He did it again. During a recent visit to a Jesuit school in Portugal, the Holy Father once more criticized the Catholic Church in the United States. But this time, he did not pull any punches. Pope Francis made it abundantly clear that he does not like the Church in America. He thinks U.S. Catholics are backward-looking and an obstacle to the Holy Spirit. He thinks many of them have rejected Vatican II and want to turn the clock back to some pre-conciliar time. I can’t help thinking he doesn’t like me—or at least the caricature of me in his head when he thinks about Catholics in the United States. Among other things, the pope said:
You have seen that in the United States the situation is not easy: there is a very strong reactionary attitude. . . . I would like to remind those people that indietrismo (being backward-looking) is useless.
You have been to the United States, and you say you have felt a climate of closure. Yes, this climate can be experienced in some situations. And there you can lose the true tradition and turn to ideologies for support.
