D or R? This pope didn’t fit party lines

So let’s say you really liked what Pope Francis teaches.

Let’s say you found him a refreshing voice from the political middle, worried not only about human life of all ages and nations but also about the earth and a troubled world.

Where do you go to follow him?

Not the Republicans or the Democrats.

“He would be pretty marginalized in either political party,” said Matthew Wilson, a Southern Methodist University political science professor who researches religious voters.

“They both would find something objectionable. It’s been clear for a while the Democrats have no room at the top for anyone who’s pro-life. And many in the Republican Party seem disgruntled by his message on immigration and economic justice. It would be difficult to find a place.”

Some Democrats’ new adoration for the pontiff fizzled quickly when they learned he met and prayed briefly with Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis and her husband, Joe, the Apostolic Pentecostal worshipers at the center of a legal dispute over the now-Republican clerk’s refusing to license same-sex marriages.

But callers to predominantly Republican local radio shows were already enraged over everything from Pope Francis’ economic policy to his speaking Spanish.

A few followed hosts or guests in calling him satanic, the Antichrist, a Marxist or a globalist secret agent promoting world government.

Maybe that’s why the pontiff himself warned Congress against “the simplistic reductionism which sees only good and evil; or, if you will, the righteous and sinners.”

Wilson said the pontiff’s goal is “to transcend political divisions … He would like to think of his words as challenging to both political parties.”

But Kristen Day, director of Washington-based Democrats for Life of America, called briefly to say that the papal visit helped Democrats.

If Pope Francis were in the U.S., she claimed, “He’d be a pro-life Democrat.”

At the Irving-based University of Dallas, promoted as “The Catholic University for Independent Thinkers,” politics professor and constitutional law scholar Christopher Wolfe said Democrats’ national commitment to an abortion-rights position is a “huge obstacle,” but state and local candidates don’t necessarily share the national commitment.

(In the 2014 Democratic gubernatorial primary, eventual nominee Wendy Davis of Fort Worth lost two of the state’s largest Democratic counties to a little-known abortion opponent from Corpus Christi.)

“And Republicans’ views actually vary widely on some of the controversial questions,” Wolfe said.

For example, the party splits sharply over whether to increase or reduce legal immigration, and over climate change.

“The pope is not going to tell you which handle to pull,” Wolfe said.

“But he’s going to tell you what to think about it.”

Or at least make us think.

This story was originally published October 1, 2015 at 8:12 PM with the headline "D or R? This pope didn’t fit party lines."