But wouldn't this logic apply, mutatis mutandis, to other Catholics holding high political positions?
But hold on!
Graziano also says, "According to the 'Vaticanist' Marco Politi, the eleven U.S. cardinal-voters [in the election of a new pope in 2013] arrived in Rome with a 'shared agenda' but did not seek votes for themselves. They preferred 'to be kingmakers, rather than eligible candidates.' The archbishop of Washington, D.C., Donald Wuerl explained why: 'A pope from the American superpower would face many obstacles in presenting a spiritual message to the world.' Let me just note briefly that if, for the reasons that I have provided, the election of a Catholic president of the United States is unlikely, the election of a leader for the Catholic Church coming from the United States seems even more unlikely" (page 166).
No more Catholic U.S. Presidents likely?
No U.S. Pope likely?
Ironically, this sounds like the separation of church and state writ large, eh?
But Graziano concludes that "the relative decline of the United States [in the global economy] has been constantly accompanied by a relative rise of Catholics in the political life of the country, in a movement that is curiously complementary to the relative rise of Americans in the universal Catholic Church" (page 146).
In conclusion, Graziano offers a reasonably well-informed discussion of the Roman Catholic Church. He is especially well-informed about popes and papal documents, and he does a good job of contextualizing the popes and their documents. His account of American Catholics is well researched. Unfortunately, Graziano fails to even mention the strong resistance of conservative American Catholics to Pope Francis. Unfortunately, many of those same conservative American Catholics voted for Trump.
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