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The group Accuracy in Media has come out with another bizarre article that casts Boston's Cardinal Sean O'Malley as embracing the "Far Left." I find it especially curious that an organization called "Accuracy in Media" cites a website run by people who decline to use their names!
But, there is something important here beyond the zaniness, namely, a fair question: How many U.S. Catholics are aware of the traditional foundations for the Church's social teachings which this group considers "Far Left"? Are they aware of St. Thomas Aquinas' teaching on the universal destination of goods? Are they aware of Pope Leo XIII's teaching on the rights of workingmen and women? Have they consulted Pope Pius XI's Quadragesimo Anno? Aquinas, Leo and Pius were not what one would call "lefties" in any meaningful sense of the word. But, the problem is that U.S. Catholics have become so complicit in the ambient Calvinistic culture, that traditional teachings of the Church seem "far left" to them. This ignorance is not confined to a few crazies at Accuracy in Media, it is somewhat widespread. But, rarely has it taken such a comic expression as in Accuracy in Media's recent forays into analyzing the papal transition.
