Even an atheist should pray for him

So says an excellent free comment in The Guardian about the pope falling ill.

Leonardo Boff? Really?

The man was a leader in developing Liberation Theology.

A lot to be learned about the new pope here, with few wasted words.

The American hierarchy cannot be happy, obsessed as they are with Pat Buchanan's culture war, the face of the Virgin Mary the American plutocracy are only too glad to paint on their zombie capitalism.

Francis is not playing along.

Buchanan was already moaning last week that the pope has surrendered, though the man has only chosen to prioritize a side of Catholic doctrine that calls out his reverence for unfettered capitalism as a damnable heresy.

We may hope the man has miles to go before he sleeps.

But the comparison with Obama this comment avoids is apt.

Like the president, he is the best of a bad lot.

Like the president, he will inevitably disappoint, both because of the forces with which he must contend and because the man is what he is.

Pat is full of beans.

There has been and will be no surrender.

From Francis's point of view, what Buchanan labeled the Culture War is only one front in the Church's permanent war with the world, of which the war against greed on behalf of the poor is another.

That he has chosen an offensive on the latter does not mean he has abandoned the former.

Yes, I know about the questionnaire.

To this day, some leftists aren't buying in.

They prefer to dwell on questions about the pope's past during Argentina's "dirty war."

Maybe they're right about his past.

Sometimes a good memory is a bad thing.