MY TAKE ON THE NEW POPE: TEN POINTS
1. Regardless of whether one is Catholic, Christian, religious or anti-religious, there are good reasons to care about the wide influence the powerful global institution that is the Catholic church exerts.
2. We are living through a global resurgence of hard-right authoritarianism — or some of us might say, fascism.
3. Given this, it matters a lot if the leader of that powerful institution with global reach pushes back against authoritarianism/fascism and its assault on core principles of Christianity and other world religions and humanist traditions.
4. I welcome Leo because of the promise he brings to engage in such pushback — even as I intend to take a wait-and-see approach to him and his papacy.
5. I also part company with those who responded immediately to the announcement that he had been made pope by attacking him for his record on women's issues, LGBTQ issues, and the sexual abuse horror show.
6. I stand in solidarity with people working in each of those areas to change the Catholic church and defend justice. So my criticism of this knee-jerk response does not have to do with lack of support for those three causes.
7. My criticism has to do with the far too glib and easy way in which some of us seem willing to jump right into bed with MAGA folks and the Trump camp to undercut anything this papacy may do to push back against fascism. This is a politically unwise thing to do and it contradicts the very principles people are defending as they defend women's and LGBTQ rights and justice and healing for abuse survivors.
8. Having said this, I also want to say that if Leo does not effectively address the glaring injustice of making women second-class citizens in the church by refusing them ordination, and does not address the attack on LGBTQ people's humanity represented by the Catholic moral teaching that we are disordered, and does not hold bishops' feet to the fire regarding cover-up of sexual abuse, his defense of justice and inclusion in the world at large will ring hollow.
KShor
William Lindsey 
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