In my continuing attempt to understand the hobbled and frequently diseased mindset of conservatives, I’ve noticed that thinking of everything as a zero-sum game is huge with them. When I think of my Grandpa (or this blog’s own resident grumpy racist grandpa, …yes you Dana) I marvel at how they can view every dollar paid out to someone on welfare as a dollar taken out of their pockets. I wonder why they are so blinkered in their thinking that keeping the economy on the rocks is fine if the alternative is a healthy economy in which a non-white person might possibly get a health care subsidy. There is no sense of “growing the pie.” The aphorism “a rising tide lifts all boats” makes no sense to them.
I was reminded of that mindset again when I read that conservative Catholics are worried that the Pope is paying too much attention to the needy, and that attention means that they aren’t getting enough Pope love.
Conservative US Catholics feel left out by Pope’s embrace:
“SMYRNA, Ga. — When Pope Francis was elected in March, Bridget Kurt received a small prayer card with his picture at her church and put it up on her refrigerator at home, next to pictures of her friends and her favorite saints.
She is a regular attender of Mass, a longtime stalwart in her church’s anti-abortion movement and a believer that all the church’s doctrines are true and beautiful and should be obeyed. She loved the last two popes, and keeps a scrapbook with memorabilia from her road trip to Denver in 1993 to see Pope John Paul II at World Youth Day.
But Ms. Kurt recently took the Pope Francis prayer card down and threw it away.
“It seems he’s focusing on bringing back the left that’s fallen away, but what about the conservatives?” said Ms. Kurt,