels insisted the American church is only six percent of the global church, so the conservatives are a tiny minority.
Amanpour went on to press Daniels about when the church will ordain female priests, and the concluded on a familiar note: "But my question is really about whether his reforms can be relied upon to be continued, or will it be, you know, one moment in history of the Vatican that then is pushed back, and the conservatives, you know, go back to dominating the agenda as they did before him?"
PBS hates conservatives, and won't let them debate the Left on taxpayer-funded stations.
PBS
Amanpour & Co.
February 14, 2024
AMANPOUR: But it's the pope's landmark decision to allow informal blessings for same sex couples that's provoked a fierce backlash from conservative clergy, with the pontiff in turn accusing them of hypocrisy. Kim Daniels is a member of the Vatican's Communications Department, and she knows all about the inner workings. And she's joining the show from Washington, D.C.
On this day, which as we can see is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent in the Christian and Catholic calendar leading up to Easter. So, Kim Daniels, welcome to the program. So, talk to us about the significance and the backlash of what the Pope has done for the LGBTQ community. And I just want to remind you that a long time ago, 2013, you know, more than 10 years, he said, if a person is gay and seeks God and has goodwill, who am I to judge?
KIM DANIELS: Well, I'm so glad you highlighted that interview because I think it's really important to put this in the context of Pope Francis' global vision of renewal. It's a hopeful vision. It's a dynamic vision. And what he says is he says, it's not about making the church a fortress, it's about the church being a home with open doors where everyone is welcome, especially the poor, the vulnerable, those who have been left behind, those who are made to feel less than.
And so, I think what Pope Francis was doing with this recent action is to say to LGBTQ people that too often the church has not acted, with humility, has not acted with treating people, as children of God with a dignity that everyone deserves. And because of that, we have to engage with welcome. We have to engage with offering these kinds of blessings to everybody.
AMANPOUR: So, let's break down a little bit, though, of the backlash, because the pope's reforms have drawn whether -- on many, many issues, have drawn fierce pushback from the very, very dyed in the wool conservatives. And those, for instance, in Africa, which have, many countries have practically criminalized being gay, frankly. And now, we have a group of African bishops saying this papal, you know, announcement of blessings would be in direct contradiction to the cultural ethos of African communities.The pope in turn has said the following, no one is scandalized if I give a blessing to an entrepreneur who perhaps exploits people, and that is a most serious sin. Whereas they are scandalized if I give it to a homosexual. This is hypocrisy. We all have to respect each other. Everyone. How, though, does he think that he can convince everybody?
DANIELS: Well, again, it's about proposing. It's not about imposing. This is an idea of welcome and mercy. And Pope Francis is saying that God's mercy is overflowing. We cannot limit. Of course, there will be opposition. People live in different cultures, different contexts around the world. We are a global church of 1.4 billion people. And more than anyone, Pope Francis recognizes the diversity of this global church and the unity that we have to find at the center of it.But so, he allows different expressions of church teaching in many places. But at the same time, when it comes to backlash, conservative backlash, we also have to see that so much of that is narrow, it's small, here in the United States in particular, and rooted here. And we have to say that, in fact, so many people see Pope Francis as a moral leader who is offering this hopeful, dynamic vision for the church going forward.
AMANPOUR: And do you think the -- you know, many of the lay people who come to church agree with the pope? Do you have any way of knowing how -- you know how much support there is? Because as you say, from the United States, where you are, there's a -- it's a center of resistance, right? There's a real sort of central group of very important Catholic cardinals who just don't like this pope at all or his reforms or his attempts at reforms.
Cardinal Raymond Burke is the most critical. He's constantly being critical. He's been stripped of his pension. The pope moved him out of his house. And he recently had a meeting with him. And when Cardinal Burke came out and people said, how did it go? He said, well, I'm still alive. Why is the United States such a focal center of resistance against these kinds of reforms?
DANIELS: Well, first, let me back up to your first question about how do we know what's happening in the pews in the United States? And one thing we know is that Americans have an overwhelmingly positive vision of Pope Francis. That -- I think it's something like 80 percent of American Catholics, according to Pew, have a very positive view of Pope Francis. Something over 60 percent, I believe, of Americans generally.
So, certainly within the Catholic Church, broadly in the United States, it's an amazingly positive view of this -- again, this hopeful, dynamic vision of renewal for the Church. Now, there is a small, concentrated center of opposition in the United States, and that has something to do
with the size of media platforms, that has something to do with power in the church. But at the end of the day, the other context we have to place all of this in is the fact that U.S. Catholics are some 6 percent of global Catholics around the world. We are a church of 1.4 billion Catholics in countries around the globe. And so, when you put it in that context, I think that the opposition to Pope Francis is much less important than it sometimes seems.
