Meet the Pope: A Big-Hearted, Garrulous Argentinian Not Well-Versed in Economics
Every conservative who's trying to make sense of Pope Francis probably ought to read Ramesh Ponnuru: It's not as though Pope Francis has proposed, or ever would propose, that the view that businessmen should never fire anyone is binding on the consciences of Catholics. These are his opinions, not the teachings of the Church. American conservatives should also keep in mind that these are the opinions of a man whose understanding of economics has been shaped by an Argentinian political economy very different from our own. One might still wish that the pope would refrain from sharing them so volubly, if only because they sow confusion in a world already rife with misunderstandings of Church teaching. In my own parish, during an election featuring two Catholic candidates, a voter guide produced by the local bishops set forth their positions on ten issues. The result was a tie: One candidate favored taxpayer funding for abortion, but the other one supported uranium mining. You would have thought that the Church made no distinctions between issues based on their moral gravity or the scope of prudent judgment allowed to public authority. We can expect a lot of this from Catholic Democrats during the pope's visit. They will more or less quietly concede that they disagree with him about abortion, but loudly tout his agreement with them about poverty, the environment, and so on. Church teaching does, of course, insist on a public responsibility to care for the poor and the environment, but it does not -- and Francis does not -- propose a program to achieve these objectives. Whatever a particular pope's personal views happen to be, the Church does not claim authority to adjudicate between those who favor market-oriented, economic-growth-enhancing approaches to lifting people out of poverty and those who support greater government intervention in the economy and more of an emphasis on government-run social-welfare programs. The disagreement about abortion is different in kind, because it does not concern how best to respect the right to life of unborn children but rather whether that right exists and must be respected. Meanwhile, over in Germany, other news of interest to the Christian faith . . . Once a month, [Rev. Hans-Jürgen Kutzner] gives a crash course in a neon-lit room adjacent to the church to prepare Muslims wishing to be baptized as Christians. "What you are signing up to today isn't just this seminar: Preparing yourself internally, going to Mass and integrating into your church, it's all of that," he told the 28 attendees as an Iranian woman clutching a rosary translated into Farsi. Priests and researchers say they have witnessed a parallel trend to the surge in migrant numbers flocking to Germany in recent years: A rise in conversions from Islam to Christianity. While most converts invoke spiritual reasons, people involved in the process point to another motivation: A conversion could make the difference between obtaining asylum or being deported. What's that? You say the guys beheading people, setting people on fire, and executing people in gruesome and theatrical ways who call themselves the Islamic State are making people not want to be Muslims anymore? Who saw that coming? The problem is that the article in the Wall Street Journal doesn't provide many figures on the number of conversions. One figure from 2009 -- six years ago! -- says there were 300 Islamic converts to Catholicism. Is Trump Going to Sue All His Attackers for Libel? Hm. On the Trump site, it declares, "Donald Trump has sent the Club for Growth a cease and desist letter aimed at stopping the conservative outside group from airing a set of attack ads against him in Iowa." Cease-and-desist letters are more or less standard for tough negative ads, and get used when a candidate feels pretty confident that the opponent's ad is so glaringly false, they can get some good publicity by calling it out as false. The implied threat of a lawsuit against the Club for Growth for libel is much less common -- and for good reason. The standard for proving libel is high and the lawsuits take forever to adjudicate. Allahpundit: The ad they're complaining about, which had fewer than 100,000 views on YouTube as of early this afternoon, is this one, I believe, claiming that Trump "supports higher taxes." Not true, says Team Trump; he used to support a one-time tax of 14.25 percent on the superwealthy 15 years ago but no longer does, so it's libel to use the present tense. By that logic, I suppose it's libel to claim that Marco Rubio "supports" comprehensive immigration reform despite his work on the Gang of Eight bill because he currently believes CIR is unfeasible in Congress. Besides, Trump said less than a month ago in an interview that he'd lower taxes on the middle class but "would let people making hundreds of millions of dollars-a-year pay some tax, because right now they are paying very little tax and I think it's outrageous." A few weeks before that, he told Sean Hannity that he believes in a progressive income tax that would tax the rich more; when Hannity asked him what the cap would be, Trump told him he'd figure it out. All of which is to say, the Club for Growth's defense in court would be that it's absolutely true that Trump supports higher taxes even at this very moment -- specifically, he supports higher taxes on the rich. Is a judge going to let a case like this go to trial because the Club didn't stipulate which taxpayers will be paying more in their ad? Or is he going to throw this out of court on grounds that it simply doesn't qualify as false for libel purposes and that a billionaire who's hot to challenge the claim could run his own counter-ads? In his 1987 book, The Art of the Deal, Trump wrote, "I hate lawsuits and depositions, but the fact is that if you're right, you've got to take a stand, or people will walk all over you. But that was a long time ago. Over the past few decades, the self-proclaimed "very rich" businessman has sued people, businesses and entire cities and countries. He's sued a newspaper, his ex-wife, a quaint business card store in Georgia and a Native American tribe. He's cried breach of contract, government favoritism, fraud, and libel. Exit question: Why would Carly Fiorina's past not-so-conservative stances and statements be disqualifying, but not The Donald's? ADDENDA: If you're in the Washington D.C. area, unless you're going to see the Pope today, you're probably going to want to stay off the roads in the general vicinity of . . . well, the Washington D.C. area. | 
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