'Keep the poor in poverty?' WSJ editorial jabs late Pope Francis over 'anti-Americanism'

The death of Pope Francis on Monday morning caused an outpouring of good wishes and mourning from people around the world and across the political spectrum — even if President Donald Trump's comments declaring his excitement to go to the funeral were met with a less-than-warm reaction.

But on Monday, the editorial board for the Wall Street Journal sent him off by attacking his economic views.

"Pope Francis was best known for urging concern for the poor, in the best Christian tradition," wrote the board. "Alas, Pope Francis believed ideologies that keep the poor in poverty. One of those earthly dogmas is radical environmentalism, which isn’t about keeping the earth clean for human beings but keeping the earth for itself and treating man as the enemy."

The board particularly mocked how, in one of his first writings as pope, he "cited air conditioning as an example of the 'harmful habits of consumption' that will lead to mankind’s self-destruction. He didn’t seem to realize that escaping poverty requires greater energy consumption."

The board also accused him of "anti-Americanism" that started even before Trump took office, and angered him with his hostility to immigration.

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"He seemed to believe that Latin America is poor because the United States is rich," wrote the board. "That’s a recipe for stagnation and despair because the real reasons so many in Latin America languish in poverty are at home: Lack of the rule of law, business-government collusion, protectionism, and other barriers to human flourishing."

The board suggested part of this could stem from the fact that he grew up in Argentina under the "left-wing populism" ideology of Peronism: "When [he] looked around, he saw corruption and the rich doing very well as their fellow countrymen languished in poverty. Perhaps it was understandable that he confused Argentina’s corporatism with capitalism."

"The irony is that this progressivism is most popular in places like Europe where the Sunday pews are empty," concluded the board. "The Church is thriving in Africa and among younger orthodox Catholics in the West looking for meaning in life beyond material consumption. The cardinals who will choose the pope’s successor will help determine which future they want for the Church and the world’s 1.3 billion Catholics."