Pope Francis put U.S. conservatives on blast recently by pointing out the “backwardness” of many right-wing Americans in the Catholic Church, according to new reports Monday. The 86-year-old reportedly made the comments to a Portuguese Jesuit earlier this month during a visit to Lisbon. Francis said that there was “a very strong, organized, reactionary attitude” in American Catholics, calling the predisposition “backward” and ideological. “Doing this, you lose the true tradition and you turn to ideologies to have support. In other words, ideologies replace faith,” he said, adding that the “vision of the doctrine of the church as a monolith is wrong. When you go backward, you make something closed off, disconnected from the roots of the church.” Francis has been the subject of criticism by conservative Catholics for his comparatively open mind when it comes to social issues. He once joked that it was an “honor” to be critiqued by Americans.
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