Pope Francis soon will arrive in North America.  Several observations are in order.  First of all, I don’t understand the reason for all the anticipated disruptions.  Francis is going to New York,  Philadelphia and Washington.  We are getting traffic gridlock alerts.  The City of Philadelphia is virtually shutting down; closing schools and businesses and restricting travel.  In 1995, we had a Pope visit Newark, New Jersey, a much smaller place than Philadelphia, and no such restrictions took place.

Part of the problem in New York is that the Pope is going to the opening of the United Nations.  You see, he’s going to confer with his socialist buddies from all over the world.   It’s probably why, before he gets to New York, he’s stopping in Cuba.  I guess he needs some tips from the Castro boys.

The Pope has a message for America.  He’s coming to talk us out of capitalism, and to convince us that progress is destroying the world.  He spelled it out in his Encyclical, Laudato si.   Man made climate change, you see.  Francis actually doesn’t perceive any benefit of capitalism.  He refers to “the myth of progress.”  He decries big business, which he says worships money and is turning the Earth into a pile of filth.  The Pope has a remedy though; he calls for a “bold cultural revolution.”  Mao tried that once.  It didn’t work. Francis calls for a drastic change in “lifestyle, production and consumption.” (He means for us).  He says, “We need to reject a magical conception of the market, which would suggest that the problems can be solved simply by an increase in the profits of companies or individuals.”  According to Francis, we shouldn’t use fossil fuels because they cause global warming.  31,000 scientists aren’t convinced, but the Pope knows better.  Companies shouldn’t make profits.  They should help the poor instead.  They need jobs.  What to do?  Industry needs to slow down.  Simple.  Less industry and more jobs.  And the Pope calls the markets magical?  Add to this the Pope’s call for all nations to throw open their borders to thousands of refugees.  After all, with the industries shut down it should be easy to care for them.  Maybe Francis will miracle up some loaves and fishes.

The Fourth Century Catholic Bishop Tertollian once was asked how an educated man could accept the miraculous events described in the New Testament.  He answered, “I believe because it is absurd.”  Faith doesn’t need to make sense.  Neither, apparently, does the Pope’s vision of a world without technological progress, in which the poor shall know no want.

So Pope Francis, here is my Encyclical.  Let’s call it In Rerum Natura (On Reality).  The millions of destitute people who came to America with nothing, made new lives for themselves and saw their families thrive and prosper, were able to so because of industrial progress, not in spite of it.   Yes, America consumes more resources per capita than those in other countries.  That’s because America grows the food that feeds the world.  Yes, America produces lots of fossil fuels, and those fuels power our industries.  It’s a good thing too, because without American fuel and industry, Hitler would have turned the Vatican Museum into Herman Goering’s winter palace, and it there still was a Pope, his Encyclicals would be in German.  On climate change, the main CO2 producers are in China and India, and they don’t answer to the Pope.  On economics, even a Pope should understand that when industry slows down, poor people only get poorer.  No government ever made the poor comfortable by trying to bankrupt the wealthy.  The Pope is from Argentina.  He should remember that the Perons tried that, and failed.

In summation, maybe the Pope should put his own house in order.  He has a Church beset by child molesting priests.  He has a Church  in which most priests are senior citizens, and the remaining nuns are even older.  He has a Church with a serious attendance problem.  In short, we don’t need to have another misguided socialist come here to preach to Congress.  We already have Obama for that.