Expect to see a lot of political jockeying around Pope Francis during the 2016 presidential campaign. And you will probably see candidate policies highly aligned with Pope Francis, particularly concerning economics and social policies. Even non-Catholic potential candidates mention the admired pope’s name when they explain their positions. After all, Pope Francis is the most popular man on the planet. Publically aligning with his message scores political points.
The irony is that nearly all of the presidential hopefuls are Roman Catholic or have Roman Catholic backgrounds. On the GOP side, there’s Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, Paul Ryan, Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich and Bobby Jindal. Sam Brownback and Marco Rubio have Catholic histories but worship at evangelical churches, John Kasich was Catholic and is now Anglican, and Ted Cruz is not Catholic but is making plays for the Latino, and largely Catholic, vote. On the Democratic side, Joe Biden and Martin O’Malley are Catholic, while Hillary Clinton is a Methodist.
The sheer numbers of Roman Catholic candidates will certainly rev up the political jockeying around pope Francis particularly since he will visit the United States this year about the time of the launch of the political campaign. And it will become very important to them to parse the difference between kinship with the Papal throne and actual adherence to the pope’s ideology.
In any case, Pope Francis is poised to greatly influence American politics in the coming electoral cycle and beyond.
“In the movements now in progress in the United States to secure for the institutions and usages of the church the support of the state, Protestants are following in the steps of papists. Nay, more, they are opening the door for the papacy to regain in Protestant America the supremacy which she has lost in the Old World.” The Great Controversy, page 573
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