In America, the rightful role of politics and politicians is to defend the Constitution.  And the essence of that Constitution is to limit the powers of government while protecting the unalienable rights of the people as described in the Declaration of Independence.

But according to a prominent Catholic sister, Pope Francis has a very different view, one which she obviously shares.  Appearing on MSNBC's Up With Steve Kornacki today, Sister Simone Campbell said that the Pope was "very clear" in his encyclical. Rather than controlling government, he believes the role of politics is to "control the economy."

Jeffrey Tayler of The Atlantic offered more of his anti-theist – and especially, anti-Catholic – vitriol in a Sunday item for the left-wing Salon. Tayler likened God to Don Corleone of The Godfather, and then spent most of his column ranting about how Pope Francis is akin to the fictional Mafia boss.  The atheist claimed that "Don Corleone could only have dreamed of committing crimes on the scale on which the Vatican operates," and contended that "the Pope stands firmly on the side of medievalism."

While Chris Cuomo worried out loud on Friday about The New York Times questioning an excessive focus on the religion inspiring ISIS when they resort to rape, the same concern about stereotypes didn’t come up pseudo-Catholic Cuomo for the Catholic-bashing front of The Washington Post. In “Pope urged to address clergy sex abuse in visit,” religion correspondent Michelle Boorstein repeats the never-ending stream of allegations that the Vatican has never done enough to appease critics and accusers and their trial lawyers on commission. 

It’s quite a contrast with the Post’s Weekend section, where film critic Ann Hornaday is praising the new movie Diary of a Teenage Girl (four stars out of four stars!), where a 15-year-old girl is seduced by a 35-year-old “man-child” who’s dating her mother. Online the headline called it "funny, forthright, and daringly frank." Since there’s no organized global religion involved, the child abuser “isn’t so much the villain of this piece as one more misguided seeker whom [filmmaker Marielle] Heller treats with more amused compassion than disdain.”

CNN's Chris Cuomo tried to shame Rick Santorum on Tuesday's New Day over his opposition to same-sex marriage. Cuomo indicated that Santorum wasn't in line with Pope Francis on LGBT issues: "Your Pope says tolerance is the message of Catholicism, when asked about gay marriage and LGBT existence within humanity. He says, 'Who am I to judge?' That doesn't work for you. You say you want an amendment that keeps marriage between a man and a woman. Why aren't you more like your pope?"

There's a major opinion gap between white Catholics and Latino Catholics in the U.S. regarding climate change. A recent poll found that by margins of approximately 20 percent, Latino Catholics are likelier than white Catholics to believe that there is such a thing as global warming; that it’s “due to human activity”; and that it “constitutes a crisis or a major problem.” What’s causing this discrepancy? A false god, suggests writer Patricia Miller.

“White Catholics don’t accept the scientific consensus on climate change because it clashes with their other god: the free market,” declared Miller in a Thursday piece for Salon. “Over the last 15 years…much of institutional American Catholicism has become hopeless[ly] intertwined with a conservative, liberation [sic] ideology that has trickled down to Catholics in the pews.”