To borrow a phrase from a man who was twice elected president of the United States, I think that the Holy Mother Church should stop taking in converts from the American political class until we figure out what the hell is going on. From NBC News:
“Now we can, of course, have disagreements about whether this or that conflict is just, but I think in the way that it’s important for the vice president of the United States to be careful when I talk about matters of public policy, I think it’s very, very important for the pope to be careful when he talks about matters of theology,” Vance said. “But I think one of the issues here is that if you’re going to opine on matters of theology, you’ve got to be careful. You’ve got to make sure it’s anchored in the truth, and that’s one of the things that I try to do, and it’s certainly something I would expect from the clergy, whether they’re Catholic or Protestant.”
The stunning arrogance present in these words is perfectly consonant with the worldview of the techno-bro elite that produced the sophisticated malware that is J Divan Vance’s political career. Inexpertise is valued as “common sense” in our democracy these days. That’s a huge problem. Its mirror image is the idea that expertise in one field means expertise in all of them. George W. Bush was an example of the former. Peter Thiel—and Vance—are examples of the other. (My opinion on the millennia’s worth of bloody mischief derived from “Just War” theology is for another day.) The pope has “to be careful when he talks about matters of theology”? Who in the hell are you when you’re at home, Sparky?
Oh, and the last time you “spoke about public policy,” it involved a bizarre analogy about your wife and skydiving—or, as you put it, “jumping out of an airplane,” a feeling that must come over your wife every time the two of you go wheels up. Try to learn your job before you presume to teach the pope his.
