Storm Clouds Ahead For Congress, Trevor Noah’s ‘Daily Show’ Debut, and Scientific Racism’s Return

From a TPM Prime member: “Bureaucracies are by their nature resistant to change (it is pretty much their purpose) and there is no older or bigger bureaucracy in the world than the Roman Catholic Church. As for total obedience to the pope, that is certainly not something that you will find among many catholics. Not even among most clergy or bishops (in fact maybe even less so.) That is not to say that Francis is powerless, but no one could single-handedly impose radical change on an inherently conservative institution. Even John the 23rd could not- which was why he called a council (Vatican 2) and the last 30 or 35 years have been pretty much devoted to trying to undo most of what Vatican 2 did. As for the social conservatism of catholics, and particularly American catholic schools, that is a trend that has been accelerating for at least 30 years (along with the general growing rightward trend in American politics). This kind of teacher contract is not new (it was pretty standard in the 90s in CA catholic schools). What is new is that the larger society hears about it now and is outraged by it. Some of it is doctrinally driven, but mostly it is social and legal. Got to be able to fire people they don’t approve of.”

Related: Pope Francis is not popular with American conservatives.

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