The world's foremost liberal

Pope Francis is just another liberal political pundit

Pope Francis is unquestionably a man of ­uncommon personal grace, the possessor of a genuinely beautiful soul. 

“On Heaven and Earth,” his book-length exchange with Rabbi Abraham Skorka first published in 2010, is a remarkable testament to the breadth of his perspective.

But that’s not exactly the guy who showed up Friday at the United Nations. 

That pope endorsed the Iran deal, the UN’s environmentalist goals and what amounts to a worldwide open-borders policy on refugees — and ­offered a very specific view of how to promote development in the Third World that’s straight out of a left-wing textbook.

“The International Financial Agencies,” the pope said, “should care for the sustainable development of countries and should ensure that they are not subjected to oppressive lending systems which, far from promoting progress, subject people to mechanisms which generate greater poverty, exclusion and dependence.”

. . . .

When the pontiff sounds less like a theological leader and more like the 8 p.m. host on MSNBC or the editor of Mother Jones, what’s a guy to do?

Pope Francis is entirely within his rights to become the world’s foremost liberal. 

But, since that’s what he is, it can’t be wrong to say so.