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The Populist Pope?: Politics, Religion, and Pope Francis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2020

William McCormick Open the ORCID record for William McCormick [Opens in a new window]
William McCormick*
Affiliation:
Saint Louis University
*
Address correspondence and reprint requests to: William McCormick, S.J., Saint Louis University, 3750 Lindell Boulevard, Room 127, Saint Louis, MO 63108, USA. E-mail: mccormickw@slu.edu
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Abstract

While religion and democracy have been intertwined since World War II, scholars have made little of the connections between religion and populism, largely conceptualizing religion as a tool of populism. In this paper, however, I argue that Pope Francis' deployment of Catholicism resists such instrumentalization by populist politics, and offers resources for political ills underlying populism. I show that Francis' focus on the people allows him to capitalize on populist currents in global politics, while also reforming those currents into something more constructive than populism. I further explore how his political theology and institutional autonomy render his thought and example relatively impervious to appropriation by political actors.

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Type
Article
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Politics and Religion , Volume 14 , Issue 1 , March 2021 , pp. 159 - 181
Copyright
Copyright © Religion and Politics Section of the American Political Science Association 2020

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Footnotes

*

For their assistance the author would like to thank J.D. Bowen, Russell Hittinger, Jennie Ikuta, Austen Ivereigh, Harrison Kratochvil, Daniel Philpott, Tom Reese, SJ, Steve Rogers, and the editors, and reviewers of Politics & Religion.

†

The author's name was incorrectly listed in the original online version of this article. This has been corrected above and an erratum has been published.

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