Sister Simone Campbell is executive director of NETWORK, A National Catholic Social Justice Lobby, and author of A Nun on the Bus: How All of Can Create Hope, Change, and Community.

Ever year, the Republican Party grows more closely identified with the agenda of conservative Catholic bishops, and vice versa. Unfortunately, too many bishops have been tempted by the allure of political power as they join America’s culture wars. They treat Roe v. Wade as a litmus test and urge Catholics not to vote for Democrats, who are likely to add liberally minded judges to the Supreme Court.

Somehow, however, in these decades of polarized politics and a polarized church, Catholic social teaching has persisted, albeit in the background of our faith.


Fortunately, Pope Francis has turned us away from partisan politics and back to the fundamental justice tenets of our faith. Catholic social teaching is at the heart of Pope Francis’s leadership and the beginning of what I hope will be a sustained renewal in the church. Such renewal is critical if the Catholic Church is to remain relevant in the political world, especially as the public’s views shift on social issues.

That’s not to say that Pope Francis plans to align himself or the church with the Democratic Party. Rather, he is raising up what is at the heart of Jesus’ message—care for those who are left out of our economy, not just with charity, but with justice. He is calling on all of us to create an economy and society of inclusion. And right now that moderate message is making Republicans look like extremists.

We already see how deeply the pope’s heart is affecting the church as a whole. Bishops from around the world have been meeting in Rome to discuss issues important to families. A summary of their initial discussions came out on Monday and its language was compassionate, calling for the church to listen more and to be merciful in dealing with people’s real lives. This includes a more pastoral approach to the situations of people in civil unions or living together, and more openness to gays, who have “gifts and qualities to offer to the Christian community.” Not exactly in keeping with U.S. conservative rhetoric.

In November 2013 in his exhortation Joy of the Gospel, Pope Francis laments, “How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points?” He also decries how our economic systems leave too many people out both at a national and global level, saying that not only are we all responsible for each other, but also that government has a key role in regulating markets and ensuring that all have access to the basic necessities of life. He boldly states that limitless capitalism (as advocated by many on the American right) is morally repugnant.

Pope Francis challenges his bishops to become leaders in caring for the 100 percent—focusing their attention on those that the economy has left out. This is, I’m sorry to say, the antithesis of the current policies of the U.S. Republican Party.

The Republican Party regards people at the economic margins of our society as lazy. The solution, they say, is to remove the social safety net so they will work harder. But these politicians are too far away from the reality on the ground to know what hard work it is living in poverty. They don’t know that in Asheville, North Carolina, Madison, Wisconsin, and so many other towns, low-wage workers wait every day for buses to take them and their children to daycare—only to turn around and take another bus to work. At the end of their shifts they wait again or walk miles because the bus has quit running. I hear these and similar stories every day as I travel around the country as part of my organization’s “Nuns on the Bus” campaign.

These politicians do not know that living on a minimum-wage job means that families survive by using the very programs—Medicaid, SNAP (food stamps), etc.—that Republicans talk so flippantly about cutting. They do not know that low-income families sometimes need to choose between heat, gasoline, food and medicine, and that a hard day’s work might not be possible for those struggling from hunger or illness. It is not a question of being lazy; it is a question of not earning a living wage.

Pope Francis makes clear that all workers should receive wages sufficient to support their families in dignity – with enough time for leisure to bond with their families. Republicans oppose raising the minimum wage, paid sick leave, paid vacation or any policy that supports the reality of working families.

Pope Francis is not introducing something new, but rather emphasizing church doctrine that was first enunciated in the 19th century and has previously been ignored by many high-ranking church officials. He is making clear that this doctrine is not an abstract theory as he challenges the bishops, and all Catholics, to embody Jesus’ teaching and make these aspects of Catholic doctrine a priority, both politically and socially. And he affirms that it is government’s role to ensure that these goals are met. This is the complete pro-life agenda and it’s a far cry from what many far-right Republicans see as the role of government in American life.

For far too long, the extremes of both parties have used the wedge issues of abortion, contraceptives and gay marriage to rally their respective bases. U.S. Catholic bishops have publically focused on sexual issues, principally as they relate to women. But Pope Francis is saying that to be pro-life means that you must be more than pro-birth. He is also saying that this pro-life stance, based in the Catholic faith, has economic policy consequences that require sharing resources. He challenges politicians to take seriously the social safety net and care for all of the people they represent.

At the same time, he is telling the entire church, including the bishops now meeting in Rome, that all of us must reject taking refuge in man-made rules and regulations. Instead, he wants us to be willing to break open our hearts to the real-life struggles of people around the world. And then to act as Jesus would act – with compassion, not rule-making. That is the Gospel’s call.

Perhaps most startling is how Pope Francis has linked the rationale behind the anti-abortion movement to environmental concerns, further exposing the antediluvian mentality of the Republican Party. Pope Francis has extended the idea behind advocating for those who do not yet have a voice to decrying humanity’s inaction in the face of a warming planet, since so many of those at greatest risk are ignored in our political debate. He says that the Earth will not have a voice unless we are that voice. He has no qualms about speaking clearly about global warming and the impact of pollution on those living in poverty as life issues, while the Republican Party has for decades dithered from this environmental reality. Pope Francis says that to be a faithful Catholic, we must engage in reducing pollution and the impact of carbon dioxide in our world. Will Republicans ever move beyond their partisan and narrow-minded pro-birth agenda and embrace the consequences of a true pro-life cause?

But it is not just Republicans who are being challenged. To me the biggest jolt Pope Francis is giving our political system is to say that government is not a game. This may seem a simple notion, but it’s remarkably foreign to our hyperpolarized political environment, where partisans will stop at nothing to put points on the board. Pope Francis emphasizes that governance matters—it’s the way that society solves its problems. Republicans, in contrast, have fallen down a slippery slope since President Ronald Reagan claimed that “government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”

Pope Francis, unlike partisans on the left and right, can appeal to moral authority and challenge politicians to quit playing games with people’s lives and come together to create an economy of inclusion. He sees it as the faith-filled as well as pragmatic way forward. For this reason, more Catholics than ever in recent history believe the church is now in touch with the needs of all Catholics, and a plurality see Pope Francis as a humanitarian leader for all and not just Catholics. We Catholics work for a democracy of the 100 percent.

But it appears that the Republicans have more homework to do, because they know so little of the real-life stories of the working poor in our society. Republicans have a clear choice ahead of them: Will they embrace all of life, challenge the exploitation practiced by some business owners and work for a faithful common good? Republicans have eagerly embraced the Catholic Church when it was convenient to their politics, but often abandoned the church’s larger message. Pope Francis’s transformative leadership will finally hold them accountable.