Book Description

This book arises from the conviction that the ways in which John Paul II and Benedict XVI were confused as allies with American conservativism is as misleading, unclear, and confusing as any misapprehension of Francis's genuine orthodoxy. As the author does not have a stake in reacting against a liberal Catholicism that he sees dying out anyway, the bigger threat, in his view, sociologically, for the North American church, is falling into a right-wing tribalism--and Francis resists precisely that. First Things editor R. R. Reno, highly critical of Francis, has called for a redemption of hints and suggestions of a cogent argument in the Francis message. Jeremiah Barker reappropriates Reno's call as a call to draw out or highlight what he takes to be the underlying rationale of the Francis message. That underlying rationale, he compellingly argues, is strikingly identical to that of the two previous popes. Barker, who has learned much from Reno, is in fact inspired by Francis's call and teaching, and it is the aim of this book to draw out what inspires him and to identify what he hopes Reno and fellow 'John Paul II Catholics' don't miss in the Francis message: the theological, ethical, and spiritual core of his social teaching, which Francis shares with that of John Paul II and Benedict XVI.